Every Little Thing::I wonder if you're like me {a giveaway}...

The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need us to make it anything more than it already is. What the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us to do is to be exactly who we are, in the places where we find ourselves, and to be infused with the salty goodness that comes when we surrender our lives and our agendas and our hopes and dreams to the power and the control of the Holy Spirit. {emphasis mine}

Deidra Riggs,  Every Little Thing 

I wonder if you're like me. You've wrestled with the life you've been given. You've questioned the gifts and talents God asks you to use, the resources {or lack thereof} he trusts you to steward, and the people he brings into your life and asks you to love and serve. You might have wondered why in the world he made you with hair that's prone to frizz, skin that burns in mere nanoseconds at the beach, and an intolerance to heat, and then plants you for your entire life in south Florida's oppressive heat and humidity and wants you to be happy about it. {That's probably just me.}

But maybe like me you couldn't imagine the grace and beauty of a small and ordinary life in a place outside your {literal} comfort zone or that the small increments of growth, the little acts of kindness given and received, or the places of weakness sacrificed could possibly make a difference for good.   

Maybe also like me you need a Deidra Riggs in your life. 

In Every Little Thing, Deidra captivates us with stories that illustrate the redemptive potential every little thing in our life holds to manifest God's character, reveal the truth of his Word, correct our perspective, and confirm God's plans when we stop resisting the work he is doing in and around us and join him--who and where we are. 

Every Little Thing is not a how-to manual for changing the world, but more like a weekend away with a good friend. It's listening to the stories that changed Deidra that made a difference in how she could see God at work in her life and how she responded to the stories to come. It's in the listening to Deidra's stories that I'm encouraged. My perspective is adjusted and I can more easily recognize how every little thing in my life story can be redeemed to make a difference.   

I encourage you to click here and read Ann Voskamp's Foreword to Every Little Thing and Deidra's Introduction {I promise it will have you on the edge of your seat).  

Before I had the opportunity to read an advance digital copy of Every Little Thing, I pre-ordered a hard copy weeks before it was scheduled to be released this week. That means I have a copy to give away. 

All you have to do to add your name to the drawing is to leave a comment below before midnight (ET) Sunday, October 11th. A winner will be chosen at random (by my now retired husband) on Monday. I'll announce the winner here that afternoon, so be sure to check back here next week to see if that's YOU!

In your comment below, I'd love to hear how someone's seemingly small words or actions toward you made an unforgettable, positive difference in your life.

Andrew Peterson released this beautiful song and video from his soon to be released album "The Burning Edge of Dawn." Peterson wrote it for his daughter, but after singing it he realized it was also for him. It's for all of us, and it speaks to the heart of Deidra's Every Little Thing message. God loves us and wants to use us just the way we are. To quote Deidra:

What the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us to do 

is to be exactly who we are, 

in the places where we find ourselves... 

 

Still Saturday::to invite mystery...

What does beauty show us? To C. S. Lewis, beauty pointed to another place. "The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them," writes Lewis, "it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing." 

Our poetry and photographs, our music and films, stir us with a beauty we struggle to communicate— mystery. "They are not the thing itself, ' Lewis continues. "They are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”  

By pursuing the beautiful in life, we invite mystery. God makes himself known in all creation, and yet the more time I spend planting flowers with my daughters, for example, the more I find his character revealed; not only in the visual beauty of the flowers themselves, but in how they bring me and the girls together and the life principles we learn from planting and growing. We discover the mystery of life and trace it to a God who cares enough about his children to reveal himself in the glory of pansies and black-eyed Susans.  

Willard, Timothy (2014-10-14). Longing for More: Daily Reflections on Finding God in the Rhythms of Life (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group. 

Hanging on for dear life {and another GIVEAWAY}...

That frog in the middle - hanging on for dear life? It's a fairly accurate picture of how I've felt much of the past two or three weeks.

The past month has been a bittersweet mixture of celebrating four birthdays, Father's Day, and my son Nick's recent career advancement with the hard work of helping his family move 800 miles away and the many tearful goodbyes that move ensued. 

Just as I was recovering from 1600 miles in a car (half of them in the very uncomfortable back seat of a car overnight without sleep), I was hit hard with a GI "something" that almost sent me to the ER. Seriously. I went 5 days without coffee, and - for me - that is huge. I'm finally better, but last week is a bit of a blur.

All that to say that when I wrote my To Love Broken People #AtlasGirl Blog Tour post with a giveaway on Friday, I was barely hanging on. My few remaining healthy brain cells were obviously not enough for me to think through the time frame I was allowing for a chance to win a copy of Emily Wierenga's beautiful memoir #AtlasGirl. After choosing a winner from those that were able to enter, I decided to offer it again. This time, I'll leave the opportunity open long enough for everyone who wants to enter. 

