Good Family Read for Thanksgiving!

 

Stephanie Kramm poses at a booksigning for her first children's book in her invisible series, The Branches on My Invisible Tree, a children's story about thankfulness. Each child received a lollipop from the "lollipop tree" after sharing a thankful thought.

I reread Branches this morning. Even adults need this powerful and practical reminder to practice gratitude daily!

As Stephanie writes in her author's note at the end of the book, " . . . every time you think a thought, a new neural pathway or 'branch' forms in your brain. The more you revisit that thought, the bigger and stronger that branch becomes and the easier it is to think that thought again. Your brain really is like a tree full of branches, and you get to decide where they go and how big they grow!"

An especially timely book as we approach Thanksgiving. Picture a family read around the table or cozied up with the kids on the couch.

The Branches on My Invisible Tree via Amazon

New Release: Mother-Daughter tag team, two firsts

 

Daughter Stephanie Kramm holds the proof of her first children's book titled, 

The Branches on My Invisible Tree (Book one in her series).  A picture book for kids ages 4+. 

"Have you ever imagined what it would be like to explore the branches of the biggest tree in the world? What if you could create your very own tree just by thinking about it? Well, you can! Every time you think a thankful thought -- poof! -- a neural pathway or "branch" forms in your brain! Those branches grow like a tree inside of you, and the incredible part is you get to decide where they go and how big they grow! Come discover the amazing power of gratitude as you climb through the branches of the invisible tree."

Steph invited me to try my hand at illustrations. Talk about a fun and challenging learning curve! My first illustration work for a children's book. What seemed impossible, God birthed. In this pic, Steph and I review the final copy one last time before publishing. 

~~

Parents, if you want to teach your children how to apply Philippians 4:8 ("think on these things") and Romans 12:2 (renew your mind with God's Word) in a way that communicates to a young child (older children will enjoy this whimsical read, too), then check out The Branches on My Invisible Tree. 

Take a sneak peek inside the book, now available on Amazon. If you decide to purchase a copy, we'd really appreciate your candid review. Thanks so much! 

The Branches on My Invisible Tree on Amazon.

The Artist: An Emptied Vessel

 

To create is to sacrifice. The Christian artist who seeks to glorify the Lord empties himself in order to be filled by Another.

To get inside the head and heart of a character is to offer one's self for the benefit of the reader (if a book) or the viewer (if a film).

To dance is to give sway to the story on God's heart.

To suspend one's own agenda for the sake of the canvas and allow the Holy Spirit full creative run is to sacrifice one's self to the ministry of art. While at the same time allowing the Holy Spirit to uniquely use one's God-given interests and talents in that creation.

This consideration presupposes that the artist has offered himself to God as a willing vessel, as "a channel of blessing" (as the hymn writer notes). 

View "Channels Only" piano instrumental with lyrics.

So much cycles back to God's sovereignty and human responsibility. In His creative love, God provides the impetus, and the artist willingly surrenders to it. 

For God's glory.

For the recipient's benefit.

For the Kingdom. 

It is a losing of one's self in order to find one's self--the full expression of who God fashioned the artist to be for His sovereign purposes.

Artists speak of the "zone" where the creative process takes over as time stops. It is a place of peace. Yet the fruit of the work may not be fully understood or realized this side of heaven. 

I wonder if this phenomenon was true for Isaiah. Commissioned to go to a people who would not listen, even in the midst of impending judgment, Isaiah under divine inspiration produced one of the most masterful works of writing, rivaling Shakespeare and Milton in literary expression. 

While Isaiah only lived to see a portion of God's prophecies fulfilled, he willingly, sacrificially poured himself out to be filled up and spilled out for God. God's glorious expression through His servant of the birth, life, death, resurrection, and future reign of His Son is magnificently foretold, offering a call to rebellious Israel in particular and the sinner in general who has turned his back on God to come to the Cross for salvation. 

Centuries later, Handel uses Isaiah's writing to compose "The Messiah," further impacting generations with the gospel through the art of music. 

While the extra-biblical artist cannot lay claim to divine inspiration as in the case of the biblical writers (2 Peter 1:21), s/he can surrender to the Holy Spirit's filling in order to produce art by His power for His purposes (Ephesians 5:18). 

