My Beloved

I would really encourage you to click into Kari Jobe's music on the right side of my blog and listen to "My Beloved." Let it wash over you like a love song from your Savior straight to You. Oh, He loves you!...then you can just let her music play on because it's all good!

God has been doing a new thing in my life. I've been overwhelmed and amazed at the gifts the Father has been extending to me through His body. I'll share more in a minute, but I want to catch you up to where my mind is going.

Many of you have asked about the process of publishing and where my book is at. Very few publishers (in fact I've only found one) accept a proposal directly. Most publishers use a writer's agency to look for new works and refer you to the agency they use. Every agency has their own proposal requirements. Some want a certain word count. Some want specific chapters. They all have slightly different elements to the questions they ask. But everyone wants to know some basic things. Who you are as an author, what are your qualifications, why would anyone read a book you wrote, how do you propose we market this, why is your book different enough than everything else on the market that it deserves to be printed, etc - and they all charge a fee. MOPS, Int'l publishes 4-5 books a year, so it is a tight market. You either have exactly what they want that year, or you don't. They *do* let you submit directly to them at no cost. So that is where I started. It was an experience. They said they would give an answer in 8-12 weeks. They waited 24. They were very complimentary to my ideas, but it just wasn't what they were looking for this time. Part of me thinks they knew that 24 weeks ago, and could have simply looked at my format and said that 24 weeks ago. But, that is the industry.

So now it is back to writing more proposals. It is really torturous...especially for me as a homeschooled, GED'd, no college qualifications individual to fill in the "education" blank. Then to stare at "qualifications" and know that really, my best ones are life experience - living what I'm encouraging others to find. How do you tell someone, "Look, you just need to listen to me. I really have found out something here!" I can throw in a title here and there, but really, the truth is: I really am a nobody - an unpublished, hopeful looking for a chance.

One of my greatest encouragements in life has always been:

2 Corinthians 3:1-3 "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

It seems my whole life I've been a little short on the credential end of things. My parents chose a completely non-traditional route for our family when I was young, focusing on 2 Corinthians 3, which is truth - but even the Christian community wants credentials. I was never allowed to serve with our denominational mission board as a young adult because I lacked college credits. I wasn't going to even be permitted to be assigned with my husband as his wife (not even having a title myself) because I lacked college credits. My home church paid college student after college student to come for the summer and work with the youth. The year they asked me to serve, it was for free. I cleaned houses to pay my own way. Then there are the times you are overlooked simply because you are a woman married to the one who is really getting paid to do the work. The bottom line is, I have this feeling deep down that my ministry, work, and efforts have never been validated with the title or paycheck that they may have merited. I've missed out on opportunities because I was simply not given the chance. My credentials really are the lives that speak, those who have walked beside me. All of that makes selling myself seem like a mountainous task.

So this week when a new friend told me that she feels God has asked her to make me her ministry at this point in life, I was overwhelmed. We've began praying together on a regular basis. It's great to have someone live close to me. When she called and asked if I could drop my kids off for a couple of hours, so I could start attacking a new propsal in silence, I was speachless. You see, without a laptop, I have to write at home. It's not like I can run off to Starbucks and write. I need my computer, my resources all right here. Everyone else must leave. :D I don't have grandparents in town or friends who live close who can sike themselves up for four boys during the day. So my friend and her husband loved on my kids and I started a new battle *er* proposal this week. It is just a start, but I'm grateful.

On the phone this week, I was talking with one of our mentor moms for MOPS, brainstorming how to best use them and make their ministry full. She suggested that maybe she was supposed to be mentoring me. Well! There's an idea! So we plan to get together one on one soon.

Then another friend walked into MOPS last week with the impression she was supposed to love on me that day. She brought me Starbucks. It sounds silly and simple. But there is nothing simple about carrying a baby on your front; leading a toddler behind; carrying a diaper bag, a bag of auction items, and a gift; and juggling two coffees. That is the life of a MOPS mom. I mentioned carrying a gift because the coffe wasn't her only gift to me. She knew I was trying to switch over to Mary Kay, and she used to be a consultant. She was bringing some auction items, but she also brought me a bag full of makeup and goodies because she remembered how hard it was to not have money and wish you could make yourself pretty and not be able to do anything about it. (Don't worry, Cassie, no skincare. You're still my consultant. :D) I can't tell you what that meant to me. It wasn't just stuff. It was my colors, and items specific to what I was wishing for - like getting rid of age spots on my hands. Only God can do that. He used my friend, but I see it as a direct gift from Him.

If that wasn't enough, another mom who lives close (and who God first miraculously connected me with a year ago at Mc Donalds!) called and asked if maybe we could start swapping babysitting for each other one night a week, so we could each have a date night. For real! A weekly date night? Man! Can it get any better?

I could go on, but I'm just really grateful for the body of Christ. I was thinking this week about how men are turned on by a woman's body -just the sight of it. God is turned on by His body - the body of Christ. It is beautiful to Him, just the sight of it....and I'm more deeply falling in love with the things He is falling in love with.

O.K..'nough of that. Now for a little humor.

Riley: "Mom! I think I just hatched an idea."

Riley: "Mom if a queen has a baby girl, it is a princess, right?"
Me: "Yes"
Riley: "Well, if she has two baby girls are they both princesses?"
Me: "Yes"
Riley: "That's not right!"

Editors note: My boys are sick of princesses. Ian's literature has been full of them, our own Christian radio station has been advertizing Disney on Ice which is all about princess and showing up early to be a princess for the night or something(what's up with that anyway?), and now Stephen Curtis (I believe?) has a new song out about dancing with Cinderella (which I think is precious, but my boys just can't believe it!). Anyway....There new little joke with each other is singing some Barbie song: "I'm a barbie girl in a barbie world. It's fantastic, even though I'm plastic!"

Ian: "Mom, my hand is really warm. Perhaps it is too warm." (Perhaps?! Where did that come from)

Mommy Moment: I was enjoying me new body scrub and wash in the shower yesterday - really feeling like a queen. I even shaved. AFter getting out of the shower though, I was hit with reality. Yes, I still have the last coat of summer polish 1/3 left on my toenails; and yes, I really did somehow forget to shave half of one of my legs!

Today
Today is perfect. Well, for me anyway. Bill had to leave for work at 6 a.m., and I don't think he feels that is perfect. Funny how schedules in retail change. Bill had every other day off last week. His new schedule has him working from Friday to Wednesday. This week, he will do some tile for a friend on his days off and then head back to work. At least his schedule is consistent from now to after Christmas, which means I may be calling Starbucks to see if I can help dig us out of this h.o.l.e.

But today, I woke up to a four year old crawling under the covers to snuggle. To me the day always begins the night before anyway. So dancing to Nora Jones in the candlelight with my beloved last night makes today start really well. The boys have done their chores and are busy sketching all their ideas of how to rearrange the living room. The task was too daunting to me, so it has been fun watching their minds work and how they draw things out - and what they forget. Like Ian worrying that the t.v. might fall out the window with his design, and Clayton forgetting about the Christmas tree (the whole purpose for rearranging). O.K. Time to go put their drawings to work!