Well, I got this in the mail today:

It’s the advance reader copy of Anything But Simple, scheduled to come out the end of July. To celebrate having made it this far, I am going to host my very first giveaway! Anything But Simple will join the Plainspoken series put out by Herald Press, and it is my pleasure to give one lucky reader the other four books in the series.

Here are each of the books individually, with a description taken from the back cover:

Chasing the Amish Dream by Loren Beachy. “Life in author Loren Beachy’s Amish community brims with old fashioned box socials, smart-alecky students, and pranks involving pink duct tape and black pepper. Meet the young women who manage to be late for church twice in one day and the man with ill fated plans to fight drowsiness by jogging beside his horse and buggy. Cheer for Beachy and his cousins in spirited baseball games, and join community members as they surround and support a family in their loss. With the witty warmth of small-town storytellers like Garrison Keillor and Jan Karon, Beachy invites readers into his life as a creative, wise, and wisecracking Old Order Amish schoolteacher and auctioneer.”

Called to Be Amish by Marlene C. Miller. “Fewer than one hundred outsiders have joined the Amish since 1950—and stayed. Marlene C. Miller is one of them. In this rare memoir, Miller recounts her unhappy and abusive childhood, how she throws herself into cheerleading and marching band, and how she falls in love with the the gentle young Amish man who helps her lace her ice skates. Follow the author on this unusual journey to find out how God’s love called her out of bitterness and depression into the warm embrace of her new Amish community. Learn how she endures the strain of ten children, a hundred-acre farm, and personal tragedies, and find out how she comes close to walking away from it all. ”

Hutterite Diaries by Linda Maendel. “What wold it be like to share your possessions and live in Christian community? Linda Maendel offers a rare glimpse into the daily routines and relational faith of her people, the Hutterian Brethren. With stories ranging from accounts of Hutterite weddings to a hilarious tale of an accidental baptism by salad dressing, Maendel invites readers into her colony. Here, nestled on the prairie of western Canada, children and adults work, play, eat, and worship together, crafting a community of goods and living out an alternative to the individualism and consumerism of mainstream society. Few outsiders know anything about the Hutterites. Maendel’s story invites readers into deeper understanding of this community of faith.”

Simple Pleasures by Marianne Jantzi. “The mother of four young children, Marianne Jantzi tells real stories about parenting with equal measures of wit and warmth. Lend your sympathetic ear to stories of wrangling the children through winter-time adventures or learning to bake cinnamon buns. Throughout her busy days—sewing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, and helping to manage the family’s shoe store—Jantzi discovers and celebrates the simple pleasures around us always waiting to be found. Drawing from her own deep faith, this young mother brings an encouraging word as she opens her heart to the joys and challenges in each God-given moment.”

You have a chance to win the entire 4-book series by entering this giveaway.

1. To enter your name in the drawing, simply shoot me an email with your name on it. My email address (with symbols written as words to prevent spam) is lucinda[at]lucindajmiller[dot]com. You can also email me from my contact form on this blog.
2. Want your name entered twice? Share this blog online in some way: on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, or any other form. Comment “Shared,” below, and I will put your name in the drawing a second time.

On Wednesday, May 24, at 7:00 p.m. CST, my sister Elizabeth will draw the winning name, and you will get to see the grand revealing on a live Facebook video! Follow my FB page so you don’t miss it . . . or simply check back on my blog the evening of May 24 to discover who the lucky person is.

Come visit me anytime on this blog. I love to hear from you, whether in the comments or through my personal contact form. Please let me know if you have any difficulties on here. Some people have been unable to subscribe or had trouble commenting. I think those glitches are ironed out, but I am still working to make sure. If you have any trouble, please let me know!

Check back every Tuesday for my latest blog. Why Tuesday? Traditionally, I have been posting every Monday, and I like the consistency of posting once a week. Originally, I’d planned to write on the weekend and have a post by Monday, but I’ve realized that my weekends are always jam-packed and not the greatest time for writing. My Saturdays tend to be full with catch-up work or special outings, and my Sundays are always replete with church, family, and friends.