Emily's captivating memoir is a faith journey that takes her around the world. I was fascinated by her detailed descriptions of places and people I'll likely never see for myself. I'd love to hear where your travels have taken you. Have you been to a foreign country? How far from home have your travels taken you? 

For another chance to win a copy of Atlas Girl from me, leave a comment here before this Sunday night, July 6th, and answer one those questions. I'll choose a winner at random the following day.

AND you need to know that today is Atlas Girl's official launch day. Emily Wierenga is hosting an Amazing Giveaway with even more opportunities to not only win a copy of Atlas Girl, but numerous other great prizes as well. 

It's also very important for you to know that: ALL proceeds from Atlas Girl will go towards Emily’s non-profit, The Lulu Tree. The Lulu Tree (www.thelulutree.com) is dedicated to preventing tomorrow’s orphans by equipping today’s mothers. It is a grassroots organization bringing healing and hope to women and children in the slums of Uganda through the arts, community, and the gospel.

To love broken people...{A GIVEAWAY}

He's a mess. His six-foot frame stretches gaunt and frail under the hospital bed's starched white sheet, his bare feet sticking out the bottom uncovered. He's badly in need of a shave and long overdue for a hair cut. The tubing that delivers oxygen into his nostrils has rubbed the skin raw where it drapes over his ears too-large for his face, and the coke-bottle lens of his glasses magnifies the fear in his eyes.

And it breaks my heart.

I'm nearly fifty when Alzheimer's plays tricks with his mind and emphysema clogs his lungs and he tells me he's afraid of the nurses - afraid they'll take his oxygen away or be mean. I help him scoot up in bed, fluff the pillows, tuck in the top sheet to cover his feet and rearrange and loosen the oxygen tubing off the raw creases behind his earlobes, but I can't convince him there's nothing to fear. I reach for his hand, squeeze gently, and tell him I love him, and for the first time I can ever remember, he says he loves me, too. 

Within the year, my father died.

I know he always loved me - he just never knew how to say or show it. 

I was not a daddy's little princess. There were no bedtime stories, daddy-daughter dates, or the benefit of his counsel about boys or college. I've never known what it means to be loved, nurtured and cherished by a father - as a child or an adult.

But I also see that this is his story, too. 

I never knew my father's father or anything about him or his character - only that he divorced my grandmother when my father was young, leaving his mother to support herself and raise their four young children alone. We did not visit my grandmother often, but I did live with her for a while when I was in nursing school. She was pleasant, but private, proper, and aloof. I have no memory of receiving or seeing her demonstrate love and affection toward anyone - including her own son, my father.

It's so much easier to be angry than it is to forgive because forgiveness means dying to those angry feelings and not acting on them. And dying is hard, but resurrection is the easiest thing, because once you've died, only God can give you life. So it's not you doing it, but Jesus, and suddenly you're standing on top of a mountain seeing the world for its beauty. Emily Wierenga, Atlas Girl, p. 73,74

Knowing my grandmother, helped me to understand and forgive my father, which in turn, helps me to understand me. It doesn't erase the loss or the way my father was unable to give me the love and attention I needed, or how it affected the sinful choices I made in a futile attempt to meet that need. There's always the temptation to be angry and to pass the blame for my own brokenness on to my father, but in the lavish, extravagant love of Christ, I'm free to love, to forgive and to understand and honor the way my broken father lived and loved the best he knew how - because Grace fills the gaps, redeems what's lost, and earnest love covers a multitude of sins.

In her heart-rending, yet beautiful, memoir, Atlas Girl, Emily Wierenga weaves a series of riveting vignettes that describe, with captivating prose, the brokenness she experienced in not being able to receive the love she needed from her parents, her battle with anorexia, her "mum's" cancer, and her marriage to Trent. With fascinating detail, Emily takes us with her from Canada to the Congo, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Mexico in her search for love, faith, and healing - a journey that ultimately takes her back home.

I am thrilled to be able to send a copy of Atlas Girl to one of my readers. Just leave a comment below before Sunday night. I'll choose a winner at random and post it on Monday.

No matter what {and the winners are...}

It's a good day when I can share one of my favorite photos {isn't God's creation in that dragonfly amazing?} that didn't make it into the book, and to announce the two winners of the giveaway. 

Thank you to everyone who left a comment. I so wish I had the ability to send a book to all of you, but the winners chosen at random are: Margie Coan Murray and Angela M. Shupe.

