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My husband and I went with friends to see the new “Little Women�� movie, last night. It was wonderful, but, oh, the memories and emotions it stirred up for me! I could so relate to Jo’s longing as a young writer to create stories and to be published.

I cried with her when her sister burned her manuscript in the fire. I once lost several chapters after a power outage in the days before computers had automatic back-ups. I stormed down the street to where a team from the power company was working and screamed at them in outrage. “Ma’am . . . ma’am . . . we didn’t cause it,�� they pleaded. I still wonder if they lied, fearing for their lives.

I felt Jo’s pain and humiliation as she listened to a blunt critique of her work, remembering the first time I sat down with a professional editor at a writers�� conference and heard him critique the first chapter of my novel. I felt as though he’d run my manuscript through a paper shredder! Both of those editors were probably right in what they said, but their words had the power to pierce a writer’s fragile heart. I confess that even after twenty-some books, I’ve never gotten used to critiques, and still have to steel myself to hear them, even though I know they may improve my work.

I watched the magazine editor in the film draw slash marks through Jo’s short story, saying he would publish it if she made extensive cuts, and I knew how she felt as she struggled to decide. The first article of mine that a publisher ever took an interest in was about 1400 words long. This editor (of a very well-known magazine) said he would publish it if I cut it down to 250 words and turned it into mere bullet points. It was a difficult decision, but I finally agreed. Painful, but I was a published author at last!

I understood Jo’s broken heart when she burned her own work and decided to give up writing. I gave up, too, after waiting nearly a year to learn whether or not a publishing company would print my manuscript, only to have it rejected and returned to me in a garbage bag. The garbage bag wasn’t the publisher’s idea—the mailing box had disintegrated on the return trip and the post office had dumped the pages into a trash bag for the remainder of the journey. Even so, I tossed out the bag and all 400 typewritten pages and gave up writing.

Tears ran down my face when Jo clasped her newly-published book to her chest as if it was her beloved child. I did the same when holding my first book in my hands for the first time. In fact, I carried that book with me everywhere, barely able to take my eyes off of it. I put it on my nightstand before I went to bed so I would see it first thing in the morning and know that it hadn’t been a dream.

Yes, I could relate to Jo’s roller-coaster ride as she wrestled with her calling as a writer and pursued her dream of being published. Her sisters, who had different dreams, also struggled to pursue them in a culture that diminished and marginalized women. Nourishing our dreams and becoming the person God created us to be is a favorite theme in my novels and inspirational speeches because I know the joy of discovering and living into God’s calling, even when the journey is long and painful and offers many opportunities to give up. But whether you’re a writer or not, I urge everyone to see the movie and to think about your own dreams. The start of a new year is the perfect time to partner with God and renew your resolve to pursue them.

The first time I visited Bethlehem more than 25 years ago, I expected to feel a sense of the beauty and simplicity of the much-loved Christmas story: a crude stable, the holy family, shepherds, wise men, and the Son of God in the manger.�� I was sadly disappointed. The traditional site of Jesus�� birth in Bethlehem is inside the Church of the Nativity—a truly ancient church built in 565 AD.�� It has survived enemy invasions, the Crusaders, restorations, renovations, a fire and an earthquake, but it looks like . . . well, a church.�� A beautifully decorated and ornamented church, with all the sacred clutter that has accumulated over the centuries, but it bore no resemblance to my image of what Jesus�� birthplace was like.

But wait—the real site was down a set of stairs and inside a natural cave that has been venerated as the place of His birth since 160 AD. But even this simple cave was so gilded and bedecked with artwork and tapestries and lamps and incense burners that I still couldn’t get a sense of what it might have looked like on that first holy night. In the center of the floor was a silver-encrusted star with a hole in the middle. By putting my hand inside, I could touch the place where Jesus was born more than 2,000 years ago.�� I tried it, but I left Bethlehem feeling empty, unable to make the sacred connection I had so longed for.

