In addition to this first new writer, a second new writer has come onto my radar screen, one full of ideas for books (in addition to the one he has ready to go). He seems to be perfectly in sync with the vision I have for Double Edge Press, with books ranging from the Chicken Soup for the Soul variety to an in depth look at Revelations and End Times Prophecy. Both of these concepts, and a few others, were enough to intrigue me.

Then something quite unexpected happened. The kind of event that makes you wonder just who you really are and where God really intends you to be in His plans. Tragedy and mystery.

The tragedy is one you are probably all aware of (although not to the degree that Michael Jackson has been dominating the airwaves for nearly two weeks solid now), and that was the death of Billy Mays, pitchman extaordinaire. I was a fan of Billy’s through his recent television show “Pitchmen”. I had been aware of him prior to this through the many commercials he had starred in, but my enjoyment of him as a personality increased tenfold with watching the behind scenes activity of the selection of a product, the perfecting of it, and then the commercial filming. He struck me as a down-to-earth, approachable and extremely decent guy. The episode of his helping out an old friend who was partially paralyzed from a airplane accident seemed to highlight the ‘extremely decent’ aspect. And I well remember the episode which featured his wife and young daughter also.

So it was with sadness and shock that I read of his death about a week ago. My first thought, selfishly, was I really going to miss his show. His marketing ability was stupendous and I felt like I learned something from him everytime I watched. My second thought of was his lovely little girl, and his older son, now without a father. And his wife, without a husband.

Despite these feelings, I had no idea that God was going to draw a line from Billy Mays, to our new writer, to Double Edge Press. And yet, that is exactly what God has done.

Our new writer is from the Pittsburgh area and grew up with Billy. They’ve kept in touch all these years. The passing of Billy for him was quite personal and not the vague feelings of sadness that I felt. When he called me this week and told me these things, I offered my heart-felt sympathy. Billy had been a man in the prime of his life, on the top of his game, and gone too soon. His death, for everyone close to him, was a tragic shock.

I learned more of Billy than I had ever imagined from him. None of it surprised me. My estimation of approachable and extremely decent were only the tip of the ice-berg. He was a faith-filled man, and felt that much of his success was due to God’s guidance in his life. He was a major contributor to charity in the Pittsburgh area. He was planning on building a church.

Would I be interested in a Biography on him? I was asked.

Oh, yes. Definately, yes.

Anyone, obviously, could write a Biography. But one coming from a friend, who had known Billy since he was young, who was friends with the family, who would treat Billy with the respect and insight he deserved, and who would be ‘authorized’ by family to write the story, and write the story including what was most important to the subject: faith and family; these qualities made this book desirable to me. These same qualities will make the book, I’m sure, desirable to his fans.

All this, obviously, is very much in the ‘kick it around’ stages. Much could happen to derail it. But I still, very much, have that feeling of an unexpected line being drawn by the hand of God. It’s quite possible that Billy will still have a large, large impact on the world well after his untimely death. I hope Double Edge Press is able to be a part of that.

May all of our thoughts and prayers be with his family in this, their time of need.

One expects it to be a large marker in the life of the graduate, perhaps a marker too large for them to evenly realize how large it is at the moment. Their life is about to change. What was unexpected to me was how large of a marker it would be in my own life. And perhaps having the maturity to fully appreciate it is not always a blessing.

I can’t help but reflect on my own graduation and the years that have ensued since. What have I done with my life. As well as I can answer that question: a stable, long-lasting and happy marriage, four children, a business that allows me to entertain my passion for both writing and reading, I still have the niggling suspicion that I could have done much better.

My ultimate goal is to serve God and His purposes. Somehow, the older I get, it seems more as if I’m serving God and His purposes on my terms, not His. When it’s convenient. When I can fit it in amongst my busy schedule. When it doesn’t cause too much hardship, or even inconvenience.

When I was a young Christian, I came to the conclusion that most people were willing to help you out, but only if it was a minimum of trouble on their own part. Even in life and death situations, few people are willing to put their own concerns aside in order to help. I so disliked that mentality then. I so fear falling into that mentality now.

I’m not Christ. Many of the problems that people face I can’t solve, only He can, and I am well aware of that. But I still wonder how much better I could answer the question of “What Have I Done with My Life?” if the question were instead “What Has God Done with My Life?”

