With Thanksgiving

It's just two days before we celebrate Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. I am looking forward to spending time with family. Tomorrow I will begin my preparations to contribute to the family table. Here in New England we ere toward the traditional fixings. How about you? Do you have a favorite dish to share?

To give an update, my broken foot is recovering nicely. I am able to drive. I still have a few restrictions but the trend is positive and I am noting daily improvements. I am still not able to walk or do much for physical activity (weight bearing) but I have modified some of my strength training exercises so I can do something to ward off the results of my inactivity.

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) so I am being steadfast in writing at least 1667 words a day--to meet the goal of 50,000 words by November 30th. It's been a good discipline and I hope to have the beginnings of a book by the time I finish. I say this because it somewhat explains my quietness here on my blog.  :)

Thank you for being faithful friends of The Stream's Edge. I count you as one of my many blessings. I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. We have much to be thankful for!

What are you thankful for today?

With a grateful heart,

Jeanne

New Sheets - Thirty Days to Refine You...

I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine; Cindy Sproles has a new book release and I've invited her to share a little about it with us. It's available on Amazon by clicking the link below.

New Sheets – Thirty Days to Refine You into the Woman You Can Be

Cindy, tell us about your new book and how it came about...

New Sheets is a thirty-day devotional/inspirational book. In the beginning the title was longer (if you can believe that). It was Thirty Years in Thirty Days to Refine You into the Woman You Can Be. The reason…well, it took thirty years for God to refine me into the woman I knew I could be. And by the way, I’m still being refined.

When I went through a divorce and moved back to my home, I came back with more than I left. I returned to Tennessee with two boys under the age of three and a broken heart. It took years to look through the rough times and find the good. But I came at it with the mindset, “God has a plan. I’m gonna learn.”

New Sheets were the flames of the fire I walked through. It was the defining and refining moments when God taught me.

I hope New Sheets will be one of those books women lay next to their bed and refer back to through their lives. If one woman can step over my broken rung because of the book, then it’s done its job.

Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks? I’m still learning.

I’m excited about New Sheets. It was a project I’d thought of years ago. Every time I picked up a pen to write it, I found I wasn’t “seasoned enough.” By that I mean, aged enough. (Oh boy, that sounds like a cheese). Let me try again…I hadn’t matured enough…to write it with authority and hindsight.

I came up with the idea for New Sheets in 1984. I’d gone through a divorce, moved back to Tennessee with two babies under the age of three to start over. The moving van unloaded the boy’s bedroom furniture, toys, my piano and my bed. There were seven boxes filled with clothes, 3 plates, 3 cups, 3 glasses…you get the jest. We had only what we could move in a 6 ft. section of a semi. I had no car, no money and no job. But we (the boys and I) had one another and once we got to Tennessee, we had my family.

I kept a journal for a while just to help me through the rough spots of divorce then one night I turned down the comforter to crawl into bed and realized, I was still sleeping with the man who’d divorced me…or at least sleeping with his memories on the same bed sheets I’d had while we were married. No wonder I cried every night and worse, I couldn’t sleep.

It was time for something new. A new start. I couldn’t afford a shopping spree. I could barely buy groceries, but I literally saved quarters in a mason jar until I had enough money to go to Wal-Mart and buy a set of sheets.

It’s scary at the ugly sheets in the bottom of the sale bin at Wal-Mart. Brown and pink paisley…but they were new. Crisp. Wrinkle-free. And when I put them on the bed it was like a new page in my life. They were cheap sheets, muslin. Kinda scratchy but to me, they were silk. So after that, every new turn in my life brought a new set of sheets. I’d throw out the worn ones and turn the corner with a set of new ones. To this day, I send new sheets to friends who’ve gone through major devastating life changes.

Each set of new sheets marked a time in my lift where God stoked the fire under me, hung me over the flame and refined me like silver. By the time I hit my 50’s I could look over the prior thirty years and say with confidence…”I’ve matured. Refined. Learned.” Hence the book.

New Sheets is for anyone willing to wade the flames of refinement. The fire is hot but finished product is a gem.


Cindy Sproles is the co-founder and executive editor of Christian Devotions Ministries and www.christiandevotions.us.  She is a popular speaker at women’s retreats and conferences and teaches at writers conferences across the nation. Cindy is the co-writer of the successful He Said, She Said devotions and is the co-host of the nationally syndicated BlogTalk Radio show, Christian Devotions Speak UP! She is a contributor to CBN.com and is the director of Writers ADVANCE! Boot Camp Writers Conference. Cindy is the author of two devotional/inspirational books, one with her co-writer Eddie Jones and the most recent, a solo book, New Sheets: Thirty Days to Refine You into the Woman You Can Be. You may visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com or contact her for speaking engagements at cindyksproles@gmail.com.