However, I can’t stop being mom. Seven o’clock each morning, I have left and gone south past the high school to drop my eighteen-year-old off at work in a field where he is changing irrigation pipe. My thirteen-year-old earned a part in the local adult theater group’s Christmas play which means extra trips north throughout the week.

I have been so busy with school and family that several book events have fell to the side. Wednesday while at school, I had a moment to check email and saw a Twitter notice of a blog post. It was my post on Vox Dei’s webpage! I had forgotten it was to air that day. As my eighteen-year-old says, “Face palm!” The next day, I had another similar experience. I checked email just before lunch during my prep period and found a Twitter announcement of my cover reveal for The One Who Sees Me. How could I have forgotten that! I knew I needed to get a better grip on my calendar.

Saturday loomed big in my vision. I had to be ready for the book signing and release party of Dragon’s Future. My husband and eighteen-year-old would be off at a men’s retreat which left my nineteen-year-old and thirteen-year-old at home.

Grandprize packet of swag and a signed book went to a high school senior.

My thirteen-year-old and I enjoyed the Cranberry Parade at the local festival, and then we headed to the art gallery and used book store which was hosting the signing. After frantically trying to find parking, I was able to elicit help from some friends to carry books and supplies to the gallery. My three hours were fun and profitable. Many came through to purchase books, and I even met a journalist for the local paper who wants to do an author interview. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I am ready for another week of school. I will try my hardest to be better at budgeting my time between family, school, and author work. It is a challenge this year, but it can be done.

Recently some unreasonable fears have begun to plague me. When I walk into the breezeway to my garage at night to lock up, I become nervous. It is an old fear that I had as a child on into my early adult years of dark, desolate places usually with narrow hallways. It had last reared its ugly head in 1997. So, for it to come up now seemed very strange. After several weeks of this unresolved fear, I was able to place the reason for it. A specific panelling at the garage door triggered memories of a childhood event. Now that I knew the reason to the fear, I figured the terror should dissipate, but it didn’t. Every time I went into the breezeway at night to lock the garage and back door, I had to consciously trust God to calm my fears.

Trust. It’s an interesting thing. You would think once you learned it it would be a done deal; however, it seems that whether it’s human nature or just the nature of the beast that trust must be learned and relearned throughout your life. It takes a constant reminding that I am not the one in control, but instead God is. It’s knowing that He has everything, and I mean every single detail, filtered through His loving hands with a purpose for it. It is a conscious choice to praise Him through both the good times and the bad. A decision to accept life’s ups and downs and say ‘Thank you, Lord’. It is an acceptance that He is all I need. Just as some people need coffee or a soda, I need my time with the Lord. I need His input in my life, a time to sit and reflect on His word and listen to music that honors Him.

This walk of trust takes a courage that is not innate. It comes from little steps of trust which are honored and by proving that God is trustworthy. Peter didn’t step out of the boat onto the choppy waves the first time he met Jesus; he had seen Jesus prove Himself multiple times before.

This theme of trust is what The One Who Sees Me is all about. Faru must learn to trust The Existing One–The One Who Sees Her. It takes small steps–an answered prayer, a kind word, an act of consideration, and finally a running away–for her to come to grips with this courageous trust.

Listen to the words of this song, and may you also gain the courage to trust The All-Sufficient One, The One Who Sees you.

Dragon’s Future released sixteen days ago. It doesn’t seem possible that it was that long ago. On Saturday, I had the privilege to hold my first book in my hand. The place in life for Dragon’s Future is the first born. He will have four siblings and their story will intertwine–same author and back story, same editor, cover artist and proofreader. So, sit back and watch the cycle of Dragon’s Future.

Just before I was able to hold Dragon’s Future in my hands, I took another step in the publishing world–I hit submit to layout of another book. This book has its own story, a different section of the publishing company, and in essence is the child or even grandchild of Dragon’s Future. This new book will be published under Booktrope’s Vox Dei imprint. Say hello to The One Who Sees Me.

My fascination with the story of The One Who Sees Me goes back to 1998 when I was struggling with a shadowed memory of abuse when I was a child. I was trying to heal from the shock of realizing I had hidden all those memories. I reached out to a friend, who suggested I read Kay Arthur’s Lord, Heal My Hurts. Kay loves to look into the names of God. She shared the name The One Who Sees Me. God reveals this name for Himself when a young servant girl finds herself in a very unenviable position. She runs away and meets The One Who Sees Me. She realizes that God sees everything! This was such a comfort at that time in my life. It helped me realize that although God didn’t plan the abuse, He had a plan for it to be turned into good if I would let Him.

Fast forward to 2007. I had finished writing what would become The Dragon Courage series and was dabbling in drawing. I had joined the artists’ social media site DeviantArt and made some virtual friends. One of whom was a missionary and pastor’s kid based in Asia. She created a challenge. She wanted to see how many of the women of the Bible she could write poetry about. She challenged other artists to apply their talents to do the same. I submitted my Christmas play from the point of view of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the foot of the cross looking back on his life, and a monologue by Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. I wanted to add The One Who Sees Me as a drawing of an eye with a silhouette of a pregnant woman. I never got around to drawing it. However, in November of 2014 I wrote the story. It will be available for purchase on October 3, 2015, less than a year from its writing.

Hence, the circle of life has been closed. I know that many more books may yet grace my family, but the firstborns will be the ones that will be held in awe and wonder. The story teller will say, “Gather round as I tell you the tale of a book.”