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HUSH IN THE STORM LAUNCHED TODAY

August 6, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

In 2008 God gave me a dream – write a novel. I did, and self-published in 2012- Focused. But the desire to be recognized by a traditional publisher was the popcorn kernel wedged in my gum. Now, that is a reality – doubled! Both novels I had written, Hush in the Storm and Legitimate Lies are contracted with Prism Book Group.  Hush in the Storm debuts today. Legitimate Lies will debut in January, 2015. God is good.

Where did I find Him today? Right next to me, smiling as any daddy would when he sees his daughter receive a gift she’s wanted for so long. Thanks Abba.

hush in the storm promo.

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Plant Saved

July 31, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

I admit it. I can’t throw away a plant. I had a geranium which, after five years, had outlived it normal lifespan sprigas a potted plant, I guess. Anyway, it really didn’t survive the move, and to be honest, it had become pretty droopy and scraggly on my last patio. But one sprig stretched to grow.The only green leaves left on an otherwise dying plant.

So, I snipped it off, stuck it in water, placed it with other plants in a window, and prayed. Within a day, it had bent towards the sun. Within a few more days, it began wrapping around a candle to get more light steaming in from the blinds.

As I watch it daily, I  am more and more encouraged. Maybe it will begin to root, then I can plant it a pot once again. I envision coral-colored blooms next spring when it is once again full and bushy.

I’m glad God never threw me out when I spiritually dying. He gave me life. He clipped off the part that had potential, stuck me in the Living Waters of His mercy and prayed over me. He watched over me. Renewed, I again stretched towards the Light in search of the Son, letting nothing stand in the way of my growth. And, ever so slowly, new roots of faith began to grow.

The roots of the blessings He has given me.

Roots of lessons learned.

Roots of those “Oh” moments when I realized He had acted in my life.

Roots in those verses that never hit me before but are highlighted in yellow or starred in my Bible now.

Roots of seeing Him work in the lives of friends through answered prayers.

 

And I think a smile stretches across His face when He looks upon me now, because He envisions the lovely bloom I’ll become.

I found God today in a lowly germanium sprig- because in so many ways it is just like me–struggling, but blessed because someone cared enough to save it.

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What Could I DO?

July 24, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

As I  glanced for oncoming traffic before I turned the corner, my eyes absorbed the whole tragic scene and immediately pooled with tears. A chunk of my heart ripped into my throat.

I saw the flashing EMS lights, and two EMT’s wheeling an old woman on a gurney. Another EMT helped an elderly, hunched-over man, white hair and beard disheveled, with a cane. His shoulders heaved up and down as his face reddened with tears.

But, I was turning the other way to head for a meeting. Besides, what could I do? I’d never been in this neighborhood. I’d never seen this couple in my life, but the connection was immediate. I recall the morning when they wheeled my late husband away on the gurney. Six hours later at the hospital we pulled the plug…

I scanned my Facebook home page and saw an acquaintance’s report about her teenage son’s latest set back with cancer. Just home from the hospital after months of chemo and infection fighting, they were back in the ER, in a city hours away from me. I recalled the times my own son was in the hospital fighting for his life…

I saw on the news a young family left homeless by an apartment fire. Their dog didn’t make it out. The small child squeezed her mother’s hand as she wailed for her lost friend, and watched her home devoured by the flames. I was reminded of the night my room caught on fire…

Then, situations I cannot fathom flash into my life via the internet, TV and radio.

Another plane halfway around the world has crashed. More lives lost…

An insane and upset person opens fire on an innocent gathering of people…

Sixty children are left in a truck in the middle of the summer, most likely smuggled in by traffickers. Most are dying, if not already dead…

What could I do?

Do you ever feel that way? Someone wiser than I once said we are not human beings but human doings. When we hear of a tragedy, we immediately ask, “What can I do?”

Praying hands_God whispered the answer into my faith ear once again and it dashed to my soul. PRAY – it is the best you can do. Prayer opens the floodgates of Heaven, and multiplies our capabilities a thousandfold. Prayer connects the Almighty with the weak and hurting. Jesus prayed for others until His dying breath. He prays for us still.

Why do we so often underestimate its power?

Why do we feel we need to do more? Maybe because praying doesn’t seem like doing. Our hands are still and folded, not busy. Results are often not immediate, though they can be.

If, when you are made aware of a tragedy, you can physically render aid, do so. But as you dash to “do” that, lift the whole thing into God’s capable hands. Pray He gives you the tools you need to help and the right words to say.  But, if you don’t feel capable or are too removed from the scene, then call on the One who loves more deeply and knows more vastly what is going on.