Congratulations ladies. I will get the books in the mail to you this week.

And the winner is...

Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated.

 ~Deuteronomy 34:7

We read through the story of Moses in lifegroup and the lie the enemy keeps pestering me to believe - that I'm too old for this and that - is exposed once again. When God showed Moses the promised land from the top of Mt. Nebo just before he died, Moses was 120 years old.  

Now, clearly, I'm no prophet. My opthamologist tells me I'm already in need of cataract surgery {not good news for a "wannabe psalmist with a camera"}, and one look at my arthritic hands and the scars down the tops of both knees testify to my lack of vigor unabated. It's highly unlikely I'll live another 60 years, but that's not the point. 

As my lifegroup friend says, our sight may be dimmed and strength diminished, but God will let us see what he wants us to see and do what he wants us to do. 

In other words, I'll never be too old for God's pre-approved plans for my life. 

The lies the enemy throws our way - lies that feed off insecurity and perfectionism - turn our gaze inward and off the face of Christ, but they are always exposed by the truth God reveals in his word. 

In Love Idol - letting go of your need for approval and seeing yourself through God's eyes, Jennifer Lee weaves the encouraging story of her journey through perfectionism and people-pleasing with the truth she encountered in God's word and the freedom out of that approval-seeking "love idol" that she realized in knowing that in Christ she is pre-approved - and God's approval is all that truly matters. 

I'm thrilled to announce that the winner of a copy of Jennifer Lee's Love Idol is Lynn Mosher {Lynn, please email me your mailing address}. It breaks my heart that I don't have a copy for everyone who entered. I hope you'll consider purchasing a copy or borrowing one from a friend. {If you entered the giveaway and honestly don't have the resources to buy a copy for yourself, please send me an email and I'll see what I can do to find a copy for you}. 

No Vacancy::{and a giveaway}...

Jennifer Dukes Lee is a master storyteller. In her recently released book, Love Idol - Letting go of your need for approval and seeing yourself through God's eyes, Jennifer weaves captivating prose with biblical truth in sharing her journey from believing the lies that she wasn't enough to identifying and turning away from love idols -- the "false saviors" she thought made her worthy of love and approval from others. 

Jennifer shares about those "not enough" lies in this short video: 

Wanting to be loved and affirmed is a healthy desire that God wants us to satisfy in our relationship with Him through Christ, but it's also a desire that's easily massaged by "false saviors" in our culture. As long as we are living in this world, recognizing and turning away from them will likely be a life-long process.

Because the things of this world will always tempt us to look for and find acceptance and approval from others, Love Idol is a book for all of us -- whatever our age or maturity in the faith.

Love Idol is temporarily unavailable at Amazon and Christianbook.com, where it almost immediately sold out, but the good news is that I have a brand new copy I can't wait to give away to one of my readers.

Leave a comment here between now and Sunday, April 6th, and your name will be included in the drawing. I'll announce the winner on Monday, April 7th.

UPDATE: I understand that some of you are having difficulty leaving a comment. I'm so sorry. If that's the case, please just drop me an email and let me know you would like to be included in the giveaway:  patriciawhunter (at) gmail (dot) com   

Coming to an end...

We're less than two weeks away from the end of Google Reader, and if you've been reading Pollywog Creek through a Google Reader subscription, I grieve at the thought of losing contact with you. If you haven't already moved your blog subscriptions to a new reader, I hope you'll do so soon, and that you will continue your subscription to Pollywog Creek.

An even better way to stay connected is through a free email subscription, and you can do so by signing up right here-----> Subscribe to Pollywog Creek by Email.  An email subscription makes it easy for you to interact with me by simply responding to the email you will receive with posts from Pollywog Creek either the day or the day after I publish them. I don't always remember or have time to respond to comments on the blog, but emails always get my attention.

I'm energized and refreshed from my short stay at the beach last week and I'm contemplating ways I can make it happen more often. The fresh summer air and cool breezes off the gulf seemed to clear out the cobwebs, and dozens of blog-worthy thoughts are now swirling about - but I'm pressed to finish working on our photos for the book today, so I'll have to hold onto those thoughts for another day and pray they don't fly away in the meantime. 

What do you do when you need to clean out the "attic" to make room for new and creative thoughts and ideas?

In the good and the bad - we're bound together {book review}...

The principle of the rope is what underlies the good news of the gospel, namely, that if we are roped to Christ, we are so bound to him that nothing -- not even the rope that ties us to Adam -- can ever separate us from his love.