And isn’t that how so many of our Christmases end up feeling? In spite of all the tinsel and glitter and sparkle, all the money we spend and the stress we endure as we try to create the perfect Hallmark Christmas, we’re often left with the same let-down feeling I had inside that church in Bethlehem.�� We’ve lost the simple beauty of the story, that precious connection with Jesus that is the true miracle of Bethlehem.

The year after I visited Bethlehem, I began looking for ways to recapture the simplicity of Christ’s incarnation. Santa Claus has never been invited to our family’s Christmases, and we’ve always celebrated it as Jesus�� birthday, exchanging presents because God gave us the gift of His Son.�� But year after year, the clutter and glitz had draped themselves over our celebrations, just like the religious trappings that have collected inside the Church of the Nativity over the centuries.�� That year, I purchased a nice but inexpensive manger set. I wanted something that wasn’t a toy, but that my children could handle and touch. We placed it at their level and at the center of our holiday, and began the simple tradition of gathering together as a family to fill the empty stable while my husband read the story from the Bible. Our children divided all the people and sheep and camels among themselves and when we got to their part in the Bible story, they added their figures to the stable.

This simple tradition has become so beloved by all of us that we still do it the same way every year, even though our children are now adults. One year, our daughter was living overseas and couldn’t make it home for the holiday but we still held our family tradition while she participated via Skype. And it’s always in those moments, with a simple stable and inexpensive plaster figures, and my precious loved ones gathered around me that I feel the holy wonder of Christmas once again—Emmanuel, God with us! May you find Him this Christmas season, too.

What Christmas traditions are special for you and your family?

Please welcome my dear friend Elizabeth Musser as my guest blogger today. Elizabeth, Tammy Alexander, and I share the same German publisher, Francke, and the three of us traveled together on a book tour a few years ago. We had a blast! Now, I have the privilege of endorsing Elizabeth’s newest book, “When I Close my Eyes.�� Make sure you enter for a chance to win a copy. ~ Lynn

Perspective: Of Mountains and Seas

by Elizabeth Musser

So much of life is about perspective: how I perceive a situation, how I accept the different circumstances that twist their way into my life.

And so it is with our stories. The novelist is giving the reader a certain perspective and hoping that it resonates with the reader.

My newly released novel, When I Close My Eyes, is about a middle-aged writer who is in a coma, remembering her past. Part of the story takes place in Asheville, NC, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains at the height of their color in the fall. The other part of the story takes place at a beach in La Grande Motte, France, beside the a Mediterranean Sea.

When I received the final cover for the novel, I absolutely loved it. They’d caught the feel of the novel down to the detail of the font fading, symbolic of someone going in and out of wakefulness. And my heroine, Josephine, is standing by the Mediterranean Sea.

Even though the main part of the story takes place in Asheville, I wanted to make sure the back cover copy included a mention of the Mediterranean, since that was the cover setting:

There is one story novelist Josephine Bourdillon shirked from writing. And now she may never have a chance. Trapped in her memories, she lies in a coma. The man who put her there is just as paralyzed. Former military Henry Hughes failed to complete the kill. What’s more: he failed to receive payment—funds that would ensure surgery for his son. As detectives investigate disturbing fan letters, a young but not-so-naive Paige Bourdillon turns to her mother’s tormented past for answers. Could The Awful Year be worse than one they’re living now? Set against the flaming hills of North Carolina and the peaceful shores of the Mediterranean Sea, When I Close My Eyes tells the story of two families struggling with dysfunction and finding that love is stronger than death.

Perfect!

But then I received a slew of gorgeous graphics that the team at Bethany House had designed for computer and smart phone backgrounds. And I literally caught my breath when I saw the design for the smart phone. Because of the shape of that graphic, more of the original photo is visible. And guess what? Josephine isn’t standing beside the Mediterranean Sea. She’s standing on a mountain, gazing out at the mist on the mountains.

