Journal Jots – Blog

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,

for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

—Joshua 1:9

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that without fail, I cry or tear up at weddings and graduations. I know, I know—HUGE surprise!! So, since this is the season for both, I’ve been doing a lot of weeping lately, but that’s okay because it’s all been good.

Like last night. My precious daughter Amy graduated from law school, and yes, her dad and I have gone through thick and thin with her over the trials (no pun intended) and tribulations of becoming an attorney. Mind you, she knew what she was getting in to because she bought the book, Law School for Dummies, when she was a senior in college, right about the time she was bemoaning the fact she didn’t have a boyfriend. Imagine her joy when one of the chapters in the Dummies book began with: (note: can’t find the book now to verify the quote, but it was something like this) If you have boyfriend or girlfriend, dump ‘em, if you have a spouse, sit ’em down and give ‘em the cold, hard facts—your life now belongs to law school!

Amy graduated summa cum laude from Truman State (called the Ivy League of the Midwest) in three years, a rare achievement, I am told, so I really didn’t expect law school to be that difficult for her. But sadly, the Dummies book was right on—law school all but owned her, an experience akin to three years of physics/chemisty/math … in another language!! The legal world is literally another mindset one has to learn and a logic that by most of our stands, is not logical, where everyone competes against the other for top ranking. Not a fun experience, trust me, at least not for Amy and her parents. You think I’m weepy?? Try studying the suggested 500 hours for a bar exam. The day Amy’s books came, the box was a literal foot and a half high of the biggest, densest 2” manuals you have ever seen—eight of them—with about as much white space as a moonless night.

Mind you, we’ve lived with this for three years now, fully aware our daughter was about to receive her juris doctorate (Dr. Amy as she requested I call her), but you know what? All of us have been so slammed with work, deadlines, life, that it wasn’t until I sank down in that padded theater chair of the St. Louis University auditorium that everything came in to focus—the hard work, the tears, the roller-coaster of angst, hopes and fears. I watched my daughter walk to the stage with 299 other law graduates to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance, and the moment struck hard, welling tears in my eyes. This was one of life’s high points—the top of the roller-coaster when you’re entitled to scream as loud as you can with your hands in the air (and yes, of course I did) before you plunge back down into reality with book deadlines and studying for the bar.

But I have to say, the moment that wrung the most tears from my eyes was when the chaplain opened the ceremony with an invocation that included our Scripture quote today. Oh my … the dam burst on that one, I can tell you that because when push comes to shove and everyday trials of living give way to pinnacle moments like this, it truly is all about God. Acknowledging Him for His hand in our lives, His guidance and His daily blessings. To slough off that discouragement and fear and KNOW that He is God, and not just God, but a God who loves each of us with a fierce and everlasting love.

Yes, my daughter has achieved much by completing three years of law school, but the trials and tribulations so inherent in life are not over with the hooding of a juris doctorate or passing the bar, no. She now enters a legal community glutted with freshly minted lawyers like herself, scrambling for positions that aren’t there in a weak economy. And yet she has something far greater and far more powerful than a legal degree. She has a God Who not only has a plan and purpose for her life—and ours—but a God Who, as our Scripture today points out, “is with us wherever we go,” whispering in our ears, “Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee …” —Genesis 26:24.

You know, I don’t care if one has a PHD, medical degree or law degree, as far as I am concerned, the only degree that is really necessary in today’s world is the “degree” of confidence and faith we have in a God who is bigger than any achievement and higher than any pinnacle of success. If we have nothing else and have Him, it is more than enough.

Happy weekend and may you celebrate the greatest achievement of all—a God Who gave His life so He could turn around and give it right back—to us. Abundantly, exceedingly more than we think, hope or pray!

Hugs,

Julie

NEW CONTEST TILL MAY 31ST!!! Three chances to win!! Okay, everybody, this is your chance to win a signed copy of any of my books, including A Love Surrendered, a $50 gift card AND have a bit character named after you in Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered, due out in October. DETAILS ON THE CONTEST TAB OF MY WEBSITE, SO CHECK IT OUT!!

NEW FEATURE ON MY WEBSITE!! I read somewhere (Publisher’s Weekly, I think), where authors need to put excerpts on their websites because it increases sales, but I have been MOST negligent in this, so I have remedied that. I now have a tab on my website called “Excerpts,” where I list my favorite romantic and spiritual scenes from each of my books, including my upcoming novel, A Love Surrendered. So spread the word if you know anyone you think might like my books—just direct them to my Excerpts link for a taste of my writing style, okay? Thank you SO much!!