~ Chris Brauns Bound Together

When I began blogging years ago, I enthusiastically embraced the opportunities to read (free) books in exchange for an honest review, but after receiving and reading several non-fiction books for which writing a positive review would have been dishonest, I concluded that these opportunities were not for me.

I'm not a professional reviewer. If I was going to read and publicly review a book, I wanted it to be an opportunity to encourage, not embarrass, the author and to inspire others to read a book that would be worth their time, money and effort. So for the most part, I began choosing these opportunities with greater discretion by limiting them to those authors with which I was already familiar and would likely be able to recommend to my Pollywog Creek readers.

Such is the case with Chris Brauns' newest release, Bound Together - How We Are Tied To Others in Good and Bad Choices.  I began reading his blog and getting to know him and his lovely wife Jamie before his first book Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds was published in 2008 - a book I still reflect on and share with others. I was delighted to find his same easy-to-read and engaging style and winsome approach to rich gospel-centered and thought-provoking content in Bound Together.

One of Chris' strengths is in storytelling, and that is how he begins chapter 1 - telling us a story from his childhood that most of us can relate to - a story of alcohol abuse that seems be a characteristic that's manifested in certain families. Chris continues to flesh out other examples in scripture and throughout history that illustrate what he calls "the principle of the rope" - "a picture of the invisible connections that exist between human beings" that bind us together for good and for bad.

Despite our claims to be independent of the actions of others, the truth is that from the very beginning of humanity (for example, The Flood), we have suffered from the consequences of the bad and evil decisions and actions of others. The proof can be seen clearly in the events of last week, which brings us to the stumbling block that all of us have encountered and Chris addresses: "how often innocent people, particularly young children, suffered because of the decisions made by someone else."

The first few chapters are not comfortable reading as Chris explains how we are tied to the bad in being "roped to Adam" as he unpacks the Original Sin, and that "the problem we face as Adam's descendants is not that we are sinners because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners." But before we become discouraged, Chris points to our hope and devotes a chapter to "The Rope That is Stronger."  

When confronted with the reality of evil, the death of innocent children and suffering that we cannot explain or even comprehend, the most important thing we can do in response is fly as quickly as possible to the good news of our union with Christ.

~ Chris Brauns, Bound Together

The remaining chapters are devoted to the practical application of "The Principle of the Rope" for joy, in our marriage, for hurting families, for those facing death, and in our country and culture - with an emphasis on biblical community. 

I give Bound Together 5 stars. Like Unpacking Forgiveness, I'll refer to it often and highly recommend it to others.

I was provided with a complementary copy of Bound Together by Zondervan and Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for my honest review. The painted bunting - at least for now - lives on Pollywog Creek.

See the angels?

We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss.

~ Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water, p.10

Can a sixty-something wannabe psalmist with a camera be an artist? I consider the question often - my nose buried in a growing stack of books for artistic encouragement and enlightenment. 

Most kindergartners have drawing and painting skills more advanced than mine, my family begs me not to sing, and though I once dreamed of being a concert pianist, I never possessed the skills to play beyond my living room.

Yet, there's something about how I see through the lens of a camera that captures wonder and frames beauty - or so I'm told, even if my adult children do roll their eyes. So I keep asking the question - looking for answers, for light in the words of honest-to-goodness artists, like Madeleine L'Engle and Makoto Fujimura. 

That's when I read L'Engle's quote about angels. She's right, I think - or so my experiences tell me. Experiences like the one that begins with these excerpts from a *short story I wrote two years ago:

We found Daddy asleep, slumped to one side of his wheelchair in the hall outside his room. He was a mess. In desperate need of a haircut and shave, his rumpled clothes hung loosely on his tall, bony frame. Both arms were covered with bruises and a bandage was wrapped around his right forearm. He’d bitten into one of his medications and the reddish-brown remains mixed with drool ran down the creases of his chin.

Waking him gently, I wheeled him back to his room, washed his face and showed him the bag of Christmas decorations we brought to decorate his side of the room. I removed the decorations from the bag and placed them on Daddy’s bed. His bed, a bedside table, a small closet of drab, baggy clothes, and his wheelchair were all he had to show for the years he had worked—long past retirement age—to provide for his family. 

I’d never known Daddy to be anything but gentle except for the time he punched mother’s roommate when she wouldn’t let him through the door to see his wife. It was totally out of character for him to destroy the Christmas tree I put it on the table next to him. 

“Daddy! Why did you do that?” I cried, prying his fingers off the now ruined centerpiece, but he only groaned and stared over my shoulder. 

