I never had a burning passion to write a book. Like a teapot simmering on a stove’s back burner, my idea to write a novel also sat.
Write a book? Ninety-some thousand words? I couldn’t imagine such a feat.
But the teapot on the back of the stove kept simmering.
The meaning of love has taken new depths during my eight months and counting of pregnancy. It has also made me more appreciative of Jesus’ ultimate love for me.
Depression is a common illness, but it seems more people have experienced it since the pandemic began. It can be hard for those who don’t deal with it themselves to know how to support their loved ones who do. If someone you care about struggles with depression, here’s what you can do to help:
How do you anticipate a season if you’re dreading it? For some, this year has been full of blessings, but for many, it’s been one challenge after another. I feel you. This year has been a mixed bag for me.
The secret is that anticipating Christmas doesn’t depend on our circumstances.
“They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.” (Psalm 92:14 NIV) Late last spring, like a lot of other people during the pandemic, I experimented with container gardening. Conditions were far from ideal when I took the last, wrinkled grape tomato from the basket and just stuck it in…
My husband and I live in an apartment across from a farmer’s field (it’s one of those situations where the city has inched outwards: parking lots and residential neighbourhoods on one side of the road, farmland on the other). I love looking out the window and seeing open space instead of traffic lights, and the…
In 2006 I attended a “Girlfriends Night Out” fellowship at my church. The speaker asked us to rewrite Mary’s conversation with Gabriel beginning in Luke 1:29, but using our names and making it personal. During that period in my life, my children were slowly drifting into their own lives. I knew being a full-time mom…
Does Christmas make you nostalgic? If so, you’re far from alone. This time of year, many of us long, almost painfully, for the traditions we grew up with. My husband and I got married days before Christmas. It came as a rude surprise to discover he expected a star atop the tree, and my family…
[Alyssa Roat] Hold Fast to Dreams
I started my debut novel, Wraithwood, at sixteen. I finished the first draft at seventeen and brought that unpolished manuscript with me to college. I was pursuing a degree in Professional Writing. I’d been promised I’d be published within my first semester. I knew other graduates had gotten their books published in college. This was…
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