Living in the South has many perks, and one of my favorites is the fact that folks speak to complete strangers. There have been very few days when I haven't had a complete stranger smile at me or simply say hello--it's just considered polite manners where I live. I return the favor as well.

Sometimes, a smile or a hello can lift one's spirits. When I speak to someone else and smile, I feel uplifted, too. Besides, who knows what pain can sometimes be hidden behind the smiles we see at church, at the doctor's office, or stores we frequent? We often think that our problems are just too much, too insurmountable, and too difficult, but we Christians should know better! God tells us often in His Word that He will never leave us, He'll go with us through the valleys, and that He will guide us. Ever heard the saying, "If you're happy, don't forget to notify your face"? Besides, who wants to encounter someone who looks like he or she has been drinking sauerkraut juice?? However, being the frail humans that we are, we sometimes fall into Satan's trap of discouragement. FULL POST

When our three daughters were babies, we began a book of letters for each of them to be presented on graduation day. Each year we pulled out the scrapbook and wrote a new letter detailing how they had grown, projects they were involved in, and words of wisdom we wanted to impart to them. Each entry also included an age appropriate picture of them with friends or family.

To add to the remembrance book, we asked the children’s grandparents to write a letter to each granddaughter to share bits of advice with them and lessons they had learned in life. We placed this in the book along with a picture of each grandparent.

Later, we asked each grandparent if we could videotape them telling us about their growing up years, education, testimony, romance, marriage, and ministry. We even did this with Chuck’s grandmother, which would be our children’s great-grandmother. My, the stories she had to share! Now that she is gone, as well as all four grandparents, the letters and videos are all the more meaningful. FULL POST

In this expanded review that appears on Amazon.com., former Foreign Service Officer in the US Department of State turned novelist, Ann Gaylia O'Barr, incorporates her experiences and love for travel--especially train rides--into the engaging novel, Distant Thunder.

In a society that reveres youth arguably to a fault, Ms. O'Barr challenges that concept when her forty-something heroine Brooke Rohmer, confronts her fears through stepping out of the rush of our increasingly more technology-driven world to a quieter time. A time of train rides. Of interacting with people. And just maybe, a time of learning to love again.

Distant Thunder, like the world of trains, moves at a more leisurely pace. It explores characters' "inner-workings" while deftly weaving mystery, international intrigue--and a devastating secret--into the tapestry of an unforgettable love story. FULL POST

Fair. Committed. Hard-working. Respectful of people. Ready to laugh. Solid. Focused. A team player. Christlike. These are some of the key attributes of leaders that show up repeatedly in brainstorm sessions when I’ve done seminars on leadership for various publishing companies and conferences over the past nearly 30 years.

But I believe there are 4 key traits of a leader—whether in the workplace, at home, or in community service—that are rarely discussed (mainly, because they can often be/feel uncomfortable). In this blog, I’ll hit the highlights of the first two.

1. A leader is real. In the classic children’s tale, The Velveteen Rabbit, author Margery Williams spins the story of a velveteen rabbit, nestled in a young boy’s stocking one Christmas. The young boy plays with his new toy for a while, but in all the excitement of opening presents he forgets about the rabbit. Cast aside, the velveteen rabbit lives in the nursery closet, snubbed by the more expensive mechanical toys around him. His only friend is the wise old Skin Horse, a very special toy. One day, as they are together in the Nursery, they have a conversation about being real: it might mean you’re a little shabby looking to others—your coat might be rubbed thin, a button or an eye might be slightly askew. But, as the wise Skin Horse says, “Once you are Real [to others] you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always. Being “real” in professional relationships means that we risk—we risk knowing others and being known by them. It means weeping with those who weep; rejoicing with those who rejoice. It means taking a sack-lunch break to get to know a colleague. It means providing a listening ear when a coworker is struggling with job responsibilities or problems at home. FULL POST

Recently, my friend Lisa and I were comparing notes on our creative endeavors. My friend has recorded two CDs of compelling worship music. I have three published biblical fiction novels and a fourth in process of being published. Both of us strongly believe that these are God-directed projects. Both of us pushed to get these done in a timely fashion and believed that we would see great things. Both of us have had excellent feedback from those who have listened to/read our work but have been disappointed that the books/CDs have not sold on a larger scale.

What’s going on?

I have a two-part theory.

First, I believe that when God tells you to do something, do it right away. This isn’t only because “slow obedience is no obedience” (to borrow a lesson my son learned in first grade), but rather because if we were to wait six months, one year, five years, ten years to finally write that book or record that CD or paint that picture, it wouldn’t be the same final product. We’re constantly changing (along with our circumstances) and that affects our creative output. If I had stalled when God told me to write Polished Arrows, I would at best have had a different book and at worst entirely missed the anointing God planned. FULL POST

I just had the greatest pleasure of reading and doing the final look-over on an incredible manuscript called The Train Baby’s Mother by Sharon Bernash Smith (OakTara Publishers). Putting aside the fact that the author is a special friend and as Sharon likes to put it, “sister from another mister,” the story is riveting from cover to cover.