It’s the perfect representation of the beginning of the book, a description taken from one of Josephine’s novels:

The clouds hang low, a mist caught between the carpet of mountains. I stand at the top of the lookout and gaze into a never-ending motion of undulating valleys and peaks. On and on, seemingly forever, they rise and fall in lush green hues and deep blue ridges that span past history. The mountains hold my imagination, and I feel a call to their beauty. Then they fade out of view as the mist floats above and around them, like puffs of smoke. I hover in the mist; I feel the calling of the dawn. I see the first ray of light piercing through the mist and I know. I am forgiven.

These Mountains Around Us, Josephine Bourdillon

The design team had picked the perfect picture, and in a serendipitous way, the cover perfectly fit both settings in the novel. Do you see the clouds and the mist and the mountains?

I absolutely love this cover for many reasons, but especially because it taught me a lesson in perspective. I can easily see something different because of where I am coming from.

I hope you like the cover. And I hope you also enjoy the story.

To be entered in a giveaway for a copy of When I Close My Eyes, print or e-book, leave a comment below.

BIO

ELIZABETH MUSSER writes ‘entertainment with a soul�� from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. Elizabeth’s highly acclaimed, best-selling novel, The Swan House, was named one of Amazon’s Top Christian Books of the Year and one of Georgia’s Top Ten Novels of the Past 100 Years (Georgia Backroads). All of Elizabeth’s novels have been translated into multiple languages and have been international best-sellers. Two Destinies, the final novel in The Secrets of the Cross trilogy, was a finalist for the 2013 Christy Award. Her latest novel, The Long Highway Home was a finalist for the 2018 Carol Awards. Elizabeth’s novel, When I Close My Eyes, will be published in November, 2019.

For over thirty years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions�� work in Europe with One Collective, formerly International Teams.�� The Mussers have two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at and on , , and her .

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I am so pleased to announce that this week, Tyndale House is offering a special ebook sale of my novel, Fly Away. The story takes place in 1987—a time period too recent to be a historical novel like my other books, but too far in the past to be a contemporary novel. That’s because Fly Away was one of the very first books I wrote—and the year really was 1987. I was just starting to dream of being a writer back then, and my first published book was eight years in the future. The story came to me so effortlessly that I remember writing it out longhand on a yellow legal pad in my living room. Later, I typed it into my Atari computer and saved it on several 3½-inch floppy discs. It was published by Beacon Hill Press in 1996 and has been out of print until this year.

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I remember very well the genesis of the story. Within a short period of time, our family struggled with a series of losses. My father, a World War II veteran like the main character in Fly Away, was hospitalized with a stroke and died a few months later at the age of 62. Dad had been helping to care for my grandmother, so without his help, she had to be moved to a nursing home. My father-in-law also had a stroke and was moved to a nursing home where he later died. And then my mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.

Mom Austin wanted to spend her final weeks of life in her own home rather than in a hospital. ��My husband and I and our three children lived in Canada at the time, but when we learned that Mom had only a few weeks to live, we drove down to Michigan to take care of her. We had just welcomed our daughter, Maya, into the world, and she was less than two weeks old when we arrived in Michigan. For the next month, we took care of Mom and Maya simultaneously, one at the very beginning of her life, the other at the end; one growing stronger each day, the other weaker. Both were being nurtured and comforted by the presence and love of our family.

People had asked if we were concerned that our children would be traumatized by watching their grandmother die. I had never been present when someone died, so I confess I was a little worried about what the experience would be like when the moment of death arrived. Then I recalled that I had been just as worried about what it would be like to give birth for the first time, yet giving birth turned out to be a beautiful, miraculous part of life. Thanks to a wonderful hospice nurse, we were coached in what we needed to do to care for Mom, just as our birth coach had helped us when giving birth. Still, I wondered what Mom’s final moments would be like.

