Journal Jots – Blog

You, Oh LORD, keep my lamp burning;

my God turns my darkness into light. 

— Psalm 18:28

I have a sister who suffers from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), otherwise known as winter depression or the winter blues, which means the absence of light/sun in the winter causes a malaise that is generally absent the rest of the year.

I can certainly understand why. I have a skin condition called psoriasis, and as a young woman, I’d pop a blanket down next to a building in 47-degree weather to lay out because sunlight is not only good for mood, but it’s good for psoriasis too. Somehow, being butted up against a building that blocked the wind while I soaked up the sun, slathered with cocoa butter and listening to oldies, made me feel happy, relaxed, hopeful. Even with a patch of leftover snow nearby!

And poor Keith. When we recently moved, greatly downsizing from a good-size house in St. Louis and almost forty years of accumulation down to a townhome at Lake of the Ozarks with no garage and almost no storage, I insisted on bringing my many oil lamps. “Julie, let them all go,” he said the day I was packing up, “they’re old and we don’t have room.” “But we need them, babe,” I argued, hovering over the lamps like a mother hen. “What will we do if the lights go out?”

Indeed. A question each and every one of us might ask when darkness descends in our lives. Just like it did for me this week. A precious unborn child in our family was diagnosed in utero with severe heart problems in which the “best-case scenario” is multiple complicated, dangerous surgeries in the first year of life, producing an 80% chance of survival to age 15. The worst-case scenario? The possible presence of a bad gene that would cause death before birth or within one year after, breaking the hearts of all of us who would love her, including two small siblings.

Let me tell you, the lights went out for me and everyone in my family that day, leaving us in an awful darkness that not only brought depression, but also snuffed the hope from our souls.

Until sunlight of another kind slowly seeped into our hearts like the dawn of a new day — the precious SONlight of God!

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until the full day. — Proverbs 4:18

“I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” — John 8:12

Light arises in the darkness for the upright. — Psalm 112:4

Those who live in a dark land, the Light will shine on them. — Isaiah 9:2

Because, YES, our God DOES turn our darkness into light and keeps our lamps burning throughout the darkest hours of our days, and I have seen and felt it this week! With every single prayer that pours into our lives over this precious little girl, our skies brighten with the true Sonlight that not only heals and instills hope, but chases our gloom away.

Yesterday, tests revealed that there is only a 10% chance that the bad gene is present, so we are now leaning closer to the best-case scenario. But you know what? I’m leaning toward God’s best-case scenario, praying for total healing or minimal surgery after birth with a normal life expectancy.

Will you join me? Will you say a prayer for our little Genevieve?

My deepest thanks to all of you and to another dear friend who sent this beautiful Scripture prayer that brought tears to my eyes.

“For God declares: I know the plans that I have for Genevieve, plans for her welfare and not for calamity to give Genevieve a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). My eyes have seen her unformed substance, and in My Book were written the days that were ordained for her, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious are My thoughts toward Genevieve! How vast is the sum of them (Psalm 139:16). Before Genevieve was formed, I knew her, and before she is born, I have already consecrated her (Jeremiah 1:5). I, the Lord, will preserve her and keep her alive, and she will be blessed on the earth; for I will not deliver her to the will of the enemy! (Psalm 41:2).

Thank you, LORD that Your Word is true and You are faithful to perform it!

Hugs and here’s to a sunny weekend!

Julie

P.S. PLEASE FORGIVE ME — I meant to include author Sandra Orchard’s grandson in my post today for prayer, and I completely forgot (only one of the many ravages of getting old!!), so PLEASE pray for little 3-year-old Jed as well. He had a tragic accident with a tractor, requiring multiple surgeries and an amputation, so I cannot imagine the pain and trauma that family is going through right now. He is slowly improving, so prayers are vital for this family as we all know. Here is Sandra’s Facebook page if you want more information: https://www.facebook.com/SandraOrchard/. Thank you and God bless you for your faithfulness in prayer!!

Why only love with all your heart,

when you can put your soul into it?

— Anonymous

Why, indeed! And that’s what Christian fiction is all about — heart AND soul! Which is why I am so very THRILLED to announce the release of HEART & SOUL — FIVE “Deeply Inspirational and Utterly Romantic” bestselling novels by FIVE award-winning authors.

I have read every one of these authors, and they are ALL outstanding award-winners, and I have read four of the five novels in this bundle, and let me tell you right now — two of them are are top faves.

Heart & Soul is available for PREORDER right now, but goes ON SALE this Monday, May 23rd for only $3.99. That’s only 79 cents a piece for some truly amazing books!! So if you haven’t read them all, I encourage you to take advantage of this limited offer.

ORDER HEART & SOUL HERE

And to get whet your appetite, here’s the Amazon blurb, which includes a brief synopsis of each novel in this collection:

Lose yourself, heart and soul, in five of the best romantic stories on the inspirational market. Spanning the 1600’s to present day, these novels will not only make your heart beat a little faster, but inspire you, uplift your spirit, and draw you closer to the One who will never leave you.