I called for the nurses. Though they didn’t want to, I convinced them to put Daddy back in bed. “Maybe he just needs to rest,” I told them as they removed his shoes and tucked the covers around his frail, lanky frame. 

* * * 

It was the worst Christmas ever. Without waking up again, Daddy died two days after we left him that day, and mother forgot how to brush her teeth. 

Daddy was admitted to the hospital the night after I left him to rest. I was by his side, with my nephew Michael, as he took his last breath. When Michael told the rest of the family in the waiting room, his 4 year old daughter asked, "Did you see the angels?"


Mason and Gavin were only 3 years old the day I took this photo while they played outside. All week, Gavin talked about seeing angels. Lots of them. Everywhere. And he was serious. "See the angels?" he asked Mason, pointing up into the cloudless blue sky. "They are all over!"

I'm pretty sure I've seen angel wings in some of the photos I've downloaded from my camera.

Maybe I am an artist - and one who's not so old after all.

{*The Worst Christmas Ever was published in the anthology Show Off, compiled and edited by Joe Bunting, writer and creator of the award-winning The Write Practice.}

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

Psalm 91.11

We Believe Him...

Follow Me A Call to Die, A Call to Live
by David Platt
Chapters 4-5

He is Lord

He is Lord

He is risen from the dead

And He is Lord

Every knee shall bow

Every tongue confess

That Jesus Christ is Lord

Platt gets in your face and ruffles your feathers, like his concluding statement in chapter 3 - that being born again "does not mean that you are making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior". I can almost hear the collective What?!?! It's a compelling lead into chapter 4, where this week's discussion begins. 

Platt explains that to say that Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior is a true expression from those who have an "intimately personal relationship with Jesus," but to say that you are making Him Lord and Savior is an idea that he believes is a reflection of "dangerous trends in contemporary Christianity." We don't make Jesus Lord. He IS Lord, and those who follow Him submit to His Lordship - on His terms, not ours. To say that we make Him Lord promotes the idea that we can make "a personal Christ we create for ourselves."

Lest we think Platt is straining gnats, I think he has point.

Slowly, subtly, we take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into someone with whom we are a little more comfortable. We dilute what he says about the cost of following him, we disregard what he says about those who choose not to follow him, we practically ignore what he says about materialism, and we functionally miss what he says about mission. We pick and choose what we like and don't like from Jesus' teachings. In the end, we create a nice, non-offensive, politically correct, middle-class, American Jesus who looks just like us and thinks just like us.  p. 76

We've all done it, in one way or another, and I believe this trend is related to the authority {or lack of authority} God's Word holds in our lives. In chapter 3, Platt states that part of the fruit of being born again is a new creation with a new heart and a new mind. If the Bible is the final authority in our lives, it should be the source of our mind's renewal, but if we don't read and meditate on God's Word or we don't believe it is the final authority, our minds are more likely renewed by the entertainment industry, secular thought, advertisements, friends, internet content {including blogs}, twitter, facebook, and our experiences and emotions. We say we are followers of Jesus, but in reality, we are only following the Jesus who agrees with us, not the Jesus who said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." {Matthew 16.24}

So we go as disciples of Jesus who love his Word and trust his truth. We go not simply as men and women who at some point decided to make Jesus our personal Lord and Savior, but ultimately as men and women who at every point are devoted to proclaiming Jesus as the universal Lord and Savior. We believe him as his disciples; therefore, we obey him and make disciples. p. 94

{To be continued with Chapter 5 Wednesday.} 

Follow Me Discussions at The High Calling

Previous Follow Me Discussion Posts on Pollywog Creek

Introduction - Chapter 3, Captivated by His Greatness - Changed by His Grace

{Photo - Wall hangings, created by Sue Reed, in the lobby of Riverside Church in Ft. Myers, Florida}

"Captivated by His Greatness - Changed by His Grace"

Follow Me by David Platt
Introduction - Chapter 3

I'd ordered it a week before and it was already in my hands when I discovered that The High Calling would be discussing Follow Me - A Call to Die, A Call to Live, by David Platt, on Monday morning through March. 

I'm not new to the teachings of David Platt or Francis Chan, whose introduction to Platt's chapters in Follow Me is deep and rich and not to be overlooked. While some may bristle at Platt's teachings, they fan a flame for me, and I'm thrilled to be wrestling through these chapters with my friends at The High Calling.

I'm also grateful to attend a church that has embraced the mission "to make disciples who love and live like Jesus" and with core values that support that mission. These core values are re-enforced by the pastors in gospel-saturated messages and fleshed out within the church in small lifegroups where we discuss the application of those scriptures that call us to die to ourselves and to live in Christ - to be a disciple and make disciples where ever God has placed us.