One night at about 3:00 AM, the baby woke up crying. While I checked to see what she needed, my husband went to check on his mother. He came out of her room saying, “Lynn—she’s gone.�� Mom had passed away peacefully in her sleep. Almost immediately, the baby fell back to sleep as if she had awakened only to let us know her grandmother had passed away. Our oldest son, Joshua, who was nine, wanted to go into Grandma’s bedroom to say goodbye. He was able to see and understand that she was no longer in her body, but was now in heaven. It was a tender, holy moment for all of us. After so recently experiencing the miracle of birth, we all learned that death is also one of God’s holy moments.

With so many losses in less than a year’s time, writing Fly Away became part of my grieving process. As you read the novel, you’ll probably see how my own thoughts and emotions became intertwined with my plot and characters. The book deals with dying and loss, but I didn’t want it to be a sad book. All of my beloved family members had loved life and had lived it well. They taught me that our faith in Christ gives us the strength and courage we need to face whatever plans He has for us—even when it means saying good-bye. I learned that death is also an important part of life. We will all lose loved ones to it. We will experience it ourselves. So why not explore the mystery of it by making it a theme of a novel? Writers like to ask “What if?�� and “Why?�� As I wrestled with my own grief, I began to ask those questions.

Telephones still had cords when I wrote Fly Away, and hung on kitchen walls. Shag carpeting and Star Wars figures were all the rage. I was in my thirties, and my two main characters, who are 65, seemed “old�� to me. Now I’m a senior citizen like those “old�� main characters. But like Wilhelmina Brewster, I don’t believe in retirement. And like Mike Dolan, I want to keep living life to the fullest, right up until the moment when Jesus calls me home.

After several years of debuting my novels in the fall each year, I’m sorry to say that changes in my publishing schedule mean you’ll have to wait until next spring to read my latest book. In the meantime, I’m excited to show you what the gorgeous cover looks like, and to tell you a little bit about the story. “If I Were You�� takes place in London during World War II and is a story of friendship and self-discovery—with a few splashes of romance that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

The idea for the book came from a true story about a British war bride who moved to America after the war. Of course, writers always like to elaborate on a simple story by asking, “What if��?�� and so the plot took a few twists and turns along the way. As I dove into the research, I discovered how greatly the two world wars altered everyday life in England, putting an end to the divide between the upper classes and their servants. Being a huge fan of the TV series, “Downton Abbey,�� I knew I wanted to take my story in that direction. My two heroines, Audrey Clarkson and Eve Dawson quickly sprang to life. Then all the rest—their friendship, their rivalry, their loves and losses—fell beautifully into place as these two women searched to redefine who they really were.

One of my favorite parts of writing each novel is researching it. My husband and I wandered around London in June of 2018 so I could put myself in my characters�� shoes, soaking up the sights and getting a feel for what my characters might have seen and experienced some 75 years ago. London is a beautiful, old city with buildings that haven’t changed much in centuries—although, the red, double decker buses do look a bit more modern these days.

We rode everywhere on the underground, and I tried to imagine what it would have been like to sleep down there with thousands of other people every night during The Blitz while bombs pummeled the city. No one knew what the landscape would look like in the morning or if they would even have a home to return to.

I learned that even Buckingham Palace didn’t escape the relentless bombing, and suffered damage along with several other famous buildings in London. Here I am near the palace gates, with the Victoria Monument in the background.

And now, I’m proud to show you the intriguing cover of “If I Were You.�� It’s one of my favorite covers ever! I’m curious to know what you think?

I am thrilled to announce the release of my newest book, Sightings—Discovering God’s Presence in our Everyday Moments. This non-fiction devotional is a collection of my thoughts and ponderings as I’ve learned to look for “God sightings�� in the simple moments of life.