Written by five best-selling, award-winning authors, this collection will take you on a journey you won’t soon forget and will leave you with a smile on your lips, joy in your spirit, and a song in your heart.

Love’s Every Whisper, by Naomi Rawlings, 4.8 Amazon rating
Lake Superior, 1883. Victoria Donnelly has finally found a way to redeem herself in the eyes of her family, but it requires returning to the small town of Eagle Harbor, where forgotten feelings for a man she can never have lie buried. Can she face her childhood sweetheart again without destroying both their hearts?

A Light in the Window by Julie Lessman, 4.8 Amazon rating
Boston, 1895. One Woman. Two Men. One stirs her pulse, the other her faith. But who will win her heart? Marceline Murphy, a gentle beauty with a well-founded aversion to rogues, catches the eye of two of Boston’s most notorious. Patrick O’Connor and Sam O’Rourke are best friends with a bond like brothers … until they meet one woman neither can have.

The Reckoning by MaryLu Tyndall, 4.8 Amazon rating 
When Morgan Shaw hid on a tall ship replica in present-day San Diego, her intent was to avoid the guy who had just dumped her, not wake up aboard a real pirate ship 300 years in the past. Now, she must face her cancer without treatment, avoid falling in love with a notorious pirate, and try to get home before she changes the course of history forever.

Running on Empty by Ruth Logan Herne, 4.7 Amazon rating 
Present day, New York State. Chief of Police Joe McIntyre takes his position seriously. A lead-by-example Christian, he’s put to the test when his ex-wife appears with another man’s child after eight years of silence. Anger and pride challenge his small-town-hero existence, driving him out of his comfort zone. Faced with choices he made eight years before, can he tackle the present to ease Anne’s future so she’s no longer “Running on Empty”?

Kept by Sally Bradley, 4.7 Amazon rating
Present day, Chicago. Can a woman with a messy past find love with a good man? A contemporary Christian classic along the lines of Redeeming Love, Kept won the won the 2014 Grace Award and the 2014 Christian Manifesto Lime Award, both for romantic fiction.

So there you have it — five of the best novels you will ever read for the best price you will ever get.

Hugs and HAPPY READING!

Julie

“A woman’s heart should be so close to God

that a man should have to chase Him to find her.”

— C.S. Lewis

Sigh. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, that’s the theme of my prequel novel to my Daughters of Boston series, A Light in the Window, a lesson that Southie rogue Patrick O’Connor learns all too well in order to win the heart of the love of his life, Marceline Murphy. Ironically, I had never seen this C.S. Lewis quote when I wrote ALITW, where the parish priest, Father Fitzgibbons, tells Patrick:

“Something tells me, my boy, that before a man can truly win the heart of a woman like Marceline Murphy, his own heart must be aligned with God’s …”

And honestly, isn’t that what Christian romance all about? Romantic love that’s not just a boy and girl or a man a woman, but as Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “a threefold cord that’s not quickly broken.”

As an adult, I soon learned that true romance is spiritual as well as physical and emotional. And one pass through the “Song of Solomon” in the Bible told me that God was the biggest romantic of them all, deeply passionate in His love for each of us. Through our love affair with Him, Christian authors and readers have discovered that romance can transcend to another dimension where romantic passion and spiritual passion merge, creating a 3-D love story: the hero, the heroine, and the God that brings them together.

WHICH … is why I am so excited about an upcoming novel bundle release I am part of called HEART & SOUL with authors Sally Bradley, Naomi, Rawlings, Ruth Logan Herne, and MaryLu Tyndall. Five “deeply spiritual and utterly romantic” best-selling novels from five award-winning authors for only $3.99. Yep, you heard me right — that’s $16.00 of novels for only $3.99. But this is a limited-time collection, on sale from May 23 – July 9 only, so take advantage!

My book in the bundle is one hopefully all of you have read by now, A Light in the Window, which is Marcy and Patrick’s prequel love story that has won three awards and has 233 five-star reviews and a 4.7 rating on Amazon. But … if you haven’t, this is your chance to get it and four other AMAZING novels at the same time for one great price. Here’s the video my artist hubby did for ALITW using my daughter as the model for both the video and the cover, and I could be prejudice, I suppose, but in my opinion, it’s one of the best novel videos I’ve ever seen. Hope you think so too!

A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW VIDEO

Preorders for Heart & Soul going on NOW!! Here’s the link, and the bundle will officially go on sale on May 23rd.

PREORDER HEART & SOUL HERE!!

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHEN MY BOOKS ARE RELEASED OR ON SALE??? 

Well, now you can by simply signing FOLLOWING me on Book Bub with one simple click! So Here’s the link, and THANK YOU!!

FOLLOW JULIE ON BOOK BUB!!