I was going to talk about the fact that some people have an encouraging online aura, others a humorous aura, and others still, an aura that’s sexy, cute or funky.  Some of my online friends have a bitter, cynical aura. Some come across as being crabby, complaining and whiny. Some have a faithful aura out of which shines a love for God and their fellow man. What kind of silent vibes do you transmit over the internet? Does your online aura personify the kind of person you are in real life, or do you use the internet as an opportunity to set your alter-ego free? If you met an online friend in real life, would they immediately recognize you?

Your words and the things you post, twitter, share and like, all make a statement about who you are – what’s important to you. In cyber space, all we have are words. Make each one count! Let your words shine with the essence of you!

If the subject of internet romance / relationship fascinates you like it does me, get a copy of my first book, Night and Day, and find out how a chance online meeting when it’s midnight in Minnesota and daybreak in Denmark transforms the lives of Jensen Marie Christiansen and Anders Westerlund.

My goal this morning was to write a blog that made me sound perky and pleasant… the kind of person you’d want to buy a book from. Instead, I probably sound exhausted – because I am! (But in the best way possible.) Keep smiling.

I belong to a group at www.Gather.com called Shedding Light where I was asked to reintroduce myself to the group. Here’s what I wrote about myself… the ABC’s of Me. I am:

Able (just barely, some days)

Brittle (my bane)

Caring (and colorful)

Dapper

Eternal (Thank you, God.)

Feisty (ask my friends)

Gooney

Happy

Inside

Jocular (this just popped into my head – not even sure what it means)

Knightly (defender of just causes)

Liver (of life, not liver, which made me throw up when I was five)

Motley

Naughty / Nice (depends on the day)

Open

Perfect (not really, just perfect for me)

Ridiculous (we have to laugh at ourselves sometimes, don’t we?)

Serious (somber – my niece, who has another Aunt Sherry whom she calls Silly Sherry, once said of me, “You’re not silly, you’re just nice.”)

Talented (okay, I’ll admit that I have been blessed with many gifts)

Unmanageable (Don’t blame me, it’s the stubborn genes. I came by them honestly.)

Voracious (unfortunately, this applies most clearly to my appetite)

Wimpy (I am so scared of so many things)

X – rated (It was either that, or XXL, and I prefer the first)

Young (at heart, anyway)

Zesty

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

My husband, who is a pastor, has accepted a call at a new church. We are moving to a new town, into a new house.

The people at Zion Lutheran in rural Hudson have been very welcoming and have been enthusiastically preparing the parsonage for our arrival. It’s impressive to me that although they don’t know us very well, they’ve opened their hearts to us, ready to take a chance in making us a part of their church family.

They’ve given the first floor a fresh coat of paint, in colors of our choosing, and they’re putting in a new shower in the first floor bathroom. There will soon be new linoleum in the entryway and main floor bathroom, and possibly, the kitchen.

There are beautiful oak floors in all the bedrooms on the second floor, and we were pretty sure there would be the same kind on the first floor, too. But the carpet was not that old, and in decent shape, and we were a little nervous about asking if we could rip up the carpet and get rid of it. We both love hardwood floors. But what if the floors were very scuffed, or patched, or painted? No one remembered quite what they had looked like before the house was carpeted. We decided not to push the issue, fearing what we would find. It went without saying that if we took the carpet up and found a mess, we couldn’t ask them to put down new carpet, or spend a lot of money refinishing the floors. But we kept thinking about those wood floors – we peeked under the carpet in a few corners. And finally, we got up the courage to ask to have the carpet removed.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” one of the carpenters asked several times. “Once the carpet is up, you can’t put it back down. “  We committed to buying area rugs at our expense, if needed, to cover up any irredeemable flaws. We were willing to take our chances, and so, thankfully, were they.

Life is full of little – and big – decisions, full of turning points, each with its own set of risks.

Unless we’re Nora Roberts and have a few million readers to spare, we ask readers to take a chance on us each time we try to sell them one of our books. In this economy, readers think twice before they spend money on an unknown author. So we come up with dazzling plots and edge-of-your seat suspense and romance that makes the coldest heart sigh with passion. We design enticing covers and write tantalizing back-cover blurbs, all designed to convince new readers to take a chance on us.

Writers go to conferences, finagle editor appointments, write compelling query letters and send stunning synopsis, with the express purpose of convincing the people in power to take a chance on our books — on us! Those looking for employment, like my husband has been for the past couple of months, interview and go to job fairs, network, and redo their resumes in hopes of the same.