The sacrifice begins with an emptied vessel--emptied of self so that the divine Artist can fill him up and flow through him to others. 

For it is not only the artist's work that God is shaping for His use but the artist herself.

New Release in the Missionary Kid series! Tyler and the Great Escape/Cambodia

 

Ages 8+

Good for family reading and discussion, too!

"Tyler longs for adventure in the new and different land of Cambodia, but his silent fear that the murderous Khmer Rouge will resurface haunts his mind and holds him back. To cope, he lapses into daydreams where he dangles on a vine over a lava pit, runs the rapids, and fights off an enemy alien with light saber. But the real enemy lives inside him. When the family visits Kampot to scope out a ministry opportunity, Tyler finds courage to rescue his sister from the river. But his greatest test is yet to come when his family tours Bokor Mountain, a famous historical site where supposed ghosts from the Khmer Rouge haunt unsuspecting visitors. When he gets separated from the family and trapped by two Khmer men, will he find courage to face his fear?"

Book 3 in the Missionary Kid series. Check it out below. FREE with KindleUnlimited.

Tyler and the Great Escape on Amazon

At Daddy's Knees

 

When I was a little girl, I used to run across the living room and fling myself at Daddy’s knees in a gesture of playfulness while he sat in his recliner. Perhaps it was my way of feeling close to a Daddy who was physically present and often played with us kids, yet was often emotionally distant, especially when this little frightened, troubled child needed him the most. But having lost a son whom he’d tended for 18 years and knew was going to die, Daddy dealt with grief I couldn’t fathom as a child. Still, I also dealt with grief and the symptoms of grief I couldn’t understand at the time. Years later after I’d married and birthed children of my own, Daddy confided that he wished he’d known better how to help me. Knowing he knew didn’t erase the loss of emotional investment during my formative years, but it did breed more understanding and closeness to a Daddy who I knew loved me and would lasso the moon for me, if possible. 

In his advanced years, with nerve damage in his legs, Daddy struggled to walk, so we would take him for a ride outside in his wheelchair. On one occasion as we neared the house, he reached out his hand for mine. I took hold as I had so often done as a little girl when he was my robust, larger-than-life Daddy walking with me down the sidewalk. He didn’t say anything to me—his words left when Mama died a couple years earlier—yet the twinkle in his blue eyes told me he still knew I was his little girl whom he loved with all his heart.

On a visit which turned out to be our last, I knelt at Daddy’s recliner and held his hand. “Thank you, Daddy, for being the first one to tell me about Jesus.” While he didn’t verbally respond, I believe he heard words that held rich meaning, for his life was all about Jesus. With Paul, he often affirmed his favorite truth: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, KJV).

Daddy died two days later. I’m so thankful God allowed me one more time to slip to my knees, this time verbally thanking my father for the greatest gift he could’ve ever given me—Jesus.  

I often muse on that last encounter. The visual helps me project to the day I will physically kneel at Jesus’ feet, take His hand, and thank Him for His love, mercy, and grace toward one so unworthy of His great sacrifice.

And though I do not physically see Him now, I kneel in His presence, for He is here in the form of His indwelling Holy Spirit. I take His hand, press it against my cheek, at times soak it with my tears, and say, “Thank You!”

Remembering Mama

It's a week for remembering Moms. So, I'm stepping back in time, smiling at these antique pics of my Mama, born in 1916 in New Jersey, with one older sister (12 years her senior). My grandparents lost four babies, all girls, in-between her sister and her.

Mama's mother, Grandmother Firth, as the family called her was a jolly person. Though I never got to know her personally (she died on a visit to see me when I was five months old), I heard lots of stories. Mama would often say what a gentle soul she was. You can even see it in her face. 

Mama lived to age 89, faithfully serving the Lord in full-time Christian camping ministry with Daddy for 50 years. They were married for 65 years before Jesus called Mama Home. Daddy followed her two years later at age 94. They left a strong visual of what love looks like in a marriage. Mama gave this picture to Daddy prior to their wedding. 

Shortly after their wedding, Mama and Daddy honeymooned at the seashore in Atlantic City. 