One of the most amazing and comforting promises that Jesus gives us is this: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age�� (Matthew 28:20). But in the busyness of our daily lives, in the challenges and surprises we often face, we don’t always have a sense of Christ’s nearness. We forget to notice all of the little messages He sends to remind us that He is right beside us, watching over us, weaving all things together into a glorious tapestry for our good and for His glory.

Instead of leaving God behind after our Sunday morning worship or our daily devotions, what if we tried to cultivate that sense of His presence in our ordinary moments? What if we watched for Him at home and at work and everywhere we went? This book is a product of my attempt to do just that. I’m learning to see patterns of His redemption everywhere! And to see myself as He sees me—precious and worthy of His love. It’s my hope that readers will learn from Sightings, so that they too, will begin to notice all of the times and places where Jesus shows up in their everyday lives.

Of course, there’s a story behind this book. Earlier this year, my publisher in the Netherlands asked if they could create a devotional from a selection of my blog posts from the past few years. Many of my Dutch readers can’t easily read my posts in English. I said “Yes!�� and went to work with their editors to add extra material, creating a devotional entitled “Altijd in God’s Hand�� (Always in God’s Hand).

I was so pleased with the final result that I asked my Digital Marketing Assistant, Christine Bierma, to help me publish a version of the book in English. The beautiful cover was designed by Ken Raney at Raney Day Creative (who happens to be author Deb Raney’s husband). Here is the result of our combined efforts.

Each chapter in this ten-week devotional includes a daily scripture reading and closing prayer. The Something More section at the end of each week provides an extra challenge or activity to encourage readers to dig deeper. Together, I hope these readings will make an inspiring addition to a daily quiet time with God.

Sightings is now available in print, and the pre-sale e-book format will be released on October 29. If you would like to be part of my launch team, please use this link to apply:

Last month, our town hosted a Civil War Muster in a local park. Re-enactors from all over the country came here to camp in canvas tents, wear authentic uniforms, and re-create famous Civil War battles. A friend and I sat on a hilltop to view the battles while our husbands performed period music in the brass band. As I watched the north and the south shoot rifles and cannons at each other, I thought of two of my husband’s ancestors, Isaac Austin and his son George Hiram Austin who both fought in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Isaac Austin was taken captive and became a prisoner-of-war, eventually ending up in the notorious Andersonville Prison Camp in Georgia. While he was away fighting, his wife died. His twin sons were too young to enlist, but after losing his mother, George Hiram lied about his age and went off to war at age sixteen. He was taken prisoner as well, and also ended up in Andersonville. His father Isaac died there, and a few years ago, my husband and I visited his grave site.

George Hiram survived and is my husband’s great-grandfather. In a photograph with his twin brother James, George Hiram looks ten years older, likely from everything he suffered during the war. After the war, he became a circuit-riding, Methodist preacher, ministering to dozens of churches before passing away in 1920. According to family history, his wartime experiences led him to become a devoted Christian and to offer his life to God.

As I watched the mock-battles taking place, I couldn’t help thinking how stupid war is. Making men line up on opposite sides of a field and shoot at each other until one side “wins,�� seems idiotic. I pictured these men as my husband or my son, and I wanted to shout “Stop! Let’s just put an end to all this suffering and make peace!��

One of my loved ones is currently fighting a very difficult battle of a different kind. Everything in me wants to do something, take control, intervene, stop their pain, end their suffering. I’ve prayed and prayed and asked God, “What should I do? How can I help?�� The answer I keep getting is: Nothing. Just wait. When I texted this dear one to say that I was praying, they texted in return: “These trials need to happen for our good.��

Like George Hiram Austin, my loved one is experiencing a difficult but important lesson. God can use our suffering to change us and draw us closer to Him, if we let Him. Or our pain can change us in a different way, making us bitter and angry, turning us away from God. I can’t offer an easy answer to explain the difference, but I suspect it might have something to do with our attitude when we find ourselves on the battlefront. The book of James says it this way: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything�� (James 1:2-4).