In real life and in fiction, when boy meets girl, the first thing that has to happen if the romance is to progress is for one to convince the other to take a chance on them, to open up their heart to the possibility of a relationship.

Sometimes, we’re brave enough to take a chance and then, end up disappointed when our tentative advances are spurned. We rip up perfectly good carpeting in hopes of finding shiny, like-new, narrow board oak flooring, and instead, we find worn, patched-up pine full of gouges and mars. There are no guarantees in this life. Love ends tragically. Hearts are broken. Dreams are dashed. We’ve all been there, done that.

But if we never try – never venture out of the shadows and say, “Please take a chance on me,” we have no hope of a happy ending.

Three years ago, publisher Mike Simpson, of Second Wind Publishing, took a chance on me and published Night and Day. I hope that he is convinced that he made a good decision that day. In some respects, I was taking a chance, too, when I signed on with Second Wind. They were a fledgling company, just getting started.

Just the thought of having my books in print was pretty terrifying in and of itself. An artist takes a huge risk each and every time they reveal their work to an audience of people who may or may not like what they’ve written, painted or performed. Each and every time we open ourselves up to another person, either personally or professionally, we risk rejection, ridicule or criticism.

Thankfully, I can say that my experience with Second Wind has been wonderful. Being published has exceeded my wildest expectations. I’m sure there are people out there who don’t like my books, but I’m here to tell you that hearing wonderful things about and getting complimentary reviews on the books I’ve written is an absolute thrill. I took a chance and have been wonderfully blessed in return.

We got a call today saying the oak floors under the carpeting at the parsonage are in very good condition. There are two slightly worn spots, in areas that can be conveniently covered with a small area rug.

A new year is here. I’m not saying you should gamble away your life savings trying to hit the jackpot, but I would urge you to take a few chances. Don’t be afraid to try. Put yourself out there. Go for the gold and see what happens!

It’s the day after Christmas, and it’s time to move on!

Night and Day, my first book, contained some very special – and revealing – letters from Maren Jensen, who had recently immigrated to Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, written to her cousin, Sophie, back in Slagerup, Denmark.  Night and Day also contains some beautiful love notes from Anders Westerlund, sent from Denmark to Minnesota to Jensen Marie Christiansen, via email. One of my favorite scenes in Night and Day is when Jensen changes the font of an email she received from Anders to one that looks like handwriting, prints his letter on parchment paper, and lays it and a rose she picked from her garden on her pillow.

This morning on Facebook, my second cousin, Marcia, mentioned some letters that she received years ago from her Aunt Vic (my Grandma Victoria, who died at age 93, about 7 years ago). Her comment brought back a flood of memories, as I too used to get letters from my Grandma, special notes in birthday cards, then full-fledged, rambling epistles full of vignettes from her life and stories about aunts and uncles and cousins, even a few relatives I didn’t even know. The letters started when, at age 18, I went off to Wheaton College in Illinois, and followed me when I moved to Bar Harbor, Maine, Augsburg, Germany, Lawton, Oklahoma, and finally, Colorado Springs, Colorado. She stopped writing only when I stopped wandering and came home to northern Iowa / southern Minnesota. From that time on, I saw her and talked to her face to face almost every week.

Letters are a very interesting form of communication. In them, people sometimes dare to say things they would never say to someone were they talking to in person. An expression of love, a passionate – or angry – response, an accusation, a confession — why is it that many of us can say with our pen what we can’t with our lips?

Sometimes letters are simply a matter of practicality. Much as we wish never to be separated from the ones we love, it’s impossible to be two places at once, and sometimes we have to resort to letter writing to communicate. While cell phones, Skype and live chats on Facebook may have eradicated some of the impetus we used to have for writing letters, there is still a time and a place for a thoughtfully written, old-fashioned letter.

When I was in 5th grade, Roy Anderson and I got into trouble for writing love notes in class. We had to sit in the hall – together, on a small bench, just the two of us – over recess. We were so embarrassed by the end of the lunch period that I don’t think we spoke to each other again until graduation day.

The summer between my 7th and 8th grade years I wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote and finally mailed a love letter to a boy I had a crush on. Nothing ever came of it – I honestly can’t remember if I even signed it, but there was something very significant about the fact that I admitted my feelings.