Pray… it’s what all of us believers could, and should “do.”

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It’s Time

July 18, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

Have you ever had everything suddenly fall into place? Your heartfelt, deepest dream come true? This week, I did. And I saw God’s fingerprints all over it. It brought me to my knees in tearful gratitude.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Six years ago I had a dream – write a novel and attract a well know publishing house.For five years the windows and doors slammed in my face.  I indy-pubbed one novel that has had mild success and six non-fiction works. But still, I was not recognized in the Christian publishing world.

Over the past year and a half, that dream has come true…twice!  At first the curtains quivered. Then a ray of light poured in with one email in response to a query- I was under contract for Hush in the Storm. Was it really happening? My dream slowly evolved into truth. My eyes began to adjust. Inch by inch, more light streamed into my dream, waking me into the fact this is a reality. Dare I believe it?

Then the editor-in-chief of Prism Book Group, the publishing house who contracted with me, read my novel and proclaimed it as “brilliant, just brilliant, and A+++.”  She asked if I had another WIP (work in progress), which I did.  I’d just finished the first draft of the next novel, Legitimate Lies. Within an hour I had my second contract and an editor assigned to me. Within two days, I had the cover already done!

Last week, I signed up for a book e-blast to advertise Hush in the Storm’s launch on August 6th.  I expected them to blast it across cyberspace in a few weeks when Hush in the Storm releases. Then I got an email that it was my “blast day.” My heart sunk. Oh, no. I’ve wasted my money. It’s too early. Three hours later, I got a surprise email from my publisher. My novel was on Amazon at a pre-order discount rate!

The curtains drew back, the sash flew open, and the sun poured in. God’s timing evident. I felt His warmth envelop me, His perfect love pat me on the back.”See,” I heard His soft whisper to my heart, “I’ve got this.”

Within two days, I have landed four book signings and my press release has been accepted by five local papers, which will reach 125,000 readers. Just like that. Ads for my signings will also appear the week they happen. Sash inched higher and higher. Fresh, fragrant air whiffed in, like the first spring day after a long winter.

ECover copy I don’t know if I will sell 50 or 50,000 copies. That is truly in God’s hands. All I know is when I finally hold it in paperback form next month,they are going to shake with joy as my lips quiver – just as when I first held my son moments after birth.

After all, a Christian novel is like a baby. You have long gestation period when you wonder how it is forming and if it will be okay. Then you get a contract and the heartbeats sound stronger and stronger. You feel small flutters, then kicks as it grows and evolves through the help of critique groups. Near the end, the labor pains of editing start. Finally, it happens – a new creation, orchestrated by God becomes a tangible, hold-in-your-hands reality.

.I trust in the fact He will use it to His glory and touch hearts with it’s message, just as He has planned. He already knows whose faith-walk it will encourage, and who will be respond to it’s message. It’s time…His time.

Thank you dearest Lord for honoring my dream. How undeserving I feel, and humbly blessed. I wonder what unstated dreams hiding in my soul You are waiting to bring to fruition next…

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Signal Interference

July 14, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

We chose our new apartment because it faced the inside of a tree-shaded quadrangle. Great view. Not so great for our singalsHD antenna signal. We plugged it into the TV. Channel after channel showed the same message:”No signal detected.”  A few showed pixelated views, like a jigsaw puzzle half-completed on a black table. We angled the antenna this way and that. Not much better.

So we boxed it up and went to the electronic store. The salesman said, “The trees are your worst enemy. They block the signals. So do the buildings around you.”

We chose a unit with a more powerful receiver. Luckily it was on sale with a money-back guarantee. Home we trekked, eager to plug it in so I could watch my favorite PBS show that night. Finally after much maneuvering and twisting, including standing on tip-toe –which he refused to do through the whole 90 minute program despite the reminder I was in labor with him four times longer than that—my son got the signal to receive a picture by placing the unit on our covered patio.

The God lesson?

Sometimes the things in life we surround ourselves with, which give us pleasure, block God’s signal to our hearts. We just don’t receive Him clearly. And then, we wonder why. It’s not that a thing that makes us happy is a bad influence. It is just that it may turn our focus to it because it’s so pleasurable, and away from God who granted us the gift of it’s use.