YEP, THE SALE IS STILL ON … Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered is ON SALE IN PRE-ORDER!!! For a very limited time, you can pre-order A Love Surrendered for only $7.72, which is almost half off, so if you plan to order it, NOW is the time to do it and if you do, PLEASE like the link, okay? Here are the links, but keep in mind that CBD.com’s sale price may not be loaded yet:

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=0800734173/bakerbookhouseA

Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-surrendered-a-julie-lessman/1108614896?ean=9780800734176&afsrc=1&itm=1&r=1&z=y&

Christianbook.com:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?isbn=9780800734176&event=AFF&p=1011504

“Stand firm …

without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.

This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed,

but that you will be saved—and that by God.

 —Philippians 1:28

 Have you ever read a book where the villain was SO hateful and awful that you wanted to string them up? And, no, I’m not talking about Charity O’Connor here, although I have received a number of e-mails in the past asking me to “slap Charity for them” or that they wanted to see her “maimed or killed.” Let’s face it, when we read a book or watch a movie where the bad guy (or girl) does something awful, you either want to throw the book across the room or spit at the TV screen, or at the very least, rail out loud. Or …  at least I do. But even if you are one of those who does not keep a bottle of Windex by your TV or your walls have nary a dent or scratch from a book, you still get mad, right?

And when someone makes us mad, NOTHING feels better than making them mad right back. For instance, I still remember how my sweet, little, compliant son would respond when I spanked him (which I rarely had to do because he was just that good of a kid). I had this little paddle and if the infraction warranted it, I would give either my son or daughter one whack on the bottom and send them to their room. Well, the first time this happened with my boy, instead of crying, he looked me straight in the eye and smiled as if he hadn’t felt a thing, which, of course, I promptly rememedied. But that look in his eye, like you are not going to get to me, Mom, so typifies our human nature, doesn’t it? It’s kind of our way to spit in the eye of those who make us mad.

This morning in my Joyce Meyer devotional, Hearing From God Each Morning, Joyce referenced our Scripture above in a devotion entitled “Frustrate the Enemy.” She talks about satan (sorry, I never capitalize his name if I can help it and neither does Joyce Meyer, apparently …) and what our response should be when he comes slinking around. She says, “This verse encourages us not to be frightened or intimidated when the devil comes against us,” but to “show (him) that he cannot handle us.” Not only does this demonstrate to the Lord that “we have faith in Him,” but it also “releases (God’s) power into our situations and deliver us.”

Sweet spit, I couldn’t agree more!! Some of you will remember a prior Journal Jot where I talked about stubbing my bare toe on the steel leg of the bed when I was a brand-new Christian in my 20s, and since I have incredibly sensitive feet, it hurt like the “devil.” With a cry of pain, I grabbed my toe and fell down, curse words rising to my tongue, ready to spew. It was during a time of my life when I was radically obedient to God or tried to be, so instead of curse words, I forced other words out of my mouth, screaming, “Praise God, praise God, praise God …” over and over as loud as I could and before I was through, I was laughing on the bed with tears in my eyes.

Another Journal Jot talks about the time I was at a Fuddruckers with a friend and wanted lemonade in the worst way, but my friend insisted on buying me lunch, so I just got water instead. She wasn’t a believer, and I remember talking to her about Christ, about what He had done for me in my life and how much joy I now had. I got up to refill our drinks, and the craziest thing happened. You see, the water spigot was a little white tab on the lemonade spigot, but when I pressed my cup underneath with my finger on the white tab, something in my brain said, “Nobody will know if you take lemonade instead.” Mouth watering, I distinctly remember this fierce passion for God rising up in me so strong, that I literally rammed my finger hard against the white tab till I thought it would break. As water flooded into my glass, a rush of what I can only describe as a surge of adrenalin joy flooded my body, racing my pulse and tingling my skin. This is just a glimmer of the joy your obedience brings to me, the thought came, and I swear I was near trembling before my glass was full. WOW … that was the day I learned that obedience can be a rush!!

In both of the cases above, I clearly remember taking GREAT pleasure in “spitting in satan’s eye” via my obedience to God and therein, felt the flow of God’s joy and approval for me in both situations. Consequently, I have learned to spit in the devil’s eye whenever possible by 1.) Praising God in ALL things, 2.) Speak Scripture into the situation (i.e. Thank you, God, that You cause “all things to work together for good for those who love You and are called according to Your purpose,” 3.) Stand firm with a smile on my face, letting satan know that he is nothing but rancid snake meat crushed beneath the heel of our God.

So I challenge you today to find out just how satisfying it is to spit in the devil’s eye with your obedience to God, your praise and thanksgiving to him and standing firm in the face of adversity because after all, you are on the winning team. And you know what? You just may find yourself, like me, laughing a whole lot more than before …

Happy weekend and may it be full of lots of wonderful spit and shine!