I need that one extra day to get a blog post finished, so from here on out, I will post Tuesday mornings. Check back Tuesdays, or any day through the week, to read the latest post. Or if you are like me and prefer to read blogs by email, subscribe. I send the entire body of each blog post by email to my email subscribers.

Enter the giveaway! Have a great week.

The post Giveaway: The Plainspoken Series appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

My old farmer Grandpa gave me a clipping from a newspaper the other day titled “An Old Farmer’s Advice.” That’s like my grandpa, to take a liking to some writing or another and pass it on. And because it’s from my grandpa, and because I like my grandpa, I will pass it on to you.

I couldn’t find the original author when I looked online, although I did find a fuller version of the same words in multiple places. But I will share with you the version my grandpa shared with me.

An Old Farmer’s Advice

1. Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

2.  Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.

3. Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

4. A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

5. Words that soak into your ears are whispered — not yelled.

6. Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

7. When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

8.  Live a good, honorable life. Then, when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

9. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

10. The biggest troublemaker you’ll ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

11. Always drink upstream from the herd.

12. Lettin’ the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

13. If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.

14. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

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So, Chicago doesn’t really stink, at least not where I was. But one of the many interesting facts I learned during my weekend visit is that “Chicago” is thought to be a derivative of a Native American word meaning “smelly onion.”

I went to Chicago to visit my friend Naomi, who is there for the summer.

When I was a child and my family drove through Chicago on the expressway to visit my grandparents in Indiana, I always looked down at the tall, skinny clapboard houses smashed up against each other and felt sorry for the people down there. They could never see trees, except for lonely spindly ones surrounded by cement. Never run across a field or sleep out on the trampoline under stars so bright they pricked your eyes.

How terrible to live such a cramped and drab existence. And dangerous, too. You’d be surrounded by people who would shoot you or rob from you if they got half a chance. Young as I was, I’d heard the stories.

However, visiting Chicago in my adult years has given me a different view of city life. I love the masses of people passing on the streets, love the beggars, the street artists, the Libyans, the Pakistanis. There is so much richness there. Stories as colorful and varied as life in a tropical ocean. Sometime maybe I’ll go back alone just to strike up conversations with people, to sit down beside some homeless man jingling a cup and ask him what his life is like and why he chose this way to make a living.

There is beauty in the city. I have found that man as well as God can produce beautiful things. Although of course the skyscrapers would lose their beauty if they had no sky to surround them.

Naomi took me into the Loop, Chicago’s beautiful center district, strung between the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

It was a beautiful time of year for a visit, with the flowering trees in full, glorious bloom.

Chicago is mother of the skyscraper and the architectural capital of the United States. Naomi took me on an architectural boat tour down the Chicago River. It was ever so interesting and informative. Sadly, with so much knowledge thrown at me so quickly, I have retained only a fraction of it.

Here are my favorite tidbits:

• It costs $60,000 a year to park in the ritziest Chicago residences. The fact that I remembered that first and foremost showcases my poor, awed, little country girl background, don’t you think?
• Chicago residents used to dump their sewage into the Chicago River, which would then flow to Lake Michigan and pollute the water they drank. To solve the outbreak of typhoid and other diseases that came from drinking bad water, they decided to dig a canal to reverse the flow of the river. It worked, and the river today flows down the Mississippi and past New Orleans into the ocean. New Orleans, as well as other cities of that day, were understandably not impressed.
• Contouring is an architectural term which means the wall of a building follows the shape of the river. It is a simple concept and lovely in practice.
• The Carbide and Carbon Building is a skyscraper designed to look like a champagne bottle. It was built during Prohibition.
• Chicago gets its nickname, the Windy City, not from lake and prairie winds but from the loud-mouthed politicians of its past.

