Westling with God

Captain’s Log, Stardate 12.28.04

The holidays passed quietly here at home because of my surgery and my husband's hectic work schedule. Instead of a huge family dinner, we had a beef roast done in the rotisserie, silky mashed potatoes (they turned out even better than I expected) and a wonderfully sweet, gooey chocolate Lava Cake with real whipped cream. No cooking something to bring to a get-together, no rushing out the door to be somewhere in time. It was nice. Almost anti-climactic, after the years of family parties with gift-unwrapping and enough food to feed a starving Fraternity.

Emotionally, I’m in a hard place. I unloaded on Sharon, poor woman. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Here’s what I wrote:

I am wrestling with God. I think He wants me to go back to work. I have been reading devotionals on rejoicing in all situations, and leaning on Him in hardship, and He will deliver me. I want to be willing to do His will, but my heart is heavy. I feel kind of like Jesus in Gethsemane. Please take this cup from Me, but Thy will be done. That sort of feeling, except I'm probably not as willing as Jesus was to do God's will.

I'm supposed to start work next week Wednesday. It's making me a bit depressed. It's hard to feel hope, now that I've once again tasted the life of a full-time writer (granted, a full-time *gimpy* writer). But I really don't want to disobey God like the Israelites did and get slaughtered by their enemies! I know in my head, Who am I to know better than God what's best for me? But at the same time I feel trepidation, distress and dread.

My husband got hired full-time at his start up company, so now he has benefits although he's still not being paid much. That's what made me start thinking I might be able to quit before returning to work, since we don't need my benefits anymore. I don't know how keen my husband is on that. I think he wants me to go back and see how things are, and if they're still bad, then to quit. That sounds reasonable but I can't get my heart to feel the courage to even go back.

I am trying to cling to the hope that God will deliver me, but I am so tired and weak. The stress of going back to work is making it hard for me to write. My husband is not home enough for me to talk to him, because he's so tired when he does get home late at night and he's not up to discussing things. I think I need supernatural courage and trust. Can God give me those? I so want to obey Him but at the same time I don't.

I will continue to pray and look to God for guidance. I am trying not to stress, but to give my burdens up to Him. It's getting harder the closer I get to the date I return to work.

I read through several Psalms today and feel a bit better. There is so much that David wrote about trusting in God, about how God delivered His people and persecuted their enemies. David continued to rejoice in God despite hardship. I don’t know if I’ve quite reached that point yet, but I feel better than I did earlier.

I finally finished my outline for my romantic suspense. I started writing, although it’s slow going. Partly because I’m finally watching Star Trek Voyager season 6, with season 7 in my Netflix queue! Good thing I only have three DVDs at a time or else I’d be plowing through them. As for my manuscript, I finished chapter three last night and worked a bit on chapter four today.

Well, I’m off to watch another Voyager disc!

Comments

No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.22.2008 I actually wrote out my pattern! I was getting a lot of hits on my infamous toilet seat cover , and I wanted to make a new one with “improvements,” so I paid attention and wrote things down as I made the new one. This was originally based off the Potty Mouth toilet cover , but I altered it to fit over the seat instead of the lid. Yarn: any worsted weight yarn, about 120 yards (this is a really tight number, I used exactly 118 yards. My suggestion is to make sure you have about 130 yards.) I suggest using acrylic yarn because you’re going to be washing this often. Needle: I used US 8, but you can use whatever needle size is recommended by the yarn you’re using. Gauge: Not that important. Mine was 4 sts/1 inch in garter stitch. 6 buttons (I used some leftover shell buttons I had in my stash) tapestry needle Crochet hook (optional) Cover: Using a provisional cast on, cast on 12 stitches. Work in garter st until liner measures...

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And...

What Is a Brutus Cut? A Regency Hair Trend Inspired by Ancient Rome

Regency Haircuts and Disguises in Lady Wynwood’s Spies In this excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor , Phoebe prepares for a dangerous mission—one that requires her to disguise herself as a young man. The hairstyle she receives, called a Brutus cut, was actually quite fashionable during the Regency. Read on to find out more about this curious trend and why it suited her new identity so well. Excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor : By far, the absolute worst part of Uncle Sol’s plan was that Phoebe had to cut her hair. Of the four agents, Phoebe and Mr. Coulton-Jones would be the least likely to be recognized when they entered the Ramparts building—Mr. Coulton-Jones, because of his skill in altering his facial features and his posture, and Phoebe, because she could play a convincing young man, which no one would expect. A disreputable hat would hide her long hair to an extent, but it would not fool anyone who looked closely. Also, because she would lo...

Free Christian Romantic Suspense Novels by Camy Tang / Camille Elliot

Curious about what my writing is like? Here’s a list of all my free books and the free short stories, novellas, and novels that you can read here on my blog. I’ll update this post as I add more free reads. Christian Romantic Suspense: Necessary Proof (Sonoma series #4.1, novella) Click here to buy the FREE ebook on all retailers Alex Villa became a Christian in prison, and because of his efforts to help stop a gang producing meth in Sonoma, he has been set up for the death of a cop. Can computer expert Jane Lawton find the evidence that will prove his innocence before the gang eliminates them both? Fantasy short stories: Pixies in a Garden in Kyoto There were pixies in the garden. Since she was in Kyoto, she was certain they were not called pixies, but she didn't know what they would be called in Japanese, and they certainly looked like what she imagined pixies would look like. The King’s Daughter The trees in the King's garden were full of colored pixie lights. The...

Meet the Dashing Spy on the Cover of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 3

If you enjoy clean historical suspense with slow-burn romance and a touch of danger, you’ll love my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series! It’s a multi-volume Christian Regency serial following a group of unlikely aristocrats battling a dangerous conspiracy in 1811 London. Today, I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite covers in the series— Volume 3: Aggressor. Who is that handsome gentleman? The model on the cover represents Mr. Michael Coulton-Jones, one of my main characters. This clever spy with a tortured past finally gets the cover spotlight in this volume, which is one of my favorite covers because the model is so handsome. 😄 I absolutely love this cover model! His name is Anatolii and here’s the original stock photo . It was really tough to try to decide which photo to use for the cover! It was a tossup between him and the main heroine, Miss Phoebe Sauber, for the cover for book 1, but I eventually went with Phoebe. Then in book 2, he was kind of...

Search This Blog