Perhaps, we need to maneuver some things around in order to pick up His reception in our lives. Find the right combination–be it less TV time, less frustration, less worry–and the pixels will come together. Or, maybe we need to boost our capability to receive His signal through more prayer, more listening, or more time in the Word. Perhaps it will take both.

Boost your power through Him, rearrange or eliminate the distractions, and I bet, like our antenna, your image of His plan for your life will come into focus. The reception of His will into your heart will be bright and clear. What a beautiful image!

1 Corinthians 2:12
What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

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A Moving Experience

July 11, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

ID-100131553Maybe some of you who follow me on Facebook heard of my plight…

During the recent move to a new apartment, I lost my desktop computer to damage. Not only that, but my laptop and projector I use for all my talks and workshops “walked away”.  We also were without TV for two days.

With tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I’d posted before the move that I’d be out of cyberspace for a day or so – could I handle it?

God tested me on that. Big time.

I wish I could tell you my piety kicked in and I enjoyed being still and reconnecting with my Savior. I tired, really I did. But… the hush was deafening. After a few minutes, I’d jump up to find something to “do.” In fact, in those three days, I totally exhausted myself by unpacking every box, hanging the curtains and the pictures, and rearranging the knick-knacks several times.

Finally, my sweet techie son “Humpty-Dumptied” parts from my desk top and from an old one he had, and not only got me up and running in three days but re-downloaded all my flies. He also got the TV and wireless networking up and running. I praise the Lord for my son’s God-given intelligence and patience when it come to electronics.

Two things I learned:

First – I need to turn off the electronics more often and get back to quietness and meditation (listening) with my Lord. I thought I was doing a pretty good job, but He showed me differently.

Second – Whatever in our lives we feel is damaged, burned out, or missing a vital function, God as the Master techie can piece back together and make work again–sometimes with the talents of others. We just need to stay patient and prayerful in the process.

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World Blogs Tour

July 8, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

Decades ago book signings were the vehicle to which an author became better known to the public. Today, it is social media. So, I am participating in a blog tour–and you are cordially invited to come along.

These are Christian writers all, so you will find God in their messages, and hey, you might discover a new favorite author! Their writings may be page-turners, but they will never voilate your ethics.

I was invited to participate in this blog tour by a fellow author with my publishing house, Prism Book Group. paula Her name is Paula Mowery, and actually it’s her birthday today, so a great present would be to click on the link, cruise through her blog, and take notice of her books. Oh – and leave her a comment. (You can also check out the other Christian authors on her blog tour – Delia Latham who helped me edit Hush in the Storm, Rachel James and Suzanne Purvis.)  Paula, thanks for including me in this effort.

Now, on to the questions I am to answer…

1. What am I working on?
I just finished the proofs and approved the cover design for Hush in the Storm which debuts August 6th and am beginning the editing process on Legitimate Lies with Suzanne Baganz which launches in January, 2015. I am also finishing up a week of devotionals for two pre-assigned weeks in 2015 for Good News Daily and a weeks’ worth of commentary for The Journey for 2016. Then, on to finish the second of a trilogy, a novel a called Grounded, which follows Focused (published in 2012.) Of course, I also write monthly for Truth Media’s Power to Change and quarterly for Faith-Filled Family Magazine.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?   
Well, I write across many genres. My non fiction is Biblically based and relates to real issues people encounter and how they can find God’s fingerprints on whatever life is slinging into their yard. I guess that is also true for my fiction in that each one has an underlying plot about a social issue God has called me to promote, be it surviving empty nest syndrome,grief over death, human trafficking, abortion recovery, or racial and socio-economic prejudices.
3. Why do I write what I do?
It is truly a God-thing. Six years ago when I was unemployed, I took the advice of three different friends to write for a living out of my home. I began to make an income pretty quickly, so in thanksgiving to my Lord who provides, I tithed my writing day to Him first. Even through unexpected widowhood, He sustained me with clients who’d contact me to ghost write for them. Now that I have a part time job as a church secretary, I have dropped my secular freelancing and write only for His glory.

4. How does my writing process work?
I truly write the first draft in the style of “never lifting my pen.” As I write, I am often amazed where God leads me. Inevitably, it is for someone else needs to hear that devo that day, or it inspires a a plot thickening that is makes my novel so much more intriguing. Then I backtrack, research, run it through my critique group, Write 4 Him, self-edit several times… all the while praying and asking others to pray for me during this creative process. In Legitimate Lies, I knew I wanted to continue the story about the characters in Hush in the Storm, but just wasn’t getting “into it”, until I prayed about it for several weeks. Faithfully, God showed me the social issue He wanted me to promote. After researching that, words flew off my keyboard.