I think my favorite part of Chicago will always be Millennium Park.

And possibly my favorite part of Millennium Park will always be the Bean.

I mean, what a unique and intriguing landmark, right?

Who wouldn’t want to walk beneath it and look up into a swirling vortex crazy mirror?

And who wouldn’t want to snap a photo of their reflection in the side?

On that note, with Naomi and me grinning at you from a wavy world that is actually the stainless steel side of the Bean . . . good-bye!

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This is the question Dave Schlabach asked recently during revival meetings at my church. I thought of my reservoir of goals, dreams, and desires and wondered which of them, fulfilled, would give me reason to say, “Now this is a life well lived.”

All of them? One or two key achievements? What should satisfy me? Of what does happiness consist?

Here is what I learned from Dave, gleaned from my scribbled notes.

Every life experience is unique.

Acts tells the story of Peter, imprisoned and chained between two guards when an angel of the Lord came, released him from his chains, and led him out through the locked prison gates to freedom. John the Baptist, servant of God and the forerunner of Christ, was imprisoned for weeks and then beheaded on a whim of the king.

Paul and Barnabas, missionaries and evangelists for Christ, almost lost their lives in one town when plans were made to stone them, but they heard of the threat in time and escaped. Stephen, a passionate minister of the gospel, was stoned to death.

Blind Bartimaeus, who sat by the roadside crying to Jesus for help, was miraculously healed. The Apostle Paul prayed three times for God to heal his “thorn in the flesh,” (which some people believe to be blindness), and God told him, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Things don’t turn out the same for everybody.

And it’s not necessarily because of the choices you’ve made or the way you’ve lived your life. All the men mentioned above were godly men who dedicated their lives to the gospel. They approached similar situations and came away with very different results.

It would be easy for John the Baptist, if he had lived long enough to hear Peter’s story, to think: “What did I do wrong? Why did God miraculously rescue him  and not me?”

It could also be easy for someone like Bartimaeus, who was healed, to look at someone like Paul and think, “Well, he must not have enough faith.”

Both responses are wrong.

Focusing on the journey leads to frustration.

John 21:15-23 (NIV) tells us of an interaction between Jesus and Peter soon after Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus prophesied how Peter would die (by crucifixion). In response, Peter looked at John, another disciple, and said, “Lord, what about him?”

“If I want him to remain alive until I return,” Jesus said, “what is that to you? You must follow me.”

So often, like Peter, we compare our experiences with others. We want to know if our experiences are better than others, if they are normal, or if they are worse. We think this determines whether our life is “good” or “bad.” But if we base our life significance on where we fall in the spectrum of experience, our life is going to feel frustrating and unfair.

Satan would love us to focus on our life experiences, but the truth is, they do not determine the quality of our life. We hear sometimes of people from the poor and lower classes committing suicide. But we also hear of the suicides of rich people, movies stars, those who have “everything.” One man said that when he got everything he wanted, he found out he didn’t want it anymore.

It doesn’t matter which side of the spectrum we are on, if we focus on our experiences, it’s just not good enough.

Following Christ is the reason we journey.

Jesus is saying to us what he told Peter: “This is not about him. This is about you. Follow me.”

Revelation 12:11 (KJV) says, talking about the saints: “And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

Or, as the NIV puts it: “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

The Christian life is all about dying. Each one of us who follows Jesus must come to it in one way or another. Death to self, death to my own desires, death to me being the boss of my life. Perhaps, in certain parts of the world, death in a physical way.

Following Christ gives a deep inner meaning to life that is not determined or lessened by outward circumstances. Perhaps, if we need a measuring line for the quality of our lives, it should not be how well things are going at church, or in our businesses or careers, or with our families, but how much time we spend abiding in Christ.

Like the saints in Revelation, I want this to be my testimony: She loved not her life unto the death.