Hugs,

Julie

HAVEN’T READ A HEART REVEALED YET??? Here’s your chance to win it THIS NEXT WEEK — MAY 15-21, 2012 — when I talk about THE TOP FIVE ROMANCE BOOKS THAT HAVE IMPACTED MY LIFE at Book Review Sisters. Hope to see you there — here’s the link:

http://www.bookreviewsisters.com/

NEW CONTEST TILL MAY 31ST!!! Three chances to win!!

A PASSION MOST PURE IS $2.99 ON KINDLE AND NOOK AND $2.39 ON CBD.COM E-BOOK!!  This is your chance not only to get a great deal, but to win a signed copy of any of my books, including A Love Surrendered, a $50 gift card AND have a bit character named after you in Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered, due out in October. DETAILS ON THE CONTEST TAB OF MY WEBSITE, SO CHECK IT OUT!!

NEW FEATURE ON MY WEBSITE!! I read somewhere (Publisher’s Weekly, I think), where authors need to put excerpts on their websites because it increases sales, but I have been MOST negligent in this, so I have remedied that. I now have a tab on my website called “Excerpts,” where I list my favorite romantic and spiritual scenes from each of my books, including my upcoming novel, A Love Surrendered. So spread the word if you know anyone you think might like my books—just direct them to my Excerpts link for a taste of my writing style, okay? Thank you SO much!!

YEP, THE SALE IS STILL ON … Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered is ON SALE IN PRE-ORDER!!! For a very limited time, you can pre-order A Love Surrendered for only $7.72, which is almost half off, so if you plan to order it, NOW is the time to do it and if you do, PLEASE like the link, okay? Here are the links, but keep in mind that CBD.com’s sale price may not be loaded yet:

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=0800734173/bakerbookhouseA

Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-surrendered-a-julie-lessman/1108614896?ean=9780800734176&afsrc=1&itm=1&r=1&z=y&

Christianbook.com:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?isbn=9780800734176&event=AFF&p=1011504

Therefore …

 let us throw off everything that hinders

 and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance

the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,

the author and perfecter of faith.

—Hebrews 12:1-2

When I woke up this morning, it was raining—not just in St. Louis, mind you, but in my mind and in my heart. It should have been light out, but it was dark as night, inside and out, and I could feel the tears welling beneath my eyelids, just begging for a chance to rain along with the weather.

It should have been a good week—I finished my edits for Love at any Cost and the galleys for A Love Surrendered, I got to jump back in to Marcy and Patrick’s prequel A Light in the Window, watch my precious grandbaby one day and made a great showing in the Family Fiction Magazine’s Readers Choice Awards. Which, by the way, many of you helped me to do, so I cannot thank you enough for your ongoing support and friendship—you are a true blessing in my life! Here’s the link if you want to check out the winners across all genres, but note that the best way to view it is to download the PDF for the May/June issue:

 http://www.familyfiction.com/magazines/

So, what happened to put me in such a funk? Well, to be honest, I didn’t really know. All I knew was that Wednesday I wrote like a house afire on Patrick and Marcy’s prequel and loved it!! And then yesterday? The clouds started rolling in. All of a sudden I hit the wall and not only hated everything I wrote, but found myself staring at the blinking cursor with no idea what I should write. Well, I thought to myself, that’s okay—everybody has writer’s block sometimes, and if I just keep writing, it will pass. So I did. But it didn’t. It only got worse until by evening time, I was not only depressed, I was completely unable to write anything—not e-mails, not my book, not my Journal Jot, nothing.

I prayed and tried to write some more, and I did, but it was complete drivel and for the first time in a long time, fear skittered through my body with the thought that it would never come back—that passion for the written word, that love affair with God and romance, that ability to bleed onto the keyboard. Oh, I was bleeding, all right, but it was inside—in my heart and in my soul. And as God is my witness, I didn’t know why.

Last night before I went to bed, I asked Keith to pray with me, and he did, telling me that he’s lived with me for almost 34 years now, and this, too, would pass. Somewhat comforted, I hunkered down with a book (my release from the terrors of the mind) and read till midnight, confident that, as Little Orphan Annie so boldly belted out in the musical of the same name, the sun would, indeed, come out tomorrow.

Only it didn’t. It was, as I said above, black as night … and so was my mood. “Do you have time to have coffee with me out on the porch swing?” Keith asked, and I jumped up immediately, something I usually don’t do on Fridays because that’s when I post my Journal Jot. But there was no gas in the tank, no fuel for the fire, no passion with a purpose. Just a drizzly black sky and a blank computer screen.

“How are you today,” Keith asked, the scent of our hazelnut coffee mingling with that of wet leaves and mulch. “Did your funk leave?” “No, I said, scooting closer, craving his warmth and love to shore me up. “If anything, it’s worse, and I don’t now why.” “Well,” he says in his usual calm manner, tightening his hold, “if there’s anything I’ve learned about you over the years, Julie, it’s that something triggered this, so let’s think back to see what it is.” “I don’t know,” I say, squinting into the misty woods as if the answer were written on the profusion of rain-slick leaves. “I was fine on Wednesday, and then Thursday everything went south.