While growing up, I often walked past Mama's bedroom door in the morning before leaving for school. Through the cracked door, I saw her kneeling by the bed in prayer. She and Daddy would also kneel by the bed at night before slipping under the covers. If Daddy were here, he'd probably joke that they were looking for something but figured as long as they were down there, they might as well pray. 

At Mama's memorial service in 2005, her only grandson read a prayer she left her family. The words are not original with her; they came from the apostle Paul who wrote and prayed them in his closing remarks to the Ephesian church.

After her service, I jotted in the margin of my Bible beside Ephesians 3:14-21 that Mama prayed this for her family. I decided that I would continue the legacy and pray this "Paul/Mama" prayer for my kids and grandkids, too. 

Perhaps you, too, will find the following scripture passage a fitting prayer for your family, whether they are walking with the Lord or far from Him.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV).

Happy Mother's Day!

Eileen

Psalm 46:10

Even to Your Graying Years

 

Even to your old age and gray hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

-Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)

My 85-year-old mother sat across from me in her rocker. At 45, I felt a tug I couldn’t quite identify, pulling me faster down some imaginary aisle headed who knew where. Like my grade school friend pulling me out the school door at recess and onto the playground. For what? Some bully to tease and torment me? Or for an accident waiting to happen?

A similar foreboding reached out with icy fingers and clutched me at the thought of aging. I desperately longed for my mother, older and wiser, to shine a light on the journey that lay ahead.

“What’s it like, Mama?” I leaned forward on the sofa, legs casually crossed Indian style. I prided myself that I could still position myself that way without my hip locking up or pain shooting down my leg.

Her scalp tightened, ever so slightly, momentarily reordering her cottony, white hair. A dreamy expression filled her eyes, and she looked past me. Then her gaze settled on my face. “To be honest,” she patted her chest, “inside, I still feel like I’m 15. I still have hopes and dreams.” A smile inflated her wrinkled cheeks. Her eyebrows knit like mountain peaks. “Some days I’d like to bolt out down the street as fast as I can, but my body won’t let me.”

How sad. 

Selfishly, I wondered if I’d experience the same phenomenon. On the one hand, Mama provided a glimpse into a woman whose spirit hadn’t been squelched by time. On the other, she provided a reality that comes to each of us.

Growing older eventually, most likely, will involve bodies that wear out and eyes that grow dim.

The nugget of hope Mama left me that day didn’t lie in the tangible, physical realm.

No, it bubbled up from deep within, from a spirit alive with youth, vigor. The challenge—finding expression for a young person trapped in an old body.

While Mama couldn’t zip down the road in Keds, she could zip through the grocery store. So much so, I had trouble keeping up with her. One minute she’d be in the freezer section and the next out of sight. Totally gone. I’d find her perusing the canned goods, checking labels. Just as I sprinted up to her, she’d whizz away, rounding the corner to another aisle. Maybe her grocery store marathon was her way of dealing with her inner teenager who longed to break free and run. I don’t know. All I know is Mama could move.

At 4 ft. 8 in. (she claimed she was shrinking), she put the energizer bunny to shame. A Lilliputian looking through rheumy eyes, she refused to call it quits on youth. You might say she was a realistic optimist. She knew her body was old, but she refused to “get old.”

Two things served her well: Prayer and humor. While Mama could worry with the best of ‘em, she never gave into the enemy’s hold for long. A trip past her bedroom door revealed a lady on her knees, taking her concerns to the throne of grace. And yes, still on her knees at 85.

She’d rise with a twinkle in her eyes as if she and God shared a secret, then got busy cooking, ironing, or mending, a hum on her lips.

She knew God was with her and had a plan for her. With the apostle Paul, she refused to lose heart, for though her outer body was decaying, her inner self was being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Now that I’m 66, I lean in ever more to my Mama’s words and ways she modeled, especially in my graying years.

In doing so, I can emerge with a smile on my face and joy in my heart, all the way Home.   

~~ 

(Stay tuned for a future post on how Mama modeled humor). 

In the meantime, check out this book from Karen O'Connor, trusted mentor and author friend who's compiled several humorous books for seniors. 

Gettin' Old Ain't for Wimps