She wasn’t concerned with how her life compared to others or with how much good she could get from it. She accepted the things that came her way. She lived to make others happy. Even in hard times, she knew within herself a well of well being, a river of life.

She walked with Jesus, and that made all the difference.

The post Lord, What about Him? appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

A week ago today, Dad and Mom sold the cows.

I’ve been wishing for this to happen for years now. Ever since they started the cleaning jobs, around three years ago, they’ve worked too hard. They’ve had to milk the cows morning and evening, of course, besides feeding and cleaning barn and putting up hay and dealing with frozen water pipes and whatever else comes with dairying in Wisconsin. It’s hard work for anyone, and far harder at sixty years of age than thirty. And since we children have grown up and have jobs and responsibilities of our own, it’s just been the two of them to work the farm.

In addition to the regular chores, every night after milking for three years, they’ve gone uptown to do janitorial work at two local businesses. We children have helped with those cleaning jobs some. But not every night. And I’ve felt sorry for Dad and Mom, driving uptown night after night, coming home late. For three years, hardly ever an evening at home.

And now–finally–they’ve sold the cows. I didn’t expect, after the trailer carrying the last eight of our milk cows had gone out the lane, to feel . . . SAD.

But I did.

There have been milk cows in our barn as long as I’ve lived. Always, we’ve had milk in our refrigerator and hamburger in our freezer and the not-so-pleasant odor of manure drifting up from the barn. Always, Dad goes out in boots and coveralls and comes in covered in silage and the odor of cow. Always, he stands at the door to hand in a brimming container of milk and goes on down the basement to change. Always, there has been hay making and calf feeding and the big solid swaying bodies of cows. Morning and evening, milking has been a rhythm of life and the only thing, ever, that never changed.

And now the milk cows are gone.

Already we are falling into new rhythms. Dad kept back some of the young stock to raise as steers. Right now he’s working on changing the barn over from a place for milk cows to a place for young steers. There will always be chores to do as long as he has the steers, but they will be less labor intensive than the milk cows were. Mom doesn’t have to help anymore and has more time for homemaking.

Every evening Dad and Mom still do the cleaning jobs, but now they can go earlier and come back to have part of an evening at home.

When the apple trees they planted last summer bear fruit, there will be apples to pick and sort and sell.

There will always be plenty of work. But I hope—I pray—that Dad and Mom won’t have to works such long hours, that they can have time in between to relax, to enjoy their family, to do something fun for a change.

For me, this time of change for my parents feels like a time of release. I’ve felt responsible, as long as they were overwhelmed with both milking and cleaning, to help as much as I could. I don’t feel that anymore. It is time to move up, move out, find a life of my own. To step away, just a bit, from the protecting arms of my parents and find a purpose independent of them.

Not because I don’t love my life as it is. I do. Only because it is time. The rhythm of life is always surging forward to meet change, growth, maturity . . . and then death. And though this makes me feel sad and sentimental–like I want to hold on to now, always–the pulse to move forward is good. It is the thing that makes new life possible.

I’ve finished a book, finally. It will come out in July. The next book I want to write glimmers on the horizon. Perhaps writing is the one part of my life that will never change, at least until I am too demented or blind or arthritic to do it anymore. Writing is a rhythm within me, pulsing from one day to the next like morning and evening milking.

And always, besides the writing, I will carry within me my family, this community, this life. That will never change, no matter where I go or what I do.

“What are you waiting for?” we used to ask each other sometimes, as children. “Til the cows come home?” The words run through my mind now, when the cows are gone, and change and maturity and eventually death lie low on the horizon.

None of us are waiting around, because waiting isn’t an option in life. But love is an option. And family. And doing something useful with a life while one still has a life to give.

These people around me, within me—they are the rhythm of my heart and life. They are a part of me always, and I will love them ’til the cows come home.

***

The feature photo was taken by Egalo Palo and originally posted at http://www.freeimages.com/photo/threesome-1380736

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