Do any of us ever fully turn our lives over to Him? I used to think I had, but the older I get the more it seems that I pick and choose when, where and how I will serve. Many leading theologists of the day call American Christianity “Christianity ala Carte” for our tendency to pick and choose what precepts in the Bible we’re willing to follow. Our service seems to be “Service ala Carte” also. We’ll serve where we are comfortable, but not necessarily where we are called to serve.

Perhaps I short-change myself and God. His plan is on-going and my vision is limited. And Corrie Ten Boom didn’t begin the nitty-gritty of her calling until she was in her fifties and found herself in a concentration camp.

But as a mid-life check-up, it seems I should be doing a lot more, and controlling a lot less.

He was surprised when I emailed him back so promptly, as he hadn’t expected a response until Monday. Just goes to show that neither of us know when to quit.

In addition to supplying him with his numbers, I also checked the sales numbers and found to my immense surprise that Easter Sunday was a very good day for sales on Amazon for Skylar Hamilton Burris’ Conviction. She had nudged her way to #19 in best sellers for Religious Romance. Although she had been in the top 10 for three months running in 2007 for that category, the course of her sales had dropped over time, and it was nice to see her in the same territory as her original heyday. As Amazon has not yet dropped their discount for buyers down any further in correspondence to our dropping our discount through distribution to 70%, I can’t credit the rash of sales to the lower discount. But I’ll still take them, thank you very much.

What the sales on Easter or my being online to observe them says about me and society in general, I’m not certain. I imagine nothing good. Commerce today truly is a 24/7, 365 day a year activity.

Whatever it says, however, is small potatoes when compared in the light of our fearless leader, Barak Obama, and his stated intention of no longer backing Israel as a nation. In fact, as Hal Lindsay reports in his video of 04/10/2009, Barak is sending strong warnings to Israel to back off from defending itself against Iran.

To clarify what this means for America, read this quote from the accompanying article on the same page as the video (article posted 04/03/2009):

“And Israel Today is reporting that the Obama administration is not just cool to Israel. It alleges that President Obama “is about to break America’s long ties of friendship with Israel, and maybe even take steps toward the dissolution of the Jewish state.” If true, America is in even more serious trouble than even the most pessimistic assessment can reflect. If America betrays Israel, then America is rejecting the Word of Israel’s God. The Bible warns, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) Fearful? That is an understatement of Biblical proportions.”

Cozying up with a country that views us as an enemy and declares us the Great Satan to stab another country that has backed us unwaveringly is dirty under any circumstances. Doing it to Israel, conspiring to tear apart a country that God ordained, is beyond dirty. It’s suicidal.

Everyone have a nice day.

Here’s one if you write in the same genre as George Orwell’s 1984 or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (funny, the classic future society gone mad tales all have numbers in them. . . hmm):

Let’s take a look twenty years into the future. Let’s make it the year 2020. Embryonic stem cell research is going full speed ahead. In fact, the touted benefits of embryonic stem cell miracle cures is so much in demand that the current abortion rate can’t keep up. So the health industry, probably entirely government ran by then, begins paying women to have abortions. The more enterprising of those women quickly realize that they can make a decent living simply doing what comes natural: getting pregnant. Then doing the unnatural: having an abortion. They collect the bounty on their fetus and start the process all over again.

Mankind has been reduced to a herd of cattle, producing calves for the slaughter.

Jeremiah 19:9 (King James Version)

 ⁹And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

 Back to the Present. The current prevailing argument agains embryonic stem cell research is that there is no scientific evidence supporting that embryonic stem cells are any more beneficial than stem cells taken from mature, live subjects. I really hate that argument. Why? Because, eventually, I’m sure, they’ll find something that an embryonic stem cell can do that one taken from a living, mature, consenting donor can not. What then? Do we as a church and a nation then give it our blessing? We can not win this argument based on scientific evidence. This is an argument that can only be won on moral grounds.

In the end, alas, I think we will lose. That does not excuse us from fighting the good fight. The last thing we need is to go from abortion being an unsavory choice of last resort to a desired and lucrative industry for the mother (we already know that it is a desirable and lucrative industry for the abortion providers).