When I was going through First Presbyterian’s Divorce Recovery Workshop, we were asked to write a letter to our ex-spouse, saying whatever we wanted or needed to say. At the end of the exercise, the letters were destroyed. Over 25 years later, I have no idea what I wrote, but I do remember that it was a very therapeutic way to clear the air.

When computers became the rage and internet dating- internet everything -  came of age, I had a good advantage in that I knew how to write. E-mails were suddenly key, and I excelled at them. I was lousy at flirting, and awkward as all get out when it came to first dates, job interviews and loan applications, but I knew how to write, and because of it, many doors opened to me that might not have.  I’ve always been better with words written than words said, and that simple fact has helped to shape my life.

There are everyday, run of the mill letters, and there are famous, life-changing  letters that are known worldwide. Thomas Jefferson’s letters helped shape the course of our country. The Apostle Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Corinthians, and Philippians and to a young  Timothy, written in the first century, still deeply influence the way many of us live our lives today.

My Grandma’s Danish cousin, Boyda, still has the real letters in which Maren Jensen poured out her heart to her cousin back in Denmark. They’re written in an old-world handwriting and cadence, and we may never know exactly what is said in them. But the mystery of those letters, and the little bit I do know of them, has already inspired a love story whose legend will live on. What is a book, if not a love letter written to our readers?

Actually, it’s only fair that Mark practices his sermons on me. When it comes time to edit my books, he’s my first line of defense. We start by reading the book out loud to each other. It’s amazing, the errors you hear, but don’t see. By the time I’m done writing and getting ready to send my book to my editor, he’s probably so sick of the storyline and the characters that he never wants to see or hear about them again. But being the good, loving husband he is, he is always willing to read a scene one more time just to make sure it’s the best it can be.

Tomorrow is the first day of Advent. The Scripture Mark is preaching on is Mark 13. In verse 31, Jesus says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” This verse has convicted me that I need to start putting first things first, or prioritizing.  Am I living my life for temporary, breakable things like my computer or cell phone, where I spend and waste untold hours of my expendable time?  Am I spending my leisure time playing Farmtown or Zoo World or Sorority Life, or in Christian terms, am I doing something meaningful like getting to know Jesus better? (In writing terms, am I getting my next book written or edited, am I getting down to business and doing what needs to be done, or am I frittering away my time doing something virtually worthless?) Am I obsessed with making more money or buying more land or building a bigger house to make room for the things I buy, or am I living for Jesus, spending time with the people who love me, accomplishing great and mighty things whose after-effects will last for generations, maybe even eternity?

In a few years – maybe even months or days – my electronic gadgetry will be broken, hopelessly outdated, stolen or lost. The new appliances in my house will quit working. Jesus will still be here. Nothing on this earth lasts forever – not our good health, our things we build, or the people we love. The only thing worth living for, the only one you can trust to be there FOREVER, is Jesus. I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to live my life in a way that reflects the important things. It makes me want to forget Farmville and write the book of my heart. My books are my legacy. They’re my chance to say what needs to be said, to touch people’s lives, to leave something to be remembered by.  I am so blessed to even have the option of how to spend my free time – and with that, comes an overwhelming sense of responsibility that whatever time I have left here on earth should be spent doing good things – helping others,  being true to myself, using my talents, and letting my light shine brightly in the night.

Merry Christmas.

I love this quote, and as a writer, the moment in time when my characters are in the midst of their black moment and then, suddenly, see a star shining in the darkness.

I’ve been caught in the middle of a black hole in my own life as of late. I’m sure we’ve all experienced times in our lives when things have looked so bleak and hopeless that we couldn’t imagine we would ever find our way out of the darkness that had descended around us.

But I’ve learned that even in the darkest hour, there is beauty to be found…

A beacon of light…

A splash of color…

Some thing, some one to light our way in the darkness.

So next time, you’re lost in the night

With nary a crumb to follow…

Next time you’re so far, far from home

You think you’ll never find your way back…

There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel…

A glimmer of hope in the night…

Always remember that no matter how vast the night, no matter how impenetrable the darkness may seem…

Daybreak is always just around the corner.

Light cannot be hidden for long…

Daybreak… hope…. love… joy…

Always triumph in the end.

Without the dark of midnight…

Daybreak wouldn’t be nearly so beautiful.