From what I have read in the introduction through chapter 3, Follow Me would likely receive a hearty amen from the leaders of our church.

As Chan states in the introduction:

The life God has for us is one of abundance. It is meant to be full, not repetitive. He wants us doing things that have eternal impact. He wants us busy expanding his Kingdom in one way or another, today and every day. This doesn't mean that every Christian should quit his or her job and move to a foreign country. But it does mean that we need to figure out how to make each day count for his purposes. p. xiii

In the first few chapters, Platt reminds us of the first disciples, as well as Christians through the ages, who eagerly, willingly, and gladly lost their lives to know, follow, and proclaim Christ, and he points us to the scriptures that call each of us to die, as well - that following Jesus involves losing your life - and finding a new life in him. 

Platt wants us to consider that if our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place - and more importantly, that we are likely deceived if we point to praying a prayer or inviting Jesus into our heart as proof of our salvation.  

Platt's explanation on what it means to be adopted and to be called a child of God - to be loved by God, pursued by God, and found by God - is one of the best I've read for it's completeness, clarity and simplicity.

Chapter 3 concludes with a question that we might be tempted to think is obvious, but should be considered more deeply in the light of what he has written. Have you been born again? he asks, while reminding us that the fruit of this new birth is a new heart with a new mind, new desires, a new will, a new way of relating to people around you, and a new purpose to follow Jesus. And he warns us to not be mistaken...

 This does not mean that you are making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior. p.73

And that's where Chapter 4 begins. 

His invisible attributes {and the winner is...}

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,  have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,  in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20 ESV

A friend recently asked in an email if I would consider teaching a class on photography. Your kind of photography, she emphasized.    

I laughed. I don't know if I can, I answered. It's not that what I do is difficult or complicated, it's just that I don't know what it is that I do - it's simply the way I see.

A few years ago, something caught my eye at the edge of the thickets along a back country road - something dangling or clinging, I suppose, exactly what I don't remember. I stopped the car, got out with my camera, and was taking pictures when a friend drove by and saw me. Rolling down her car window, she shook her head and asked, whatever do you see to take a picture of? 

I see what God shows me. I know this because I'm always asking Him to show me - right here in my own backyard or the pasture and fields on our Pollywog Creek property.

It's because I photograph what God shows me in His creation that I'm reluctant to place a watermark on my photos and why I give many of my photos away. If God's invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in what He has created, then my photographs should point to God and not me.

Nature photography enhances my devotional life - to walk and pray and discover beauty in the thickets, fields and around the pond - life rising from dead places, symetry and order in the life cycles of insects and wildflowers and the way all of life is nourished by light and rain and good rich soil.

It's deeply satisfying to sense that this is God's direction for me in this season - to offer the works of my hands {and camera} up to Him and to trust that He will do with them as He pleases - even if every lesson learned from clinging vines and loud-mouthed blue jays is for me alone.

I might someday teach a workshop on my kind of photography - when the weather is cooler and I'm able to move about easier, but in the meantime I thought I'd share a few tips for nature photography that have worked for me - tips that I've posted before, but with all the lovely changes in nature that come with a change in seasons, I thought I'd share them again.

• Always begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you - to open your eyes to glimpses of His glory and the beauty in the not-so-beautiful around you.
• The best outdoor light is the hour or two around sunrise and just before sunset. 
• The weight of morning dew on insects makes it easier to get close enough for photos. It also adds sparkle to the pictures when you shoot into the light. 
• Wear clothing colors that blend in with the surroundings, and avoid wearing bright colors.
• Wear quiet shoes. It's much easier to sneak up on something.  Avoid noisy flip-flops and sandals. I like to wear ballet slippers or even a couple of pairs of old heavy socks without shoes.
• Get as close to your subject as you can. For clarity and interest, fill the frame, leaving as little "white space" in the photo as possible.
• Practice patience. Be willing to sit, lean against a tree or stand in one place for long periods of time. Birds and insects will often come to me if I'm still long enough.
• Work with what you've got. Wildlife will not cooperate. You can't tell a screech owl to move out of the shadows or a blue jay to stop hiding behind the leaves, but if you move around too much trying to get the best angle, your subject is likely to flee. Begin taking photos as soon as an image catches your eye and then begin slowly moving around for a better angle.
• Expect the unexpected. It's okay to have a particular photography subject in mind - but be open to surprises elsewhere. If I'm too focused on duplicating a prior wildlife encounter or experience, I'm likely to miss something new God wants to show me. 
• Make it a habit to keep your camera batteries charged. At the end of every day, my camera batteries go in the chargers to be ready by morning. Put fully charged batteries in your camera, clean the lenses, and make certain there's a formatted memory card in the camera before you walk out the door.
• If your camera has been in a cool, air-conditioned house and you take it outside into warm, muggy air, the differences in temperature and humidity will cause condensation to form on the camera lens. To avoid this, I put my camera in the garage about ten or fifteen minutes before I head outdoors so that it begins to warm up slowly and prevents that condensation from forming. 