If you think I’m being overly pessimistic and fantastic in my futuristic book idea, I beg you to simply observe the changes in how a woman’s pregnancy is referred to today. When I carried my children, I was having a ‘baby’. Today’s women refer to their child as a ‘fetus’. One young pregnant mother I was recently acquainted with referred to her pregnant belly as the ‘fetus’ so often and so consistently, that when she asked my recommendation on a name, I suggested she name the baby Fetus. Why cause confusion?

If you’re wondering, no, she didn’t appreciate my comment. But my point is the thought of a baby not being a baby is now so prevalent in our younger society and the act of abortion is now so normal in our society, that I don’t think it’s such a leap for it to go from being a dirty little secret to being a ‘heroic act of generosity’ to offer up your child as a sacrifice for someone else to have improved quality of life. The media already holds those who donate organs up as near saints, and, indeed, one can argue that they are uncommonly generous, but never forget that the agenda extends much further than getting a willing participant’s liver or kidney. The preferred source of organs and stem cells, from an industry profit point of view, needs to be much more consistent, much less sporadic, and inexhaustible. How ever is one to make money on a resource that is frustratingly inconsistent?

Profit, my friends, is always the end of the game. And if one can make a profit on a product that is simultaneously extending your lifespan to unheard of possibilities (which gives you more time to enjoy those profits), than why should a little thing like the morality of taking human lives be of any consequence?

As if history hasn’t proven that philosophy correct on far too many occassions.

Everyone have a good day.

Book Review: The Shack by William P. Young — Rating 1 Star

First, I’m not going to do a Market Analysis as I normally do when doing a book review because the book has been on the best-seller list for some time and I think it suffices to say that the publisher (in this case, Wind Blown Media — a start up by the author) is making oodles.

Second, I think it needs to be said, and often, that this book is FICTION. According to the author’s own web-site blog, he began this work as a story for his kids, and he felt that the ‘ghost-writing’ slant was a clever little trick (paraphrasing here) that would entertain his children. Even he admits that he never expected the amount of problems that this ‘ghost-writing’ angle has brought on, including people that want to buy plane tickets to fly to Oregon and meet Mackenzie Philips (the main character).

I want to break this review into two parts: the first part being a somewhat standard review that I would apply to any book, including writing style, voice, story, etc.

The second part, I want to deal more specifically with the message of the book, something I don’t normally do, but as this is a wildly popular Christian read, and I am a Christian Publisher, I think the message can not and should not be ignored.

Review: Part I

The Shack meets its original intention of being a little book meant for family members and friends. It’s written from an extremely personal point of view and addresses the accidental (but not murder) death of the author’s niece at the age of five by creating a story of a little girls murder and the father’s grief. As a book for the general public, it has an easy to read feel to it, a warm, engaging voice that welcomes the general public into a ever growing circle of friends. I think this intimacy has much to do with its popularity.

From a strictly writing point of view, there were some problems with it, although none major. Probably the largest of these issues was the lack of complete believability of Mack’s, the main character, grief over his daughter’s murder. We’re told he was grieving, we believe he was grieving (what father wouldn’t), but we never are shown that he is grieving. We’re asked to take the author’s word for it, and we do. However, I think it would have been more convincing, when meeting the other characters of the book, the author representation of the Trinity in the form of a black woman, a carpenter and something aking to a wood-sprite, if Mack asked after his daughter. Instead, we’re treated to a long, cranium-distending discourse on the true nature of God, his plan for human-kind, and a host of other nearly impersonal theocracy. Maybe God would not choose to reveal information on Mack’s daughter immediately, but I can’t imagine a grief-stricken father not asking immediately.

So, as a reader, I get the overall sense that the author put his character into a situation that he was not willing to truly write him through and out the other side. He would have been well-served to dish up a little less melodrama at the beginning of the story (melodrama –noun 1. a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot at the expense of characterization. — emphasis mine.) and instead build his story the old fashioned way, through characters, actions and dialogue.

