Summer is here. It is a beautiful season! Already it’s hot in Southern Indiana. Are you ready to begin planting flowers or have you done that? Do you like to garden, too?
Gardening is something that soothes me. Nurturing seeds and seedlings into plants is relaxing and produces resulting that can be seen. The plants yield vegetables, fragrant herbs, or beautiful flowers. I love it all. Do you? My grandparents on both sides gardened and it is in my blood.
Of course, it takes care to get the desired results. I can’t just scatter the seeds and hope everything works. Seeds must be carefully planted and watered. Fertilizing or feeding helps give the plants nourishment to grow strong. I will want to protect them from things seeking to destroy them by eating them. Here we not only have bugs but critters like bunnies, groundhogs, and even deer that like to munch on tender young plants. Most importantly, they will also need sun. That will be beyond my control. When the little seeds have everything they need, voila, we are rewarded with plants.
A couple of years ago I purchased yellow squash seeds. I love yellow squash and have many recipes. The seeds went in the ground and I made certain they had everything they needed to thrive. I watered, fertilized, watched, and waited. The seeds sprouted into three tiny plants. Wow, I was happy. They continued to grow and finally the yellow blossoms appeared.
Yellow squash dishes ran through my head for what would be first. Would I have enough to share with others? Yes, more blossoms formed. I was excited. Finally the flower turned into a vegetable. Oh, no. A green zucchini! The seeds had been mispackaged. We like zucchini, but not three more plants worth when one had been planted.
My lesson was you reap what you sow. I thought I was planting yellow squash but really all along had zucchini seeds. I had a harvest of something I hadn’t anticipated. Even though I thought I was doing everything right, one thing at the beginning spoiled everything.
How true is this in areas of our life? We think we are doing something and put forth all of our energy to it. When it is finished we find we were off track and are reaping something we had not expected? It can be accidental like the seeds. Someone else tripped me on that one. Perhaps it is known but at the time it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Ignoring someone in a store or not inviting someone to your party might seem innocent, but what happens later?
Maybe we think our children aren’t watching how we treat some people, and grow up to mistreat them because we did. Our work habits are excessive to provide for our family and now our family has no time for us. Watch carefully what you sow so you don’t reap something unexpected.
Red poppies are a symbol of remembrance for those who died in war. People, men and women, wear them to honor those who died in war. Especially on Memorial Day you will see a lot of red poppies.
Scouts can be seen placing flags on the graves in the National Cemetery. What a great honor for a young scout to do this. I have a grandson that does this. His Dad is a former Marine so he is very respectful of our military.
We live in a great country with strong roots. Many people have lived and died for this land of ours. Let us always remember you brave soldiers. Those that stood and stand between us and the enemy. Pray for them, our leaders, and our country. May God continue to bless America.
It isn’t within man to guide his own steps—or a woman. Caught between a wagon train and the deep blue sea, Agnes Remington Dalrumple, Remi for short, chooses the overland journey west over crossing the Atlantic with her mother and step-father. She decides to go to California and try to fine the father she’s never known though she’s never been on her own. Thwarted at every turn, almost every effort is dashed until a widower’s thirteen-year-old daughter intervenes on her behalf. How can the headstrong woman place herself under the responsibility of the young girl’s father, a perfect stranger? But if she doesn’t, her journey ends right there in Saint Joseph, Missouri. On the Oregon/California trail, will her pride and independence deter her from the destiny God has prepared for her?
For research in December, Caryl McAdoo hit the trail—literally, the Oregon / California Trail—beginning in St. Jo, Missouri with the Napa Valley being her destiny. No wonder readers enjoy her novels so well! She prays her story brings God glory, and He blesses the award-winning, best-selling novels with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With forty-three titles (thirty-three in the last four-and-a-half years), it’s obvious she loves writing almost as much as singing the new songs the Lord gives her. (Listen to a few at YouTube.) Celebrating fifty years being married to Ron, her high school sweetheart, she counts their four children and eighteen grandsugars life’s best blessings. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.
A Father-Daughter Genealogy Team Link Present to Past on Family Trees Meri flunks out of medical school—and runs from her parents. Genealogist Jillian Parisi-Duffy’s digging traces the family long tradition of doctors to an ancestor saved during a yellow fever outbreak in Memphis in 1878. As Meri’s family closes in, Jillian gets the final puzzle pieces in place just in time for them all to learn the truth. The Inn at Hidden Run is the first book in the Tree of Life series. Readers will come back to backdrop of a lovely mountain town of Canyon Mines again and again to explore and celebrate unforgettable family stories that inspire them to connect with their own family histories and unique faith journeys.
Olivia Newport’s novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and twentysomething children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.
Amid literature and lattes, three women come together and find that sharing one’s journey with best friends makes life richer.
Katherine Reay is the national bestselling and award-winning author of Dear Mr. Knightley, Lizzy and Jane, The Brontë Plot, A Portrait of Emily Price, The Austen Escape, and The Printed Letter Bookshop. All Katherine’s novels are contemporary stories with a bit of classical flair. Katherine holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and isa wife, mother, former marketer, and avid chocolate consumer. After living all across the country and a few stops in Europe, Katherine now happily resides outside Chicago, IL. You can meet her at 
A fifty-day devotional for Pentecost featuring the words and teachings of writings of faithful men and women of God, both classic and contemporary authors, regarding the miraculous power available through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Includes excerpts from Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, William Seymour, Aimee Semple McPhearson, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Andrew Murray, E. W. Kenyon, R. A. Torrey, John Wesley, Mary K. Baxter, Guillermo Maldonado, James Goll, Bill Johnson, and many more. Let this collection of charismatic classics help you to celebrate the wild tongues of fire that signified the coming of Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and be filled anew with the powerful presence of God.
“She is tolerable, I suppose, but there is rather too much of her to tempt me.” Overhearing Mr. Darcy’s rude dismissal of her shocks and mortifies Elizabeth Bennet to the core. She is living her worst fear, and it galvanizes her into action. Soon, the gentleman cannot keep his eyes from her, but can she forgive his thoughtless judgment of her appearance and character? Especially since he faces a worthy competitor for her attention? Who will win the lady’s hand, along with the right to love her through thick or thin?
Robin Helm’s books reflect her love of music, as well as her fascination with the paranormal and science fiction. Previously published works include The Guardian Trilogy: Guardian, SoulFire, and Legacy (Christian paranormal romance); the Yours by Design series: Accidentally Yours, Sincerely Yours, and Forever Yours ( ChristianTime Swap romance), and Understanding Elizabeth (Christian Regency romance). She contributed to A Very Austen Christmas: Austen Anthologies, Book 1, an anthology featuring like-minded authors, in 2017, and A Very Austen Valentine: Austen Anthologies, Book 2, in 2018. New releases for 2019 include More to Love, a stand-alone Christian historical sweet romance dealing with body image; Lawfully Innocent, a Christian historical U.S. Marshal romance book in the Lawkeepers series; Maestro, a Christian historical sweet romance featuring a brilliant musician and his student; and A Very Austen Romance: Austen Anthologies, Book 3. She lives in sunny South Carolina where she teaches piano and adores her one husband, two married daughters, and three grandchildren.
Abba's Prayer Warrior Princess 