I have never met anyone who has experienced “pure joy�� while suffering. But I have met many people whose suffering drew them closer to God and resulted in greater service in His kingdom—like George Hiram’s suffering did. So, I will continue to watch my loved one’s battle from the sidelines, praying that through the struggle, and when the war finally ends, they will be able to rejoice in the work that God has accomplished in their life.

I’ve been working from breakfast until bedtime this past week, juggling three important writing projects. This blog is project #4. I feel like a circus performer spinning plates, trying not to let any of them fall. Besides my writing deadlines, I also spoke at a women’s retreat last Saturday. And I have a husband and children who I love spending time with. And grandchildren who are growing up much too fast. I don’t want to miss a single moment of their lives. And aren’t I supposed to exercise every day, and cook healthy meals, too? Not to mention find time to see the new “Downton Abbey�� movie.

No matter what kind of work we do, we all have weeks like this, when the pressure is on and there’s not enough time in a day to get everything done. If I’m not careful, my life can get so overcrowded that I live each day in crisis mode. The weeks go by in a hectic blur as I try to keep all the plates spinning, and I end up not really enjoying my work or my life very much. Is there a solution?

One of my favorite passages of scripture is Psalm 90—written by none other than Moses, who certainly had a lot of plates to spin. In his prayer, he asked God to “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.�� In other words, help me learn how to align my priorities with God’s. One of the lessons God taught me is to go to Him with my list of urgent tasks at the start of each busy day and make the list a matter of prayer. When I do, God has sometimes shown me that I’ve said “yes�� to things I didn’t pray about, first. I’ve agreed to do them from wrong motives like guilt and not because God asked me to. Hopefully, I can “gain a heart of wisdom�� and do things differently in the future.

So, I pray about my day, and set priorities, and just when I think I have everything organized, along comes an unplanned interruption that throws my schedule out of whack! Now what? Jesus was on his way to save a dying girl, a true matter of life and death. But He was interrupted along the way by a needy woman who touched the hem of His robe. He obviously saw this as a divine interruption, so He took time to minister to her. And He was still able to accomplish His goal of healing the little girl. How did He know it was a divine interruption? Easy, He’s Divine! It’s a little harder for us.

One such interruption happened to me recently in the middle of a very busy writing day. A woman stopped by to pick up a book, and I started to get the feeling that she needed to talk. Should I stick to my schedule or God’s? I invited her to stay and have coffee, and it turned out that God was asking me to do more than hand her a book. We talked, and prayed together, and when I returned to my writing, I was still able to reach my daily goal. Chatting on Facebook or checking Twitter and Instagram may very well be a divine interruption that God can use. Or, it can be a time waster.

The work we labor so hard to accomplish can have eternal results and bring glory to God, or it can simply fill up our days and sabotage our relationships and leave us stressed out. I’m still learning how to make those daily decisions, so I will keep on praying the way Moses did: “Teach me to number my days aright, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.��

I’ve learned over the more than 30 years that I’ve been writing, that I need to get away from my desk from time to time and refresh my creative juices. So, over the Labor Day weekend my husband and I decided to go on a short adventure in his little red sports car. It’s such a fun, liberating feeling to ride with the top down, with the view open to the vast, infinite sky! I not only have a new appreciation for the beauty of clouds, but it’s amazing how many different scents I smelled along the way—everything from cows and fresh hay, to campfires and the fishy aroma of the lake.

We traveled north in our own state of Michigan to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park and then on to the Leelanau Peninsula, stopping to visit three different Michigan lighthouses. They were all nice, but we decided we liked our own lighthouse here in Holland—affectionately known as “Big Red”—the best. What do you think?

The purpose of these lighthouses, of course, is to shine a beacon to prevent ships from running aground, especially during storms. But as we learned from the museum displays, even a warning beacon can’t prevent a ship from becoming wrecked during a storm. There have been hundreds of shipwrecks on the Great Lakes—some even in modern times. I used two of them in my novel, Waves of Mercy. And I’ve decided I’m glad I’m not a lighthouse keeper or the captain of a sailing vessel.

