By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer Eleven years ago at one of my earliest book signings, I sat behind a little table near the front of a Colorado Bible/book store, surrounded by everything Duck Dynasty. Talk about a duck out of water – that was me. My book had nothing
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer We hear it a lot, don’t we? The cloaked condemnation that demands we “Be grateful,” for “things could be worse,” and we “have it better than most.” Some of us find it hard to swallow this Thanksgiving side-dish because we’ve filled ourselves on “But Why”
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer There is a lot of clamoring right now. Have you heard it? A lot of noise. A lot of posturing and pointing, criticism and chaos. None of it is new. It’s all happened before, many times, in fact. And God’s antidote is the same:
Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer On my flight to a writers’ conference in California, I tossed around the idea that God made us porous. Like sponges. We absorb and we leak. Everything we listen to, read, and watch soaks into us in some way and seeps out in another. As
Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer “Daddy prays with me at night before I go to sleep. It makes me feel welcome and safe.” “Welcome” seems like an unusual word choice, but think about it. The child who said this feels welcome at home. How many do not? This child has a
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer As a writer, I spend a lot of time looking at words and how similar one can be to another, such as rapid and rabid. One letter can make all the difference. In my novels, do characters whimper or whisper? Do they pick up
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer Merry Christmas! This week I’ve joined Hallee Bridgeman and twenty-three other Christian authors in Hallee’s annual Christmas Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt. The prizes are spectacular: $250 first-place, $150 second-place or $100 third-place Amazon gift cards. I hope you’ll visit all the authors’ blogs so
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer She stood at the water dispenser in the market filling white one-gallon jugs and loading them into her shopping cart. A lot of them. Like fifteen or so. Wearing a worn jacket and knit cap against the day’s chilly temperature, she kept looking over
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer “In everything give thanks.” Those ancient words are a tall order this year. Resentment tries to wedge in between them, dragging in excuses, arguments, and reasons for why we really don’t have to be thankful for everything. Maybe not anything. After all, this was
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer I think there is a National Day for just about everything, but I could not pass up the day set aside for pumpkins – that lovable, roundish, grooved member of the gourd family. Pumpkins may have even made their way into the Old Testament.
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer It’s suddenly September. Well, I guess it’s not exactly suddenly, but it sure feels that way. Four weeks ago it was light at 6 a.m. in Colorado and the sun set just after 8 p.m. Today, sunrise was at 6:34 a.m. and the sun
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer I believe few would argue that this metaphorical year of perfect “2020” vision has been anything but. Yet the Lord is still my Shepherd. In spite of all the misunderstanding, miscommunication, and misguidedness (Is that even a word?) going on around me, the stream
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me, “You are what you eat.” The phrase seemed silly to me at the time, but I learned that when I ate healthy foods, I became healthier and stronger. When I ate junk food,
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer “For the Lord is the God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.” The first time I saw this quote I wanted to know who made such an insightful observation. Then I learned it was a SAHM who went from sad to glad
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer What was she thinking? The mother who packed the lunch that fed five thousand. When she bundled her son’s meal of fish and mini loaves, did she imagine the work of her hands feeding the equivalent of a city? Was the boy out at