Monday Meditations: ...For the Joy Set Before Me

There are some people who have a long-term outlook on life and some with a short-term outlook. Long-term people tend to be visionaries. They can envision the big picture long before it manifests. Short-term people tend to be more practical. Each step is their focus more than the end result.

I fall into the later category. I consider myself to be very practical. Often when my husband and I discuss the long-term goals of the family, my response is normally, “Can I get through today first?” That is one of the wonderful things about my marriage. My husband is a visionary and I’m more practical. He has the plan and I provide the steps to get it done. We balance each other out.

But on my own, I struggle with seeing the big picture. Often, especially when I’m working on a long project, there seems to be no end in sight. I’m often discouraged when faced with a daunting task because my focus is so limited. I’m only thinking about how to get through today.

Of course, writing novels can be very discouraging sometimes. It seems like days after days, week after week of writing with seemingly no forward movement. And one-hundred thousand words can seem like a lifetime away to a short-term minded person like me.

One day I was praying about my WIP, and it dawned on me that my attitude was wrong. I was approaching the project with dread. My negative self-talk had me thinking I would never finish it. But then a portion of a scripture popped into my head, “…who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”

Jesus was a visionary. He could see the big picture when He walked the earth. He saw us, in our sin with no way to freedom, and endured the cross. We were the joy set before Him.

I realized that I needed to broaden my mindset about my WIP. I needed to focus the big picture instead of drowning in the details of everyday. If you’ve visited my blog before, you probably know that I plan to use a portion of my earnings from a publishing contract to provide clean water for someone in need. That’s the joy. A town or community will no longer have to suffer the effects of drinking contaminated water. I just needed a little reminder of the joy that was set before me.

So if you are like me, frustrated at the length of the situations in your life, focus on the big picture. Don’t let your heart be weighted down with the minute details of your challenge. And even if you don’t have a specific goal, you can look forward to bring God glory with your life.

Tea & Read: The Vigilante's Bride

Title: The Vigilante’s Bride

Author: Yvonne Harris

Rating: Glad I got it from the library (or free)

I love cowboy stories. I don’t know why but I tend to gravitate to them. But the Vigilant’s Bride proves that not all cowboys are created equal.

Luke Sullivan robs a stagecoach to get revenge but ends up abducting a family passenger, also. Emily McCarthy is unhappy about her abduction, but finds herself falling for Luke and in the middle of a fight between him and a powerful rancher.

I’ve written lots of reviews and few times have I struggled in figuring out what I wanted to say. This book left me wordless, and not in a good way. The best way I can describe this book was that book had one major flaw: the main character. Unfortunately, Luke Sullivan created a sad domino effect on the rest of the book.

I had a hard time reconciling his two sides. At the beginning of the book, he’s displayed as a ruthless vigilante. Then he switches to someone so kind and compassionate that I found it hard to believe he was the same person. The whole book hangs on the premise of his vigilante status, but I wasn’t feeling it. Sadly, when other characters made mention of Luke’s reputation for being callous, I found his later transformation hard to believe.

The rest of the book fell apart since most of the plot was pinned on Luke. I found myself more interested in the orphanage subplot than Luke and Emily. And I actually enjoyed the development and execution of that subplot and found myself wishing that the whole book had been about it. I didn’t give the book the lowest rating because of this.

I believe I would give Yvonne Harris’ book another chance. This book wasn’t horrid; Luke just needed a little more character development.

My Life in Stiches: Knitting vs. Crochet

In the years I spent crafting, I realized that people are either knit or crochet. Most people. My husband and I are an exception to the rule: we do both. My husband taught me to crochet and I taught him to knit. Yay for being weird.

I also think it’s weird that people can’t tell knitting from crochet. I can’t tell you the number of times someone asked me if I was crocheting while knitting and vise versa. To me, they are two totally different animals (needles=knitting, hook=crochet). But recently, when someone else mistook my knitting for crochet, I started thinking about the differences between the two.

So here is the Unofficial Terri Haynes Knitting vs. Crocheting list.

KNITTING

Pros:
1. Better looking pieces. Knitting produces garments that don’t smack of homemade.
2. Yarn usage. Knitting uses far less yarn to complete small projects.
3. Ease of correcting mistakes. Now that I’ve learned how to do it, correcting my knitting boo-boos are simple.
4. Travel Friendly. Most knitting projects are small enough to stick in a bag and go. I knit on the Metro all the time. I don’t think I would try that with crochet. Also, knitting is the only thing I can do in the car without getting motion sickness. Bonus!

Cons:
1. Pain. I find that when I’ve knitting for a long time, both hands hurt, instead of just one.
2. Financial impact. With crochet, you buy have to buy a maximum of three set of hooks, and that’s if you want bamboo or a set of small needles for crocheting thread. With knitting, not only do you have to purchase needles in the right size, but you have to buy ones with the right length and even double pointing needles. And you need stoppers for the end of your needles. All that adds up after a while.

CROCHET
Pros:
1. Crochet is fast. In the time it takes me to knit one baby blanket, I could do three crocheted ones.
2. Multi-tasking. I find I can multi-task, say watching a movie or talking on the phone, easier with crochet than knit. But that might be because I haven’t been knitting as long as I’ve been crocheting.
3. Colors. To me, and I may be in the minority, changing colors in crochet is easier than in knit.

Cons:
1. Wrist pain. With the circular motion of crocheting, your wrist tends to hurt before your hands.
2. Cheesy factor. No matter how nice your crochet, it still looks cheesy (unless it’s a blanket or something). I saw a little boy in a crochet hat one day and I cringed.
3. Patterns. There are many patterns out there crochet, but after a while, they all started looking the same to me. There only so many afghans you can make. And you can’t really make nice socks.