Grace Livingston Hill follower

 I decided to study the romance novels of Grace Livingston Hill ( 1865-1947) . She has written at least 93 books. I also used GLH for my senior project at Oral Roberts University. I consider her the great great grandmother of inspirational romance novels.  She basically paved the way for Janette Oke  and Karen Kingsbury. I talked about  her influence in my senior paper. 
  For the next several weeks, I would like to use her as an example to fix the pitfalls in my own writing.  Those pitfalls would be too many characters in the first few pages of my manuscript. I recently finished reading  the White Lady.  GLH basically makes sure to introduce at least the main character Constance Weatherill. We learn that Constance is about to lose 5,000 dollars of her inheritance. So, she must find a way to solve her problem. In terms , GLH characters she keeps it simple for the reader. I realized I haven't done such a great job at that:( I've gotten so involved with having so many characters I lose sight of my plot.  Okay, I am going back to GLH. For the White Lady, she had a nine characters. When she did add a character, it had to have significance to the plot. She didn't add a character, just because she loved how it sounded. When she does finally introduce the potential love interest--John Endicott--until Chapter 9.

In the next blog, I will analyze her book Ariel Custer for her character introduction.

The quest for God's will

In trying to find God's will, many Christians think if the make one step in a direction. It is quite possible the "Big God' could slap them down. I think when we are driven by fear, we get into whole idea that we are settling.

 Settling is the worst thing to say about making a decision. So, in the quest for the will of God--we start looking for word of knowledge or the audible voice of the Lord.

 We can get into trouble looking for the voice of God. I think desire of an audible voice can put a believer on quest for craziness. An audible  voice could possibly make us wee our pants. Or you would say "I waddna ready fo dat."

The audible voice quest could be tied to hyper-spiritualilty craziness.  From looking to God's will we try to get Prophet Anna to tell us the next step in our lives. Then we start playing the scripture roulette instead of Russian roulette.

Would love to hear about your ideas about finding God's will for your life.  Please leave me comments!!!

God's will and hyper-spirituality

A great friend gave me a book about Knowing God's Will by M.Blaine Smith. This has been excellent book to read. In knowing God's will we (Christians)  have made to be some mystical place. God's will is for his children to follow and love him.  Sometimes Christians in the Charismatic bubble  can lean to heavily on the hyper-spiritual of looking for God's will.
A blogger called Evangelical Detox had an excellent description of people who are hyperspiritual.  A type of spirituality that seeks to find and pronounce the defense of one's theology in everything they see or attach a spiritual element to even the most minor of things.  According to Mr.Smith, people go so crazy in looking for his will for making sure the find the restaraunt by praying. I believe the hyper-spirituality can become an addiction.

I really don't believe God has given us a spirit of fear. In trusting and in knowing God's will he call us and stop us if we are not following his will.


 Part 2: Is coming soon!

Trust me in the equation of life

I don't know what God has in store for me this year and next year. Yet, I still struggle with trusting him. When I was in twenties, I was sure I had God in the bag.  I realize now, I don't have it.  God is calling me to continue to pursue him.  I have found myself pursuing the temporal things.  To be honest, I want more of life. The problem with wanting more; it easy to leave God out of the equation.  God does not want to me to leave him out of the equation. 

Okay, I am not in to  math.  I am a terrible counter and subtractor. But, I realize if I try to subtract God from my life, I am going to be in big trouble.  This has been my trouble during this semester.  I realize the problem with the trusting him in the equation is my problem with surrendering.  I have sung "I surrender all."  The question is do we really want to surrender our lives to him?   Today, I want to give him all my life to him. When I do this, I am able to trust him.



Love,
Le Le

Bachelorette mayhem

I don't know if you like the harem shows, but you can watch the Bachelorette or Bachelor.  These  shows seem to encourage the emotional adultery.  I admit I watched the earlier seasons of these shows. Until my dad said "Why would you watch those shows?"  My lazy excuse was "I like Sam Redstone," These shows give us the illusion everything will work out.  I can only say one couple who has succeeded is Tricia and Ryan.
What decreases their chances of  having a successful marriage is that they live together. After the lovely Bachelor or Bachelorette has selected the final person. They go and live together and then the relationship goes sour. If I was an adviser for the show,  I would tell them to date like normal people and never never live together.  ( Look at my post on cohabitation.)
What does this teach us to be involved in emotional promiscuity for young men and women? It almost teaches us to be in a voyeuristic society.
If you like your emotional promiscuity shows indulge in it like chocolate. In order for you to avoid the emotional promiscuity remember the scripture Proverbs 4:23.

Miss Leah loves you.

Co-habitation

As, I get closer to my forties and see the prospects of marriage dwindles. I notice people are living together. I wonder why this is such a trend? In my lifetime, I have closed my eyes and ears when people say live together. In my own naivety, I was hoping people were living like brother and sister. Umm, can you say disillusional? What disturbs me the most are Christians living in together. I have trouble figuring that one out. Until, Glory hallelujah I learned something.
Here are the statistics for why people cohabit ate:
1. They are less religious. Mmm possibly. I have seen both sides of the coin.
2.  Have been divorced. Makes sense the woman or the man is thinking "I don't want to make a mistake again. (But my dear ones, do you know that your rate for divorce doubles when you cohabit-ate? Miss Leah is just saying.)
3. Fatherless
4. High levels of discord.
 Ladies, if you are in between ages of 25-44. You might consider getting a college degree. Because According to the National Marriage Project in 2010, 75 percent of those who never finished high school have cohabited.
Okay, when it is all said and done. Cohabiting with the opposite sex might work, but at what cost?  Think about it before you do it.

Miss Leah loves you:)