I returned from our trip eager to get back to work my manuscript. I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for any other. But as we celebrate Labor Day, I can’t help wondering how many people dislike their job and wish they had a different one. One of my favorite speaking topics at retreats and conferences is about finding God’s purpose. I believe the reason God created each of us so uniquely is because He has a unique purpose for each of our lives.

Sometimes, as in my case, my profession is also my calling. I’ve met people from a variety of occupations, such a teachers and nurses, who feel the same way. A friend of mine has had an amazing ministry through her work as a beautician.

For others, their daily 9 to 5 job isn’t necessarily the same as their calling but it opens up opportunities to serve God. An accountant friend, for instance, used his skills to help a missionary agency in South Africa upgrade to a new accounting program. And I have dozens of retired friends who are no longer working at full-time jobs but are still being called by God to serve in various ways.

I know that millions of people go to work every day at jobs they dislike because of financial obligations. When my husband was in graduate school, I worked as a secretary to support us until he received his degree. I also worked at various other jobs until my books began earning royalty checks. But even if we feel “stuck�� in a job, I believe it’s important to ask God what His purpose for our life might be, and how we can begin to fulfill it. It’s the willingness to serve God that counts. We can do any job for His glory. And He blesses the work of our hands when we offer it to Him.

So, as we eat our hamburgers and celebrate our work today, remember what scripture says: “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God�� (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

Happy Labor Day!

I often wonder: If I had a dollar for attending every one of my husband’s concerts over the years, how rich would I be? Probably pretty rich! Ken is a professional musician, a trumpet player. He was already the principal trumpeter of the Kalamazoo, Michigan Symphony Orchestra as a college student before we were married. This month, we will celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary. When I do the math, that adds up to a lot of concerts.

We met while we were both students at Hope College. When he told me he was a Music major, I asked, “So, do you sing, play the piano��?�� He said, “I play trumpet a little.�� I eventually discovered what an understatement that was! His talent had won him a full scholarship to Hope, and would later win him a full scholarship for his Master’s degree at Yale University. We married right before he started studying at Yale—and the adventure began.

Ken proposed by saying, “If you marry me, we’ll probably never be rich, but we’ll see the world.�� He was so right! His first job after graduating from Yale was as principal trumpet in the National Symphony Orchestra in Bogota, Colombia. It was a huge job with a full season of concerts. Bogota is a very cultured city and supports two orchestras, Ken’s being the larger one. We also lived in Canada for eleven years when he performed full-time with two symphony orchestras. There were numerous Broadway musicals such as “Les Miserables�� and “The Sound of Music,�� and “Fiddler on the Roof.�� He toured China with “The New Sousa Band.�� Many, many orchestras and performances every place we lived—too many to name—ending up in Chicago for twenty years.

During our time in Indiana, he worked with Bill and Gloria Gaither at their recording studio, and he met and performed with popular Christian artists of the time such as Steve Green and Sandi Patti. He traveled across the country with the Christian group “Truth.�� Yes, lots and lots of concerts!

Now he is “semi-retired,�� which means nothing. Our church has an orchestra and brass ensemble that play for our services three Sundays a month. He traveled to Germany with me earlier this year and performed at my publishing company’s 100th Celebration. A week ago, he was in Colorado as a soloist with The Great Western Rocky Mountain Brass Band. Last Tuesday, he played a solo with the Holland American Legion Band for their summer concert series. He had another concert with a Bebop group last Saturday at a Christian Conference center.

To say that I am proud of him would be like saying, “I play trumpet a little.�� Thousands of concerts, thousands and thousands of hours of beautiful music. “A dollar for every concert?�� My life has been enriched beyond what money could ever buy. Happy Anniversary, Ken! I can’t believe it’s been nearly fifty years!