The characters in the story all looked alike. They sounded alike, they acted alike. Well, this should be natural, you  may be thinking, because three of these characters are representing the Trinity. So shouldn’t they be alike? But we’re dealing with a work of fiction. If a writer chooses to have God in his work as one of his characters, that is fine, but why go to the trouble of introducing the entire Trinity of God if you have no other intention of varying the characters than by appearance? I think the book would have been more effective in characterization if the author had the protagonist dealing with one God character and leave out all the complications of trying to have one character in three different people.

If the author had reduced his God character down to one, however, much of his story would have simply dissipated into nothing. Fully eigthy percent of the story relies on the ‘visuals’ the author supplies as his protagonist moves from one God character to another in his journey. Paragraphs are spent on the lush, eden like garden the shack occupies, on the sensations of walking on water or penetrating a cliff behind a water fall. Do away with the constant traipsing between Father, Son and Holy Ghost, all in human forms, and the writer would be left with nothing but about ten pages of a very fluffy college level essay titled “Conversations with God” (a title that the author says he first intended only to find that it had already been used for another popular book).

My end analysis from a writing stance is that this is an okay book on the terms that it was orignally written: an imaginative look at what a conversation with God may look like from the author’s point of view.

Review: Part II

Before I go further, I just want to mention that I am trying to not be harsh. As a Christian Publisher, I’m leery of throwing stones at other Christian works. I did far more research on this book than on others I have reviewed in order to try to get a handle on what exactly the author’s intention was in writing it, and what his response has been to its best-selling popularity. His intentions, from what I can gather, were not ominous nor blashpemous. He does seem to admittedly have an axe to grind with what he terms the instutional church (In an interview with World Magazine‘s Susan Olasky, Young, who is no longer a member of a church, said “(The institutional church) doesn’t work for those of us who are hurt and those of us who are damaged. . . . If God is a loving God and there’s grace in this world and it doesn’t work for those of us who didn’t get dealt a very good hand in the deck, then why are we doing this? . . . Legalism within Christian or religious circles doesn’t work very well for people who are good at it. And I wasn’t very good at it.”^{[3] – source: Wikipedia). How he has handled its popularity, however, is questionable.}

Before I give you my conclusions, I want to present some definitions of terms that I will be using, just so we are all really clear on what I am discussing.

Truth: 8. (often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life. (emphasis mine).

dogma: 4. a settled, established opinion, belief or principle.

experience: 1. a particular instance of personally enountering or undergoing something.

Okay, with those definitions in mind, let me explain (or try to) what fundamenally concerned me about this book and its portrayal of the Holy Trinity. First was the author manipulation and contrivance through melodrama. The author intentionally gives his words ‘weight’ by insinuating that a). the book is true (it isn’t. The characters are made up and the situation, although heart-breakingly similar to real life occurrences, is made up: hence the book being FICTION), and b). using an emotionally charged situation of having a little girl murdered. If you take either or both of these elements away from the book, you are left with words that carry less weight in the reader’s mind (and heart). If the author truly has something profound to present, why would he need to manipulate and contrive?

Second, God is not the author of confusion.

In writing this book, William P. Young authored confusion, a confusion that even he, himself, is unwilling or unable to clarify. On the subject ot the books ‘truth’ he offers this (from his website): “So… is all this real?  Is all this true?  I suppose each of us has to decide for ourselves, don’t we?”

Being someone who has, myself, had some very strong experiences with God, I am not one who immediately falls into the camp of ‘you can’t rely on experience. Period’. I think that God is alive in our lives and that He does give us experiences. I also believe that for these experiences to be true and not just perceived, that they must be compared to the Word of God and line up consistently with how God has revealed himself in the pages of the Bible. In other words, are they consistent with the Character of God that God Himself has revealed?

That being said, after reading The Shack, but before doing any research, I felt that the author must be operating from, at the very least, a perceived experience. That he must have had some tragedy in his life, went through the grieving process and had stumbled across this scenario as a means of coping. And who am I to tell him that his experience, even if perceived, were not real? I doubted that it was more than perceived, in other words, I doubted that what had occurred was an actuality, but there again, I feel hot in a room, my husband feels cold, and who of us is perceiving the truth of the temperature? The author’s experience did not fit with any of my experiences, but more importantly, it did not fit with the Truth of the Bible. It did not align itself with the Revelation of God through His Written Word.  It didn’t even merely expand upon the Revelation of God, but fundamentally changed the character of God revealed.