And then it hit me—a situation earlier in the week where dear friends who I had expected to rejoice with me over the blessing of the Family Fiction awards never said a word. Not. One. Word. Maybe they didn’t get my e-mail, I thought to myself, so I let it go because my next thought was maybe I wasn’t supposed to send it to them anyway. You know, the tooting your own horn thing, which I really despise doing, but it’s a catch-22 with an author. You see, promotion is key, and you have to promote whenever you can, so I did—thanking my reader friends on Facebook for the honor they bestowed on me and sending an e-mail to my dear friends—not just once, mind you, because I thought maybe they didn’t get it, but two and three times with no response. There were so many of you who congratulated me on FB, and I thank you for that, but then I started feeling badly about even posting there because the last thing I want to do is make other authors feel sad or envious. Which, let’s face it—is inevitable with awards in a competitive industry like publishing. And I should know—and you should too—because God knows I’ve written—and repented—about it enough on this blog!

So, I started to spill this out to Keith, and the tears came and the bitterness grew and the day got darker and darker. Suddenly, everything was bringing me down—the dirty floor in the kitchen, the fact I haven’t ridden bikes with Keith in a while, the fact that I only made hot dogs and beans for dinner last night … It was a snowball—no, a hail ball—raining down on my life, damaging my joy and battering my passion to write.

“One of the things I love most about you, Julie,” Keith said, “and probably the #1 reason I married you beside the fact that you’re cute (debatable right now with a pinch in my brows and red-rimmed eyes), is that yes, you are a handful and a royal drama queen and sometimes you mess up a lot, something Amy doesn’t understand about you, but I usually do—most of the time …” He smiles. “But I can honestly say I have never met anybody who rights themselves more quickly than you when you’ve sinned, and that always makes me respect you and love you all the more. For instance, you’re bitter right now, and you’ve allowed it to steal your joy, your sun, your passion for writing, but I know that the minute you repent before God, forgive those friends and let it go, you will jump right back up and move on with what He has for you to do. Because yes, people’s approval is important to you, but you … simply cannot move or breathe without God’s.”

Suddenly the rain stopped, the clouds broke, and the sun came out—literally and figuratively. I knew then what I needed to do. I am an author for God—His grace and anointing allows me to do what He’s called me to do—but not with a wall of bitterness in my heart, shutting it out. Justified by the world, maybe. Justified by God? Never.

And so I laid it down—this sin that “so easily entangles” as our Scripture so wisely points out today, repented and “fixed my eyes on Jesus,” the Author and Perfecter of my faith … and yours. And now? Well, now my heart is light and my fingers twitchy, ready to get back on the keyboard and pour—my love, my passion, my faith in this amazing God—into every word I write. Because the rain has cleared and the sky is blue and the truth dawns bright like the sun, assuring me once again that the very “imperfect” faith of this author is being perfected daily by the “perfect” Author of Life.

Thank you SO much for your precious friendship and may your day and your weekend be free from rain, the dark of night and anything else that hinders, filled instead with the blazing light of His amazing glory and love.

Hugs,

Julie

NEW CONTEST TILL MAY 31ST!!! Three chances to win!! Okay, everybody, this is your chance to win a signed copy of any of my books, including A Love Surrendered, a $50 gift card AND have a bit character named after you in Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered, due out in October. DETAILS ON THE CONTEST TAB OF MY WEBSITE, SO CHECK IT OUT!!

NEW FEATURE ON MY WEBSITE!! I read somewhere (Publisher’s Weekly, I think), where authors need to put excerpts on their websites because it increases sales, but I have been MOST negligent in this, so I have remedied that. I now have a tab on my website called “Excerpts,” where I list my favorite romantic and spiritual scenes from each of my books, including my upcoming novel, A Love Surrendered. So spread the word if you know anyone you think might like my books—just direct them to my Excerpts link for a taste of my writing style, okay? Thank you SO much!!

YEP, THE SALE IS STILL ON … Steven’s story, A Love Surrendered is ON SALE IN PRE-ORDER!!! For a very limited time, you can pre-order A Love Surrendered for only $7.72, which is almost half off, so if you plan to order it, NOW is the time to do it and if you do, PLEASE like the link, okay? Here are the links, but keep in mind that CBD.com’s sale price may not be loaded yet:

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=0800734173/bakerbookhouseA

Barnes and Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-surrendered-a-julie-lessman/1108614896?ean=9780800734176&afsrc=1&itm=1&r=1&z=y&

Christianbook.com:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?isbn=9780800734176&event=AFF&p=1011504