Before I take my own advice and head outdoors this morning, I want to announce the winner of my Cocoon giveaway. Between the post, emails and comments on FB, about fifteen of you entered, and the winner is.....

...Lisa Moreland. Congratulations, Lisa! If you will send me an email with your mailing address, I will get this copy of Cocoon to you right away. Before you start reading, I highly recommend that you fix yourself a tall glass of sweet tea, light a gardenia scented candle, and enjoy!

Week{ending}...

It felt so, so good to wander about early one morning this week - when the dew was heavy and the sun began to peek across the horizon, hiding here and there behind rain clouds on her way toward the heavens.

Full of wonder at the sparkling gifts before me, I stopped to choose a camera from my basket. Could I capture even the tiniest of glimpses of glory in all that glittered green and gold and the cedar branches mirrored on the pond's dark ripples?

...

It's been a full week - of finishing writing/photography assignments and planning for the ones to come, a dental appointment, t-ball, an out-of-town banquet, a spaghetti dinner and gospel sing, and an afternoon of grandlittles and their fair and lovely cousin Rylie filling our home with all that little ones bring.

This morning I'm resting from all the fullness in a still and quiet house - to the click of sprinklers watering dry ground and a crow cawing in the sweet-gum tree.

There's much reading {and watching the road to March Madness} on my agenda for today.

And you?  What does your weekend hold - I really do want to know.

...

Linking with sweet Sandra's "Still Saturday"...


{Photos: that early morning wandering about - most of them taken with my Sony point and shoot}

It's not what it looks like...

I'd never noticed. The old, tattered book had been on our shelves for decades - maybe I'd never looked inside.

But there it was - a swastika in Rudyard Kipling's stamped signature inside the cover of our dusty, 1925 copy of The Years Between. 

I couldn't believe that Kipling was in any way associated with the Nazi, but what else was I to think? His use of the swastika certainly couldn't be denied, so I dug deeper and discovered the truth: 

Kipling was so disgusted by the Nazis and the sight of their flag that he removed the swastika, a Hindu symbol of good luck, from his bookbindings. It had been his trademark for nearly forty years but it was now 'defiled beyond redemption'." 

Kipling and the Swastika (kipling.org.uk)

While it may have appeared by his use of the swastika that Kipling was a Nazi, he certainly was not. 

And maybe it's just me, but I am reminded - and convicted and repent - again at how easy it is to misjudge others by appearances or outward circumstances. 

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 ESV

Stained Glass Hearts - Patsy Clairmont Interview - Part 5

Patsy Clairmont Interview Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Patsy Clairmont is a master at creating an image out of the ordinary (and even mundane) with words and phrases that stick. God Uses Cracked Pots and Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer are perfect examples I have pointed to on numerous occasions to inspire and encourage others.

Earlier this week, Robbi Cary, my friend and project collaborator, and I discussed several of Patsy's phrases that come to mind often - even weekly - years after they were written. Patsy's words stick. 

While Patsy is a minister of laughter and teller of stories extraordinaire, it is her transparency that opens the way for us to acknowledge our own "cracks". With an arm around our shoulder, she tenderly reminds us that we are not alone in our brokenness, and that hope and healing, and joy and beauty are found in Christ alone.

Stained Glass Hearts: Seeing Life from a Broken Perspective is Patsy's latest book. From "cracked pots" to "stained glass hearts", Patsy weaves God's redemptive healing in her own life, and with the support of scripture, she helps us see how the light of Christ can reach into our dark places and shine through the brokenness in beauty. The “Art Gallery” exercises at the end of each chapter are rich and delightful adventures in music and art,  making Stained Glass Hearts a book to savor one chapter at a time.

Stained Glass Hearts is my current Patsy Clairmont favorite, but I wanted to know if it was her favorite, too. 

Of all the books you've written, Patsy, do you have a personal favorite? 

As an author of multiple books it's very hard to pick a favorite because each one contains important events in my life. But if you twist my arm I would say my first book, God Uses Cracked Pots was especially exciting, Stardust on my Pillow because it was my first book of fiction, and Meatball my first children's book. First's carry some kind of sparkle that make them especially sweet. 