Upon researching the author, I found that he was not even writing from a perceived experience, but had unequivacally fabricated the all of it. He took the circumstance of his niece’s death, added himself as a character in the form of Mackenzie Philips, threw his children and wife in as the other characters, and used this as a launching point to spin out his folksy view of how he envisioned God, the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ. In other words he remade God and the Trinity to suit himself with little regard to the Truth of the Bible or its central message of Jesus Christ being the Way, the Truth and the Light.

Salvation by Jesus Christ goes from being THE TENET of Christianity to this lukewarm exchange in the book (taken from page 182):

(Jesus says), “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They are Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. . . I have no desire to make them Christian. . .”

“Does that mean,” Mack asked, “that all roads will lead to you?”

“Not at all,” smiled Jesus. “Most roads don’t lead anywhere.”

Most roads don’t lead anywhere? But notice the author doesn’t unequivacally say that only One Road leads to Salvation?

Let’s throw another definition in here:

Christian: -noun 7. a person who believes in Jesus Christ; adherent of Christianity

Now look at the above passage from the book, specifically, “. . .I have no desire to make them Christian. . .”

So Jesus is telling us that he has no desire to have people believe in Him?

This is the kind of mealy-mouthed, maybe He is, maybe He isn’t the Saviour and the only way to God found throughout the entire book. It is a nice, comfortable, popular read simply because it has no absolutes.

Well, here’s an absolute: I absolutely do not recommend reading this book. Rating 1 star.

This morning, I learned a few interesting facts about Noah’s Ark:

The Ark was made out of Cypress wood (I knew that), but did you know that it is the same wood that Jews used for caskets?

God instructed that the Cypress be Pitched (tarred) on the outside and the inside, and it is a representation of the Blood of Christ (atonement), sealing the ship from judgment.

Did you also know that contrary to what you have always seen, the Ark had no prow? It had no prow because it had no rudder. It had no ‘captain’s’ wheel. There was no steering it. It was in fact, built in the same shape as a Jewish casket.

The Ark had three levels, each a representation of the Trinity of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

The door was three stories tall, giving you entrance to all of these levels.

It only had one window. It’s view was straight up, or heavenward. Because of this one window’s vantage, Moses and his family were unable to see the flood waters (or, they were not given to even see God’s judgment on the earth, they were spared even witnessing it).

When Christ died on the Cross and was Resurrected, the Day of His Resurrection was the anniversary date of the Ark coming to rest on Mt. Ararat.

What Mao didn’t realize was that his programs which consisted of growing the infrastructure of China on one hand and mandating that all citizens study his ‘little Red Book’ on the other hand set the table for Christ to do a huge movement in China, using the groundwork Mao unwittingly laid.

First, the modern-day infrastructure allowed penetration into regions of China that had long been remote and isolated. Second, the forcing of education of Mao’s little Red Book brought forth a community of small home-based study groups. Groups that in many instances found studying the little Red Book a waste of time, and eagerly latched onto studying the Bible instead.

So what was the point the program hosts reached, and which I reached right along with them, before the words were even out of their mouths? That politics are not the answer to our problems. That even if this election doesn’t go the way we hope or think it should, that God is still in control, and all things work to His good.

I bring this up not because I think McCain is going to lose, I still firmly believe he is going to win. I do bring it up because none of us know the full extent of God’s Will or the workings in which he uses to bring it about. Win or lose, Obama or McCain for President, we can rest assured that the end is still God’s glory, one way or the other.

In brief, here is what I am hearing:

Lack of Hope: this is the Barrack Obama Message. You have no wealth. If you had wealth, now it is gone. You will never have wealth in your future. So, my solution is to take what wealth is left out there, divvy it up, and give it to you and everybody else. I am also taking away all incentive for you to hope that you may someday have wealth by punishing you with onerous taxes if you should by some miracle achieve wealth under my tax plan.

Hope: this is the John McCain message. Yes, things are tough. But I’m confident they are going to get better. You can still attain wealth if you work hard and make good decisions. I refuse to take the incentive of hope for future wealth away from you. I will not tax you for working hard and achieving.

Blessed Hope: this is the Jesus Christ message. Follow Me, and you will have the wealth of eternal life. Non-taxable.