One unfortunate consequence of this whole unfolding mess is that I have learned I am being cyber-stalked. Parts of my previous blogs, taken out of context, were read aloud at a church council meeting where my husband and I were then berated. This kind of thing hurts me deeply as a person and a writer.  I have always tried to be honest but discreet in my blog posts. My intention has never been to diss others, but to honestly express my own feelings about the impact of certain happenings and actions on me. I have never even thought a bad thing about the women who were upset with me. Quite the opposite! Knowing that my words were twisted and used against me, and my husband, is a horrible feeling.

So what to do from this point forward? Clam up? Shut down? Shut up? Stop writing at a time I most need to release my angst, vent my frustration, ask for prayers and gain support from friends and family, many of whom my only connection to is online?

I suspect I shouldn’t care what the people who criticized me because of what I wrote think of me (although I do), but a concern is that my husband is obviously looking for a new call, and I really, really don’t want to do anything to jeopardize his chances. But when I think of trying to live out the next however many years under a gag order, not able to say what I really think or be who I really am, is is so disheartening that I want to cry. Am crying.

A year and a half ago, I was in a group at Gather.com called Shedding Light, led by the wonderfully insightful Mariana T.  She asked us to make a list of the things we needed to shed, the things that are holding us back, and dragging us down. Among the things I listed were Clutter, Stress, Anxiety, Insecurity, Low Self-Esteem, Excess Weight, Inertia, Excessive Possessions,  Computer Games and other Time Wasters.

To the past and future church council members who may be reading this – there you have it. You now know all of my vices. Look no further. Dig no deeper. It’s all right here.

The sad thing, as I read this list, is that instead of shedding the things on the list, I seem to be attracting them like a magnet. I feel like I’m inside a huge snowball, gathering unwanted masses of the above items as I roll downhill. I feel like I’m about ready to hit a tree and explode into a million fragments of icy debris. I can’t concentrate.  I am terribly over-committed and way behind on everything, but I can’t seem to get anything done.

But maybe there is hope. I got my blog done, didn’t I?

It has been a different kind of harvest this year in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. We did not receive enough rain this summer – none at all for almost 2 months. As a result, the ears of corn hanging on the stalks are half shriveled up and burned dry.

None of the crops matured the way they should, and the yields will be low. Mid-summer storms brought devastation in the form of hail and high winds to many fields. Some of the crops are laying flat on the ground, making them nearly impossible to combine.

In early September, a few days after it finally rained, giving the soybeans what seemed like a reprise – one last chance for the pods to fill out, an early frost turned the fields from green to black. And that was that. We have had two weeks of hot, 85 degree days this October – highly unusual for this far north – making everything so parched and dry that there have been many fires in the fields.

Like giving birth to a stillborn baby, our farmers must still go through the labor of harvest, even though the joy of reaping a bountiful harvest will not be there to reward them for all their hard work and sacrifice.

My husband’s 11 year ministry at the church where he is pastor has also come to a disappointing end. Two weeks ago, a congregational vote that might have saved the day failed when people who rarely even attend church were brought in to vote, skewing the results. The majority lost because there was not a 2/3 majority. The result means the end of life as I’ve known it for almost 8 years. My time there has been the honeymoon period in my life as a wife, and a pastor’s wife, and will always hold a special place in my heart. I’m not ready for it to end.

I am trying to leave things in God’s hands, knowing that the God of the universe does not need my stress, anxiety or exhaustion to accomplish his plan in the world. But it is hard to let go and trust, to believe that after months of stress and worry, arguments, threats and political maneuvering by people we thought were friends and higher-ups in a church that is supposed to be my refuge and sanctuary, that this whole terrible mess will suddenly be all better. And the truth is, that although joy is promised at the end of the journey, some of the wounds caused by this battle may never heal. I know I sound bitter. I am trying not to get caught in the caustic cauldron of resentment and anger.

I am having Circle at the parsonage tonight – a time to say my good-byes, and hopefully, to give closure. I miss playing the piano with my friends, a wonderful drummer and keyboardist, more than I can say. Making music with them and glorifying God through our praise and worship has been my ministry, and one of the highlights of my week for over five years.

The time of harvest has come to an end. A door has slammed shut. I know God will open a window. I can’t wait to climb through and fly high. I am increasingly ready to let go and move in a new direction.

Yet I know that winter lies between fall and spring.

God, please provide another call for my husband, one where he can use his gifts and talents for you, one where he will be appreciated and loved. And please let it be within an hour of the Blue Belle, and please, if you would, let them like contemporary praise music. Let them love rousing old hymns. Let them sing lustily. And let them need a piano player.

Thank you for listening.

And now, to new growth, to moving onward and upward.