Victoria Advocate/ A Different Perspective

If you live on planet Earth, you’ve probably heard about the assassination attempt on Trump. Whatever your political affiliation, I think we can agree that the incident ramped up an already tumultuous situation.

My take? We need to pray for our country. Daily, my husband and I ask God to frustrate the plans of the wicked. It’s scriptural, which brings me to another point—many people think the idea of prayer is nice but, deep down, they don’t believe it does any good. Lord, deliver me from “nice.” I want my prayers to reach the heavens. The good news is our fervent prayers move God. He’s the only one with the power to change things, so it makes sense to pray.  

In my writing world, I added almost seven thousand words to my current work-in-progress, the last book of the Valiant series. Yes, it took effort, and I’d be lying if I said it was easy or that I didn’t want to do other things. But there’s only a handful of scenes left to write on the first draft. I’m excited!

Otherwise, I had lunch with Mom at Morada, a couple of chats with good friends, and a dinner for Restoration House Ministries. Teresa Klacman and I have been friends for years, and it was heartening to see the way God has blessed her ministry. Her organization started out to help women but has grown to include campuses that help mothers with children, and a new work is on the horizon—a campus to include a home for young men. It’s so encouraging to see practical solutions right here in our city for people who yearn to leave destructive lifestyles.  

And our grandsons came for a visit. I let eleven-year-old David choose a game. He was most interested in Push, a card game. We didn’t remember how to play, so we trooped up the stairs, where a short YouTube video refreshed our memories. Since we were on my computer, I couldn’t resist showing him the numerical word count of my WIP—the exact number of words is impressive. On that day, it was 55,679. His response was a mix of awe and a bit of eww. (He likes math.) When the game was all said and done, my score was 100. He was delighted to beat me with 103 points. Yeah, yeah.  

My impromptu “Answer a question” game evoked a lot of silliness. I find boys don’t engage in a lot of interactive conversation—at least the ones I know—so I tried a fun way to help them with communication skills. Alas, it’s going to take more than one round to get them beyond yes and no answers.

We’re all ready for Phil’s wife to return from Brazil. This time, she’ll get to stay a couple of months. This blended family experience is new for all of us, but I’ve found the pursuit of peace has its own lovely reward. Everyone wins when families work together to keep things positive and get along.   

It pleases God when we deal with the challenges that life presents. However, He knows we can’t do it on our own. We truly are like sheep. We need a shepherd to guide us because our stubborn independence will land us in a ditch every time.

Are you following the Shepherd?