Christmas is for everyone who keeps looking for love in all the wrong places and hoping deep in their hearts that the hope of Christmas really does exist. Like Charlie Brown, if Christmas has got you down, if you’re feeling that your life somehow doesn’t measure up to the hype, then Christmas is for you!
There are many days that I go to bed thinking that I blew it: I wasn’t patient enough, gracious enough, merciful enough, pleasant enough, or just enough for what my kids needed that day. Yet somehow, where I see imperfection she sees wisdom.
What if just around the bend is the moment you’ve been waiting for and if you stay where you are or look the other way you’ll miss it completely? What if today isn't just another day but THE day?
If our words are toxic, we poison someone. If our words are beautiful, that beauty lives on in someone. If our words condemn, we tear away a little bit more of someone. Our spoken word (or like Mr. Muckety-Muck, even the unspoken word) just doesn’t say something about us, it does something to someone else.
What will your words or lack of them speak today?
This may be your first day of spring after a 10-month, two-year or four-year winter but you kept pushing, believing and hoping for spring. Today, everything changes because the last day of winter has passed and spring has finally come.
In your struggles against the winds of divorce, sickness, single parenting, job loss, death, loneliness or heartache, know that you’re not alone. Some days the force of those gales may threaten to blow you over or break you apart but hang on tight and don’t let go. Whatever you do… Don’t let go!
I went on a 31-day fast in January and continued to pray that God would take the pain away. It has been a long journey but each and every day I feel stronger and am grateful to say that in September I sat at the computer to write again.
Dear Friends,
I hope this letter finds you doing well and enjoying the benefits of great health, hope and family.
In June my family took a missions trip to the Dominican Republic. While there, my 12-year-old daughter was holding the camera one day when I looked up and saw two young boys leaning against a building in the village where we were working. "Quick, take their picture,” I said.
She turned and looked and scrunched up her nose. "No Mom," she said. "That's an ugly background."
"But it's their background," I said. "It's who they are."
She begrudgingly took the picture and as soon as we saw it my husband and I both said it was one of the best pictures of the entire trip. As others have gone through our pictures many of them have commented (without knowing she took it) that that photo is their favorite.
In The Good Dream people often want to look past “the boy” because his background is too ugly, too messy and too complicated. However, it is his background. Thankfully, Ivorie looks beyond the boy’s background and sees his future.
Two weeks ago the trade paperback version of The Good Dream released and if you didn't get the chance to read the hardback I hope the opportunity will soon arise for you to read the paperback. This is the paperback cover that you can post on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or to email friends. I am always looking for a new book to read and I bet your friends are the same. A recommendation from you would be timely for them and a great blessing to me.
Recently, Fitness Magazine and First Magazine both reviewed The Good Dream...
“Book critics, whether professional or casual, sure can be harsh. Everyone is looking for something different in their leisure time reading, right? So when a book earns ★★★★★, you know it’s a keeper. Donna VanLiere’s The Good Dream received that favorable rating from Amazon reviewers—and us!” ~ Fitness Magazine
“…my heart was bursting as I whipped through the chapters to see how it panned out—by the end I longed to sit at Ivorie’s table and nibble some pound cake.” ~ First Magazine
You can purchase the hardback, paperback, e-book or audio versions of the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Overstock.com, IndieBound or Books-a-Million by clicking here. Please remember to review the book on your favorite website as well!
Thank you for your emails of encouragement, your friendship on Facebook and Twitter and for spreading the word of this book, which is one of my two favorites that I’ve written!
Blessings,
Donna
P.S. If you enjoy audio books, I'm pleased to announce that The Good Dream Audio Book was recently honored with the Audie Award as the 2013 Inspirational Fiction Book of the Year!
