Weathering The Impossible Storm

Good Morning!

Photos this morning are what it looks like at my house right now. The house is mine. One of the mailboxes is mine. The grandkids and snowman are mine. The red barn and horse belong to the neighbors. Photos have nothing at all to do with what I’m talking about, but thought you would enjoy them.



Things look really bad in the publishing industry right now, but instead of feeling discouraged, I’m actually encouraged. The reason? Because it’s when things look impossible that God usually does a major work in my life.

Here are a few cases in point:

1. I traveled to China while the bloody demonstrations were happening in 1989. All of my family tried to talk me out of it, because of the perceived danger. It turned out to be an amazingly fruitful trip and I returned home safe.



2. Just days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I boarded a plane and flew into LAX. My car wouldn’t run and I had no other way to make the ACT I Writing For Hollywood seminar. Didn’t want to miss it because of the awesome opportunity of being accepted. I was the only one out of ten that braved the air travel to get there. I’m still applying the lessons I learned through that Malibu Conference and I returned home safe.

3. I traveled to Israel days after a major bombing took place in the area I was going to work in missions. Again, my family tried to talk me out of it, and again, amazing things took place and I returned home safe.

4. This year, a devastating fire took out 2200 acres of wilderness where my husband and I work for a local outfitter. Within a week of the trails being opened, we loaded up our camping equipment and rode our mules through miles of blackened and smoldering destruction. We were told it would be a worthless trip, but we discovered an oasis that had been completely untouched. We camped there and enjoyed one of our best trips and we returned home safe.




These are just four instances…the number of grace…I could relate many more.

We are all facing an incredibly hard economic future, but I have good news! I’m a little ahead of most of you on this. At the beginning of 2008 we received news that our house payment was going up $250 a month! We didn’t even know we had a flexible loan. It was fixed for only a certain number of years. Rats. And we were already living at the edge of our income. Okay, already, we can handle this. We’ll just be more careful.

Then a new company took over my husband’s business and wouldn’t allow overtime. Okay, that hurt. That took away $250 a month. Now we were down $500 a month.



Next, the gas prices went up and we live a long way from my husband’s work. He drives a diesel, because it used to be cheaper to do so. Not any more. The cost for gas rose to a soaring $500 a month.

Nearly a thousand bucks more a month going out than coming in. Yikes! And we live in a small manufactured house, so if we lost our house, I figured it would mean living in our wall tent, but at least we had that.



First I panicked and cried a lot. Didn’t call creditors, because I didn’t know what I would say to them. Finally a friend told me to call. I did, and the mortgage person told me that they were planning to foreclose on us in two days. Two Days! Goodness!

A year has now passed and we are still in our home. Why? Because of several steps.

I will be sharing those steps with you over the next few weeks. Today, I want to begin by simply giving you a bit of hope to carry you through the Impossible Storm.




This year has been the very best for me in my writing and art business! And that, when others were doing worse. I even had a brand new magazine get hold of me to write for them. Wow! And I’m looking at the new year as one of great possibilities. Sure. Things are bad, but it’s a good time for us creative people to put our creative talents to work. For instance, is there a way to self-publish a book that you can get out to a niche market that will help you to make a bit of money and will help others at the same time? Or how about an E-book?

This is a good time to stretch our imaginations! What knowledge do you have that will help others? Can you portray that in your writing or art?

Think about that, and I’ll talk with you again in a couple of days about how important hope is in this process of weathering the Impossible Storm.