Everyone have a good Thursday.

Survivor tonight!

I started this because when attending business school I maintained a 4.0 gpa the entire time. I learned that if I write things down, they stick. And since the Bible is the most important material I will ever study, I write it down. I want it to stick.

This morning I finished up Obadiah, which was gratifyingly short. I knew I was getting near the end of the Old Testament, and flipped through the remaining books to where the New Testament starts. I can’t explain my excitement to find that there are very few Old Testament books left for me to go through, and that the majority of them are fairly short also.

I looked at the calendar, looked at the slim amount of pages I have yet to do held between my thumb and forefinger, and estimated that the year 2008 and my study of the Old Testament should arrive  near simultaneously.

On my personal journey of faith, the year 2009 seems as though it will be one of important new beginnings.

Everyone have a good Wednesday.

Nice.

But there’s more to my enthusiasm than seeing a woman of about my age (she’s one year older) with a passel of kids (she has five, I have four), one with special needs (likewise), with a stable marriage (twenty years for her, twenty-two for me) espousing and exhibiting the same values I have (pro-life, pro-Christ) come to prominence in the political arena. Of course I’m enthusiastic on a personal level.

I’m also enthusiastic on a business level.

I think nearly everyone can agree that this has been a benchmark year in politics and for the U.S. in general. On a social strides forward scale, we have a no-lose situation: either the first afro-american in the white house, or the first woman v.p. Some support and will vote for these candidates based on race or sex, but I believe the majority will support and vote for them based on their ideologies: who best reflects their world-view, and will govern in a manner consistent with their world-views.

That being said, is it any wonder to see that I am encouraged to see the inital outpouring of support for the female candidate with the ‘antiquidated’ views of being against killing babies and striving to live a God-filled purpose driven life? Not only does this encourage me that Christians are still alive and well throughout the country, and still in large numbers, but that we do still have a voice, and that, on occasion, we still know how to use it.

It’s too early to tell if the early back-lash against the media in particular and against anti-Christian policies in general is going to last or fade away into nothingness, but let’s assume, just for a moment, on the optimistic side. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the back-lash turns into a long-term trend. A revival, if you will (is it possible? God willing, it is possible.)

I could write tons about the social and political implications. I could go into speculations of what our world would look like if we addressed the underlying issues of why women get abortions, like the economic disadvantages, the lack of family networks, the lack of father participation, and so on and so forth, instead of telling our young women to just abort (as if all the other problems are miraculously solved by killing someone) as we have for the past 30 years. But I don’t want to get into all of that right now. What I want to look at is a ‘revival’ from a business point of view.

If we are seeing the beginnings of a revival in our country, isn’t it nice to be a Christian publisher?

If revival becomes a trend, how will that effect our marketing? How will that effect Christian books market-share? How will that effect supply and demand?

These are the things that I think about as I watch Sarah Palin continue to dominate the news. Will Christian reading go from being a near underground activity (one nearly feels as reticent about purchasing Christian subject matter in a public place as one would buying porn. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but you know what I mean). Can we, as a nation, go once again to where being a church-goer meant that you were part of the main-stream, with a main-stream voice, instead of relegeated to being a cult-like nut on the verge of being a terrorist?

Ironic that I had recommited to my original vision for Double Edge prior to the arrival of Sarah on the scene. I began re-evaluating our pub schedule and weeding out works that were not reflecting our commitment to publishing Christian positive works. I began revamping the web-site, changing our catch-line from ‘Christian Friendly’ to ‘Christian Publishing’ period.

These were small changes on the outside, but they reflected my deeper conviction on the inside that we were stuck in a middle ground: trying to appeal to both the committed Christian and the luke-warm Christian, or even Christian ambivalent, simultaneously. I had already come to the conclusion in my heart that we didn’t need to widen our blanket of appeal, but narrow it.

Our works definately are not going to be sought after by everyone.

But that’s okay. That’s where my convictions have led me, even prior to the new wind blowing. Maybe I caught a whiff of the first breeze. Maybe God whispered, and I heard. Maybe I’m just one small part of a very big whole.

And maybe my narrowing the appeal to an audience actively pro-Christ is going to encompass more people than I had previously thought.

Everyone have a good Monday, and a good week!