February Book Give-Away

The Bridge of Peace

by

Cindy Woodsmall

 Headstrong schoolteacher Lena Kauffman finds herself at the center of controversy in her Amish community when a young man in her classroom refuses to submit to her authority. As her friends and family rally around her, especially longtime friend, Grey Graber, things go from bad to worse when Grey’s wife, Elsie, becomes an accidental target in trouble meant for Lena. As the present unravels around them, each must find their own way through their private pain in order to find peace and a brighter future.

This second novel in the Ada’s House series returns to Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, and the beloved characters from The Hope of Refuge.

If you would like to enter the February Book Give-Away at Ruby for Women, please visit the Ruby blog and leave a comment, including your email address. You will be contacted for your mailing address if you are the winner. The drawing will take place on March 1, 2012.

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Ruby for Women community

where you can connect with other Christian women, share your favorite recipes and craft projects, link up your blog posts, and pray together with us. We'll be looking for you soon!

For much of my life I worked in business management, eventually finding my way into ministry. I now work alongside the Sr. Pastor in a sizeable, thriving church. Today I view life from the perspective that the best is always yet to come, which keeps me perched & ready for that next great thing. You might have guessed (and rightly so) that I see life in superlatives.

This week's featured blog post by Kathleen Flanagan is "The Year to Live Beautifully"

 Though we travel the world over 

to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us 

or we find it not. 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

I made it!  I jumped (in truth, I slept through) the divide between 2011 & 2012 and lived to post another day.  

 

In my email inbox this morning is the usual conglomeration of needful and not-so-needful stuff.  I wonder when all the deals & web-busters & year end super sales will subside, although now they've morphed into new year's super sale ads ad-nauseum.  

 

Being the curious sort, I opened one such email - - an ad for vitamin supplements (and boy don't I need them these days?).  I didn't get far before stumbling across the retailer's proclamation assigned to 2012:  The Year to Live Beautifully.  

 Unbeknownst to my solicitor, I knew I'd found my marching orders for the coming year as if the Lord Himself had handed them to me - and they had nothing whatsoever to do with vitamins.  For weeks - since long before Thanksgiving - I've been pondering ... and journaling ... and waiting ... and praying about what would be my 2012 focus.  So it was no blah ah hah! with which I claimed this. 

 

How does one center their intentions on living beautifully?  It sounds easy, just like the ad promised.  But, as Simone Weil tells us, that sort of beauty, "always promises, but never gives anything."  And I'm no fool - - such things may work for a season, or in the world of strong arms & better digestive health, but the world's proclamations are the very antithesis of what is beautiful in God's economy. 

 

Nothing in human life, least of all in religion,

is ever right until it is beautiful.

~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

 

So it is that I claim 2012 as The Year to Live Beautifully.  Such beauty will require treatments beyond what is offered at the spa, the health food store, Victoria's Secret or the jewelry counter at Macy's. 

 

To discover a flaw in our makeup is a chance to 

get rid of it, and add a new line of

beauty to our life.

~ Billy Sunday  

 

It's not that I haven't sought to live beautifully before.  Surely true believers everywhere make this a daily aim.  In reality, ours is a quest to live beautifully always.  Period!  But this particular summons has a different feel to it.  While affirming all those other days & ways in which I've sought to honor the Lord, this year I will make it my focus to find my way to the bedrock of virtue.  He alone knows the way.

 

Living Beautifully is (but not limited) to ...

• be of good courage
• let my light shine
• wear the Law of Kindness upon my tongue
• be content without condition
• craft noble plans
• consider & prepare for the Lord's return
• speak truth-in-love whenever doing so will honor both hearer & the Lord
• walk out my days, face-forward & with confidence
• listen more; speak less 
• give everyone the benefit of the doubt
• look for the blessing beneath both sunny & cloudy skies
• never overlook an opportunity to offer hope & encouragement

 

Wishing you a Year to Live Beautifully!

Please visit Kathleen at her blog, Sassy Granny. You can also connect with her in the Ruby for Women community on her personal page.

The Hope of Refuge

by Cindy Woodsmall

Raised in foster care and now a widowed single parent, New Yorker Cara Moore struggles against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When a trail of memories leads Cara and her daughter, Lori, away from the city toward an Amish community, she follows every lead, eager for answers to mysteries from her past and a fresh start. She quickly discovers that Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, is no place for an outsider.

But one Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God – “Be me to her” – despite how it threatens his way of life. Ephraim’s sister Deborah is fearful of the strange Englischer woman causing turmoil for her family, but keeps focused on the marriage and home she longs to begin with Mahlon Stolzfus. Her dreams are threatened when Mahlon begins behaving oddly, withdrawing, and causing concern for Deborah and Mahlon’s mother, Ada.

Will the run-down house that Ada envisions transforming unite them toward a common purpose – or push Mahlon away forever? As Ephraim is torn between trying to do what he believes is right and the requirements of his community, he risks losing everything, including a developing friendship with the guarded single mother. And he knows that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake – secrets with the power to tear apart the home Cara is desperately trying to find.

If you would like to enter the January Book Give-Away at Ruby for Women, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post, including your email address. You will be contacted for your mailing address if you are the winner. The drawing will take place on February 1, 2011.