The story comes from a new slant about a holocaust survivor. Though I was enthralled each page of the book, there is one particular section of the story that sticks in my mind. I will never forget the emotion I felt while reading it.

The woman and her family (which included her husband, newborn girl, young son, her mom and dad) had just been forced from their home and forced onto the trains bound for the concentration camps. To save the life of her newborn, they expanded a hole they found in the wall of the train and threw the baby out into the snow, in the hopes that the children playing nearby would notice and save her.

Following this, the train stopped at the concentration camp and her family exited from the train. In a series of events, this lady, who had just let her newborn go, was separated first from her young son, husband and dad; they were being sent on a train to another camp. As she watched them board the train, believing in her heart this would be the last time she would ever see her loved ones; a guard is giving instructions to the women. She very quickly realizes there is a separation happening once again. The old are being separated from the young. Letting go of her mom’s hand, the young lady watches her mother walk away in the direction of the crematorium. FULL POST

Yes, I've enjoyed collecting refrigerator magnets for many years, and I have hundreds of these colorful bits of plastic, wood, glass, fabric--what have you. Do I have one from every place I've ever visited or lived? In a word, no. Growing up in a military family and living overseas, there was no such thing as fridge magnets when I was a child. A "dear" friend asked the other day, "Oh, did they even have refrigerators when you were a child??" He should have been prepared to duck . . . really!

More than just colorful bits on our refrigerator, these magnets represent wonderful memories of enjoyable trips and fun places we've visited, as well as the blessings in my life. For without Him in my life, none of the places and events we have visited really matters at all. Photographs are merely a slice of time that reveal split seconds of life, but magnets represent the entirety of the experience. FULL POST

I find myself a bit pensive and very nostalgic as we approach another Mother’s Day—now that my daughters are grown. I’ve been through quite a few of these days created to celebrate the role of motherhood. The first year I was numb and in disbelief as I realized I was the one taken out to lunch to honor my newfound title. After the table was cleared, I left the restaurant completely exhausted, unsure if my meal had been consumed. The entire lunch had been spent trying to calm a crying child, thus proving the reality that I was indeed the mother.

This day has been commemorated by handmade gifts by my young daughters (while dancing with excitement) to the gifts I received during the teenage challenge years. Their gifts or cards in that season proved they still loved me…even though other days I wondered. There was the scurry home from college to do laundry while making sure I felt special even though they were on a college budget. FULL POST

My mother was born in 1924. She grew up in Los Angeles, sometimes living in the city proper, sometimes in an outlying area. Her LA is vastly different from the LA I see in my mind’s eye. The LA I see is a crush of freeways, traffic, and bad tempered drivers. The freeway transitions are always jammed, the bridges and signs covered with graffiti, and parking costs more than lunch.

Mom’s LA was before freeways. It was a wonder world of streetcars, the Big Red Cars and the yellow line, a place where my mom and her brother could walk to the pool in Griffith Park on a summer day. Or if they had a bit of money they could take a streetcar to Ocean Park or just about everywhere. “You’d go to the main terminal,” she tells me, “and stand in line for the streetcar that was going where you wanted to go and for less then a quarter, you could go anywhere. The Long Beach line was the best. It went fast and got you there in record time.”

When she was older she and her girlfriends would ride the streetcar to dance with servicemen. She met my father when he followed her home on the streetcar. That would be creepy today, but they have been married 68 years. Streetcars were for the most part social and safe, the exact opposite of any freeway you could name today. FULL POST

My small group is studying a wonderful book by Max Lucado called Experiencing the Words of Jesus. As always, this book has a lot of insight, and Mr. Lucado is able to relay very deep ideas in simple words. For example, the whole idea of managing our thoughts. He says we manage our weight, our time, our children. How about our thoughts? How about our thoughts indeed. I know mine are totally unmanageable. Or, are they? Just because I'm not managing them, does that mean they can't be managed?

It seems the harder I try to rein in my thoughts, the more they rebel and fly in all directions. If I am determined to listen to the sermon from beginning to end, I will find that ten minutes into my pastor’s talk, my mind is on everything but what he is saying. It doesn't matter that I truly want to hear the sermon; some stubborn part of my mind is planning my afternoon, thinking about the movie I saw last night, wondering what is in the refrigerator at home. Anything but what is happening right in front of me. I can even pause in front of the television when the weather is on, wanting to hear it, and realize that the weatherman is finished and I’ve heard not one word of what he had to say! Am I worse than most people? Can I chalk this up to being older, or being ADD? FULL POST