Jane Foard Thompson is an inspirational speaker and award winning author and poet. A former Montessori teacher in Texas and Utah, for eight years Jane and her husband were missionaries in Honduras, Central America. After working for the American Red Cross in Idaho, they now live in Florida, where she writes, leads music and women's Bible studies at their church, and enjoys nine grandchildren and her Golden Retriever, Lily.
I’m pausing from my usual writing to share my recommendations for books by authors I know and love. Click on the high-lighted title for details and ordering information. If you read this soon after I publish it, there is still time to order them for Christmas.
For the youngsters on your list, and in support of this young mother, recently widowed, with three little girls, I highly recommend Dorina Lazo Gilmore’s award winning picture book, Cora Cooks Pancit.
Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina Lazo Gilmore
For any woman ready for a good laugh and a well told story, I encourage you to get a copy of newly released Calculated Risk, a contemporary romance by Zoe M McCarthy. Calculated Risk will have you smiling and chuckling through this heart warming story.
Calculated Risk
Lifeway in Sarasota has signed copies of the following two books:
If you are shopping for a teenage girl, I strongly recommend Like Moonlight at Low Tide:Sometimes the Current Is the Only Thing that Saves You (Young Adult Carol Award winner) by Nicole Quigley. Set on Anna Maria Island, in Like Moonlight at Low Tide Nicole uncovers the challenges and very real threats of high school social life, and offers understanding and hope. The writing is refreshing, dialogue realistic, and the plot is well-developed. It is so on target that it took me, sometimes unwillingly, back to my high school years.
Like Moonlight at Low Tide
For the busy mother on your list (or yourself, if you are one):
Julie K. Gillies pours out pages of daily refreshment in her lovely devotional, Prayers For a Woman’s Soul.
We drove southeast from Zürich toward the birthplace of Maria Tschanen Zimmerman, my great-grandmother. I’d hoped to find family tombstones, especially for her sister, Anna. My grandmother’s only expressed wish, unfulfilled, had been to visit Switzerland. After my mother’s death this year, I felt the need to link back to her grandmother’s land, especially since it is my middle daughter’s home, and the birthplace of two of my grandchildren.
By the time we reached Wohlen bei Bern, early winter darkness forced us to pull out flashlights. We stomped around the graveyard at Die Pfarrkirche, but all we found were fairly recent graves.
church at Wohlen bei Bern
Inside the church, the boys and I were fascinated with the manger scene, loaded with woolly sheep.
Manger scene in church at Wohlen bei Bern, Switzerland
We read that the church was founded in 1320.
inside church looking toward the backTen Commandments from 1681
So why no old gravestones, the kind my older brother and his wife found throughout the U.S. to establish our family tree on our father’s side?
In a country rich with history, even pre-dating the Romans, it didn’t make sense.
After thoroughly covering every part of the cemetery, I stopped to listen to my daughter explain that, according to Swiss law, any graves over 100 years old are removed to make space for new ones. (No, we don’t know what happens to them.)
Finally, we chose a young cinnamon rose-bush near some Zimmerman and Tschanen graves to disperse a portion of Mom’s ashes. (Mom had been an avid gardener.)
Cinnamon Rose bush in Wohlen bei Bern churchyard
Tracey and the boys sang “I Am His Child,” which Jeremy and Kyle had sung to Mom on their last visit in April – and to which she had responded with deep emotion and tears. (They also sang it at the reception after her Requiem.)
For days I was frustrated that I had not been able to find my ancestors’ tombs.
Yesterday, understanding dawned, and I sighed in relief.
empty manger
Just like the empty manger, the empty cross, and the empty tomb where they had laid the body of Jesus, someday all our tombs will be empty.
The only thing that really matters is where we go from there.
“My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence.” I John 5:13-14
sunrise over Schindellegi, Switzerland
Below is a partial clip of Jeremy and Kyle singing “I Am His Child” at the reception.
Above the cloudsOn the plane to Europe, I watched, enchanted, as the sun rose over waves of white clouds. From the top, the massive cloud coverage looked like brilliant cotton pillows or rows of whipped cream. What a change when the plane dove toward the Zürich airport. We penetrated the clouds and the cabin instantly darkened. For the next weeks, the only time I saw the sun was when we drove to a mountaintop to hike, or spent a weekend in an Alpine ski village. Guayaquil Ecuador by Jack H Thompson
Almost everyone I talked with complained or apologized for the glum weather, and I’m sure many are plagued with SAD. (Seasonal Affective Disorder, caused by lack of sunlight)
Swiss fog
The constant grey sky and frequent fog cover, people walking huddled against the damp cold, and the predominance of black clad citizens admittedly can be depressing. thick fog in eastern Switzerland
I’m flying home next week, back to sunny, warm Florida, flip-flops and sandals and sunglasses. Though the damp cold does get to the bones, the ever-present fog hasn’t really bothered me.
I know this is only temporary.
And I know where I’m heading.
How very sad it would be to live in the fog forever.
To live without the hope of warmth and light.
I feel for my daughter and her friends and their desire for sunshine.
I feel even more for those who always live in the fog, whose lives are circumscribed by their own wants and drives, who search for meaning and find only emptiness, who reach out for life and come up with empty hands.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Tracey walking Caitlin
Just as Tracey and I chose to go up the mountain to walk Caitlin in the sunshine, any human being can choose the light. back into the fog in Switzerland
Even when it feels like we are surrounded by darkness. house in fog
I could say discover your inner child, or seek your own peace and tranquility. I could encourage you to get more exercise and eat a healthy diet. Make friends. Volunteer. Find a hobby. Those are good and helpful, but don’t bring us into the sunshine.
I only know one way. Sometimes it starts with a mountaintop experience. Sometimes it is a cry in the night. Sometimes it is a gentle climb into the light.
But the path is the same. The way out of darkness.
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
And we discover that we don’t even do the climbing. We are carried into the light.
What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have is all-life healing and whole.
Glimpse of Peace 