 What books by others are you currently reading? 

 Books at my bedside: 

The Book of Great Books...A guide to 100 World Classics W. John Campbell 

Tyndale: The man who Gave God an English Voice by David Teems

NKJ Bible

Patsy, thank you - for all that you do to inspire and encourage and bring love and laughter to the body of Christ – for sharing your life, your wisdom, your faith – and for your bold testimony to God’s abundant grace and power.

What about you? Do you have a favorite Patsy Clairmont book?

{Photos} Patsy with Anna Trent, and with me and my daughter Emily - WOF, August 2009, Tampa

What I might have missed...

I'm thrilled to be the blogging guest of the beautiful Deidra Riggs at Jumping Tandem today. Won't you please click on over to Deidra's, read my post What I Might Have Missed and leave a little comment to let us know you stopped by?

While you are visiting Deidra, you simply must look around. You'll thank me, I promise. This and this are two of my recent favorites from Deidra. Isn't she lovely?

But wait. Before you hop over to Deidra's, PLEASE read my post from yesterday and share your opinion with us - either in a comment or by taking the simple on-line survey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

{photo} as the sun rose yesterday on dew-sparkled Pollywog Creek

It's a good day when...

UPDATE

No Matter What, It's a Good Day When took 3rd place in the non-fiction category at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer's Conference May 23, 2012

For several months, my friend Robbi Cary and I have been working on a book project that we are very close to debuting in a first offering to family and friends.

No Matter What, It's a Good Day When is a gift book of photos (from Pollywog Creek) and inspirational prose (by Robbi) supported by promises from Scripture.

It's a book of encouragement to find hope, strength and an assurance of God's love and goodness that's meant for all of us, but particularly for those facing difficult and confusing circumstances - or even every day doubts and struggles.

No Matter What, It's a Good Day When is our working title, but we'd love to know what you think.

In addition to that working title, other choices we are considering include:

"Tough Days Are Good Days When"

"Even on a Tough Day, It's a Good Day When"

"Our Tough Days are Good Days When…"

To give you an idea of what the book will look like, here's a small sample from our current draft:

And the winner is....

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the Radical giveaway by commenting here, on facebook or in an email. I appreciated hearing from each of you, and wish that I had a book for every one.

This afternoon I wrote your names on slips of paper, tossed the papers in a gift bag, and let Gavin pick the winner.

And the winner is Ann.

Ann, if you will please email ( pollywogcreekporch (at) gmail (dot) com ) me with your full name and address, I will get the book in the mail to you right away.

Beauty, books and distractions...

We were meandering up and down the highway on our trip through Gainesville, Atlanta and Nashville this third week of March last year. When we returned to Pollywog Creek, the feeders were empty and the Painted Buntings were gone. This year I'm home and keeping the feeders filled, and I'm curious to know when their wintering here will cease. Part of me wishes they lived in the thickets by the creek all year, but then I would miss the joy and anticipation of their return every winter. Recently I've been enjoying hours on my backyard swing with a basket of books and fresh cups of coffee. Despite a desire to lose myself in the mystery of compelling fiction or a well-crafted memoir, I've been too distracted by the antics of my aviary guests and the glory of azaleas to make much progress in that direction. The combination of both delights - the beauty of spring and the joy of a good book - is just one of the reasons my life here on Pollywog Creek is rich. The nearness to those I love is another - a faithful and handsome husband of over thirty years, a beautiful, intelligent and fun-to-be-with daughter (my other spring baby), and my sons and their families. Even in the midst of lovely distractions, I recently finished - Jeanne Damoff's Parting the Waters, and I'm nearly at a loss for words to describe this beautiful book. The true story of Jeanne's son Jacob's near drowning and the journey Jeanne and her family traveled over the days and weeks and years that followed takes the reader down a road of unimaginable suffering, yet each painful step is cushioned by a grace that unmistakably testifies to the depth of George and Jeanne Damoff's faith and in the goodness and sovereignty of a faithful and loving God.

"God, in His mercy, was taking me beyond myself and into His higher purposes, teaching me how to balance amid the rolling waves. I could choose to be introspective, or I could open my eyes and behold His marvelous work. As I learned to look for God's design, I found beauty in the most unexpected places." p. 59

Parting the Waters is rightfully recommended "for anybody whose life didn't turn out quite the way they expected." That's most of us - don't you think?

I'm still reading The Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, and hope to soon be receiving David Platt's Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.

What about you? What is in your basket of books?