A Flower Guessing Game for a Chance to Win a Book

Flower 1

Flower 2                                                                                  Flower 3

The Innocent is Ready for Readers

The Innocent is going out to readers. The internet sites are shipping the paper copy of the book already. It's about three weeks before the official release date, but if the book is out there, that date doesn't mean much. I haven't seen it on a store shelf but where I live, don't many stores have bookshelves. Just our local WalMart Store, but they don't always carry my books. Local connections don't mean much in the corporate world. 


First Review Spotted

But I did just see the first review of The Innocent online and I was happy to see that the reviewer highlighted the spiritual thread in the story. Here's a bit of the review from Jeanette's Thoughts "Keep praying. When you feel like giving up...keep praying. When you are hopeless and scared...keep praying. This book had such a powerful message. Keep praying." 

Pray Anyway

My character, Carlyn, did find out that no matter the circumstances in her life, prayer could help. Perhaps I zeroed in on that theme in this book because I was writing it during those last hard months of caretaking for my mother who suffered from dementia before she passed away. Prayer got us through some tough days. Not only my prayers, but many of you and also my Facebook friends lifted Mom and me up in prayer then and also later when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I have a niece going through cancer treatment and she has prayer warriors making her difficult path of treatments easier. Prayer is powerful.

So it was good seeing that the reviewer appreciated the prayers or need for prayers through my new Shaker story.

Yellow Flower Contest - Maybe Win a Book

I did finally figure out a contest to use my yellow flower pictures. For those of you who don't join the conversation on my Facebook Page, let me explain. For thirty days in May I spotted and posted a different yellow flower every day. Then the thirty-first day came and I hunted but couldn't find a new yellow flower. Since then a few more yellow flowers have popped up for me to spot. The game is to guess which photo of the three above is a new yellow flower that wasn't posted on my FB page. Flower 1, flower 2 or flower 3.

Every guess gets an entry, but if you guess the correct new flower (the one that wasn't posted on my FB page during the thirty day run), you'll get two entries. One winner, chosen by random drawing, will win his or her choice of one of my books. That includes the new one, The Innocent, if that's the one the winner wants. Your comments have to be on here by 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 17 when I'll draw and post the winner on my next blog post. Then I'll put up a new set of flower pictures to play again with the winner posted on the next Sunday. Two winners this week and two winners next. Open to all readers over eighteen. 

So I hope some of you will play my flower guessing game. Thanks for reading.

The Hunt for One More Yellow Flower

Yellow Flower #30

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. (Luther Burbank)

If you follow the conversation on my Facebook page, you know I've been posting yellow flowers. I started around the first of May when I spotted a pretty little mystery yellow flower. A mystery because I didn't know the flower's name. So I posted its picture and several chimed in to name it. Trouble is, some named it one thing and some another. But it was fun anyway. 

So when the next day I spotted another little unnamed yellow flower on my walk, I posted it. And I asked if anybody wanted to guess how many days straight I could find a different yellow flower. I thought if I made it a dozen days, that would be good. But the 12th day came and I stumbled across a new flower. And again on the 13th, 14th and on until I got to 30. Most were wild flowers, but some were in my flower beds and one in my sister's. A couple were at greenhouses. One was spotted at church. A few showed up in North and South Carolina when I traveled down that way. But most were spotted in our hay fields and pastures. Some I found in my flower books or on the internet and named. Some I didn't. Some my Facebook friends named for me. Some remained a mystery. 



And then came today and I went in search of elusive yellow flower #31. I went across fields of daisies and grass up past my knees. No new yellow flowers.

I went into the woods and braved the poison ivy and blackberry vines and spider webs. Tried not to think about snakes. Everything lush and green, but no yellow flowers. 

I walked past the thistles but spotted no yellow on their pesky blooms. Not even a Goldfinch that might have posed for a touch of yellow on the thistle blooms that make the seed the little birds love so well. 

Oscar waited patiently while I searched. But although I saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of yellow blooms in the hop clover and daisies and various other yellow flowers that I had already counted and posted in my 30 flower days, I found no new yellow flower. But that's okay. All good things must come to an end and the Black-eyed Susan up top made a great #30 to end the string of yellow flowers. 

Tune in next week to see how I'm going to try to somehow make a giveaway contest out of my collection of yellow flower pictures. Meanwhile, thanks for going on my yellow flower hunt with me. Hope it made you smile. 

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. (Joseph Addison)

The Lesson of the Dandelion

And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:12 (NKJ)

Some time ago, I had the idea of writing a devotional book about things I saw in nature on my walks around the farm. I stalled after coming up with maybe a dozen devotionals and put the project on the shelf. But a few of them,including this one, can be found on my website. I decided to share this one here because a couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a yellow wildflower I had spotted on my walk. That led to another little yellow flower picture and it became a game to see how many days I could spot a different new yellow flower on my walks. I'm up to flower number 16 and until today, I hadn't admitted spotting that yellow dandelion. But now it's the dandelion's day. So that's why I'm posting what I imagine God might have thought after he created the dandelion. 

The Lesson of the Dandelion

   God made the dandelion and said, "It is good. This plant is tough but has a bloom like a spot of sun to make my children smile. It is plentiful so they can eat the leaves and still never lack for flowers." 

He smiled when the seed ball popped up. "Yes, my little children will have fun with that, and look at all the fresh seeds for my songbirds weary from the winter. Yes, it is good."

Ah, the dandelion, that common yellow flower that blooms from spring to fall and even sometimes in the dead of winter after a few days of sunshine. This spring was a particularly good dandelion season. For a while all the lawns and fields were dotted with their sunspots. The roar of lawnmowers soon followed, but dandelions know when to duck their heads so that the next day they can push their white fluffy seed balls high into the air to cover the lawns like snow. It's not hard to imagine God smiling when His little children run out to free the seeds to the wind or when the birds enjoy the springtime feast or when mothers receive wilted bouquets of the blooms from small warm fists. Love in its purest form. 

Yet has there ever been any other plant that more money or labor has been spent attempting to eradicate? We poison it, chop it, dig it out by the roots, and still the dandelion not only survives, but flourishes.

The early Christians had that same staying power as the world tried to destroy them, but they put their trust in Jesus and would not be conquered. They kept spreading the seed of the Good News around the world. 

Are we sunspots of God's love in whatever place we're planted? Do we share the seeds of our faith with those who need nourishment after a hard winter? Do we remember the children to be sure the message is always carried on? Does God look down at what we’re doing and say, "Yes, it is good?"

Remember the Honor Mom Giveaway

A comment with a way to contact you gets you an entry in the giveaway for a chance to win the NKJ study Bible and a copy of one of my books. Another winner will get the set of Rosey Corner books. See the details on my website.

Thanks for reading.