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When Your Little Fox Spoils The Vineyard

I sat down at the table of retreat leaders feeling flustered and tired. I was a day late arriving, a bad flu bug had nearly kept me from coming at all. What bothered me most is that I didn’t think I should be one of the speakers. So many others were better suited than me to encourage the women attending the retreat. “We have a lot of little foxes ruining the vineyard,” said one of the leaders, and inwardly I caught my breath. The story I planned to share at the retreat was about a little fox. The leader went on […]

By Paula May 25, 2018

For Glory and for Beauty

This past January, I signed up for Alice Crider’s Author Access class. I learned so much in eight weeks about being an author. Alice is also a life coach, and we did several one on one sessions as well. I’m deeply grateful for all she taught me. Just a few days ago, I was telling Alice in an email about how the Lord whispered to my heart, Write for glory and for beauty when I stepped into my author shoes two years ago. Alice responded, “I had a mini vision of that being your tagline on your website.” I thought, really? Would this […]

By Paula May 7, 2018

When God Surprises You

I never expected to speak at Redwood Christian Park. For years, we’ve brought our kids here for family camp. Our seven-year-old, Cruz, is named Christian because we found out we were pregnant with him here. Redwood just didn’t work for us so we settled on Christian. But before that, we nicknamed our tiny little zygote Cruz after the Santa Cruz Mountains, home of Redwood Christian Park, and I’ve called him Cruz on this blog ever since. This past summer when Sharon, who manages events at Redwood, asked me to bring my books and come share my story at the spring women’s […]

By Paula April 30, 2018

When you really need to just hold on

Sometimes you really just need to hold on. Keep pushing on. And never give up. You just need to hear that. I need to hear that. Jesus is true. He’s real. He’s for you. He’s got you. I told him this yesterday. Sitting with a friend experiencing death. “He’s got you. Jesus is holding you. So hold on.” Just a few days ago I had this same conversation with another friend who lost her husband last month. And a few days before this, the same conversation with a friend at church experiencing the sudden death of two friends in the […]

By Paula April 23, 2018

When You’re Weary… go to the river.

When you’re weary… Go to the river. Where the cottonwoods whisper in the wind. Foxes hunt all sly and unseen. And deer drink and then disappear. Sometimes you just want to disappear. Just sometimes. I’ve been going to the river a lot the past two weeks. I need it. I kind of hit a breaking point. A little bit like five years ago. But not nearly as bad. And I really don’t want to tell anyone about it. Maybe I’ll just half tell it. I was feeling fragile the day the hummingbird picked a fight with me. I was stripping […]

By Paula April 8, 2018

Looking for Easter Calves

When I was little, I loved looking for Easter calves. After church Easter morning we’d walk out into the pasture searching for newborns. Back then, I believed Easter calves came from God. Forget the Easter Bunny and hunting for eggs, finding Easter calves always thrilled me. Not every year brought an Easter calf. Yet other years, two or even three babies graced the morning on wet, wobbly legs or curled in tight little fetal positions on the dew-covered grass. The curled up ones were my favorite. Sometimes a little girl could pet these babies if she approached very quietly with […]

By Paula March 29, 2018

The Author In Me

I’m sure you will agree I need to stick to just writing after sharing this lame, little video with you. But I’ve been taking an author access class on Thursday nights and one of the homework assignments is to do a Facebook video of my author life. When I first saw this homework a month or so ago I was kind of horrified. I thought, nope. Not. Doing. That. Ever! But here I am doing my homework because I really want to be a good student and a professional author. I know. I’m sorry. There is nothing professional about this […]

By Paula March 21, 2018