For this blog, I ask God to help me discover ways He is speaking to me daily so I can relate that to others. It has opened my faith eyes further to His hand in my life, and I hope in doing so, it inspires others to look closer as well.

Well, that’s a bit about me. Now please return on JULY 15th and click on these three authors” blogs or websites below. You will learn a bit about them and their works as well. Isn’t this fun? It’s like a cyberspace authors’ party.

 

diane DiAne Gates – DiAne is an amazing wordsmith, and her blog, Moving Ancient Boundaries,  always touch hearts as well as pointing to ways we can live out our Christianity in a broken world. She is definitely someone to “follow”.

 

 

 

leannLeann Harris, who is a fellow member of the DFW chapter for American Christian Fiction Writers, is an amazing  Inspirational Romance author with many novels under her belt. Her recently launched eBook, Last Lie, promises to be a real page turner. I definitely have it at the top of my “have to read” list. Download it from B&N or Amazon.

 

 

 

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALee Carver also writes for Prism Book group and is president of the DFW Chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers. She has written several novels and has two about to launch within the year!  If you like history/adventures flavored with a little romance, watch for her books releasing soon.

 

 

         Through cyberspace, we can co-promote His works, and each other who are faithful to write and read them. Please join in this effort. 

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Look More Closely

July 1, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

printcover_hush copy (2)My publisher emailed the cover of my novel, Hush in the Storm, which launches August 6th. It looked perfect. With dancing fingers over my keyboard, I sent it out to my family and friends who have been so instrumental in helping this book become a reality.

My niece, who is artistic and always has a keen eye for detail, wrote back. “It would look better if the heroine on the cover didn’t have cacti growing from her shoulders.”

Whaatt????

I hadn’t noticed that. I concentrated on the clouds, the landscape, the girl hushing.  I emailed the comment to my publisher. Within minutes, the graphic artist corrected  it. Whew!! Thank you, Lord. I marveled at her mastery in technique and  greatly appreciated her immediate response to make things right.

Where did I see God in all this? Sometimes there are little flaws which may hinder how we are perceived. Our witness may be hindered by them. They may blare out to other people and cause them not to focus on the real message we are trying to convey.

Of course we are all works in progress and perfection will only reached  through the mercy of Christ when we escape our human nature and reach Heaven. But I also believe God brings people into our lives who have a keen eye and can point out the flaws we need to correct — the ones we don’t notice but others do, like breadstick cacti growing out of a pair of shoulders.

Because it is a Christian publisher, no feathers were ruffled. Authors, editors, proofreaders, and the graphics masters have the same goal – spread the message of redemption  and grace through wholesome, yet intriguing fiction.

But, it made me ponder. Am I as gracious when someone in the Body lovingly and  tactfully points out an area in my life that could use some more work? How quick am I to go to the Master to correct it?

 

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limitless

June 24, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

from Timeline Photos- posted by 88.3 The Journey Christian radio station’s Facebook –

 

limits

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Unseen Smudges

June 21, 2014 by juliebcosgrove

I got an eTablet. Ever since it came free with my new cell phone contract, it’s been glued to my hip. (There, I’ve confessed!)

Now I do read my Bible on it…and play Words with Friends…check my email…read my downloaded eBooks…check the weather…look up facts on the internet…check out who’s said what on Facebook…hey, my Toastmasters’ group even uses the timing app on it. I think it even has a camera.

A few days ago I showed a friend my nifty new toy – but when I turned it off, my cheeks heated. I know my face was crimson. Oh my, all IMAG0021the smudged fingerprint marks! Yuk. Once the screen went dark, they blared at me. I couldn’t see them when the screen was illuminated.

Ah-hah. My thoughts became illuminated as well. I found a lesson from God today on my eTablet screen.

Here’s the God lesson…

If we’ve confessed our wrongs as our faces hit the pillow the night before, and thanked Him for the day we had – whether it was good or bad  – then when another day dawns, our slate is clean. His mercies are new every morning, right?

Yet, as we go through the day, we leave marks. They may be good, or not so good. Depends on our attitude, our actions and our words. If Christ is shining through, the smudges are not as visible. But if we turn off His influence and the screen we call our life goes dark, then all the smudges become more evident. In fact, they are the only things people see.

From now on, I a going to wipe that eTablet down before I go to bed. Maybe it will remind me to wipe the slate clean with my Lord as well.

 

 

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