Life’s Like That

30 Mar

DSCN0479

This is my luggage. It’s supposed to be in Richmond, Virginia along with my son and I. My son’s a huge history buff, so, as his Christmas present, we had planned on spending Easter week on the East Coast, checking out all the historical sites.

But, as you can see, my luggage is not in Richmond today. Instead it’s still sitting in my bedroom, along with me who is also sitting in my bedroom…with the stomach flu.  Yup, I was forced to cancel our trip about an hour before leaving to the airport.

The miserable events of the last twenty-four hours reminded me of this verse from the book of James.

13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:13-15

In other words, though we may think we’re in control of our lives, we’re really not.

In 2009, I celebrated Easter at my parent’s house. From down the street, I could see Anaheim Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Angels.  Four days earlier, at that same stadium, 22 year-old Angel rookie Nick Adenhart had been on top of the world, pitching six shutout innings against Oakland.

The following morning he was dead, tragically killed by a drunk driver.

“I hate that this happened, but this is part of life,” Angels outfielder Torii Hunter told ESPN. “That’s why you’ve got to kiss your kids, kiss your family every day when you get up in the morning and before you leave for work.”

Pray Away the Rain 2

When someone is taken in their prime it makes us all aware of our own mortality, causes us to introspect and realize that life can be random at times, causes us to come to grips with the fact that we’re not in charge. See, life on Earth is but a vapor, and we aren’t fully in control of what happens on any given day.  And that can be scary.

But, tomorrow’s Easter.

Easter, the day that Jesus demonstrated His control over death and sin.

Easter, the day that reminds us that we can rest our weary souls in the calm and capable hands of a God that loves us…even when life seems painfully random.

So this Easter, smile, enjoy the loved ones around you,  and have faith. Because God is in control

…of everything.

Tags: , , ,

Traveler

26 Mar

My two daughters giggle as they play around with the video screen on the seat back in front of them, while their mother sits calmly besides them, flipping through the pages of some foreign magazine.  After a long taxi, the plane turns, the brakes release, and we’re off.

As we pick up speed, the metal bird shakes, fighting gravity as it lifts its silver head skyward. That’s when I see her, like always.  She’s staring at me from between seats, and smiling, a deep soul smile that plays out in her endlessly blue eyes.

Europe 2012 098

This  scene has played itself out on countless runways now, in countless countries.  And I’m in love with it, in love with us.  You see, we’re travelers my wife and I.  We always have been.

Most think it’s me with the restless soul, me who plans these frequent flier mile induced jaunts, but it’s her too.

My wife spread her wings for the first time when she was only 17.  That’s when she packed her bag, hopped a plane out of Stockholm, and headed for the States…alone. Her father had died when she was only eight months old, and that left a hole, a hole too big for anyone, even a wonderfully loving mother, to fill.  And so she traveled, in search of something, a place , a city, a feeling to call home.

And there our hearts collided.  See, I was searching too, searching for that same place, that same shelter…home.  After four miserable years of high school, I needed home more than anything.

And in all this world wide searching, in all our wearing out of shoes and hard landings, we finally found it…

Home

At the end of desperately long days, in the silent hugs that seemed to flow from the arms of God himself, an answer to our silent prayers

In the joyous banter around the dinner table, where three kids talk over each other as they tell us all the simple things that matter most.

Home

During our family prayer times, where hopes, dreams, and fears reflect like misty rain in the warm glow of faith

In words of grace, underserved and given freely, because we’re loved, deeply, by the people surrounding us, and by God.

Europe 2012 238

See, in all our travels, we’ve discovered that home was never a place on a map, never a structure made of stucco and steel. So my wife and I have tried  to live accordingly, investing in the things that will truly decorate, not our house, but our home.  One of the ways we’ve done that is by  traveling, cramming all five of ourselves into tiny hotel rooms every summer, and even spending a year away from our California sun in Sweden, just so we could  get closer to the ones in our lives that matter most.

I’m not saying we’ve always invested right, but  at least we’ve tried to, and that’s made our home, well, home. 

One day, when my wife and I are old, gray and deeply grateful, we’ll fly once more on paper wings, defying gravity as our souls lift skyward.  And that’s when I’ll see her, like always, staring at me from between the seats, and smiling, a deep soul smile that plays out in her deep blue eyes.

 

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.(2 Corinthians 5:1)

Tags: , , , , , ,

Our Field

19 Mar

They call soccer the beautiful game, and it is… especially our soccer..

Most soccer is played on a perfectly mowed field approximately 105 meters long and 68 meters wide, by players wearing uniforms and three hundred dollar high performance cleats.

But not our soccer. Ours is played mostly barefoot on a narrow strip of backyard grass, approximately 20 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, though this depends on whether we’re playing at Grandma’s (Abuela’s) house, on a neighborhood street, or at a park.

Some soccer is played by seasoned professionals who hit their peak at around age 25 to 32 then slowly decline after that.

But the best soccer is played after church and on rainy Christmas Eve’s by my son and daughters, cousins and nephews, friends and brother-in-laws…and anyone else who matters.  Here players peak at age 4 to around 65, though that just depends on who’s up for playing.

Some Soccer is watched from press boxes, seats, and suites in billion dollar, corporately sponsored stadiums like Emirates and Old Trafford.

My favorite place to watch though is in cozy family rooms where blue and white jersey wearing family members gather to root for Argentina (we’re Argentine) or for Sweden (my wife is Swedish).

worldcup

During World Cups we meet with South American hugs and kisses, and nervously watch as our team struggles to overcome whatever national foe has been put in our way. The tournament comes only once every four years, but we’d make it a monthly event if we could. When Argentina gets knocked out, our hearts grow sick, not because they lost, but because our string of family soccer fests have come to an end.

For a long while, I thought it was soccer that I was in love with…just soccer.  So when I got the chance to cover the beautiful game a little bit in Europe and then in the U.S., I jumped at the chance.

Getting press passes, chatting with coaches and athletes from teams like FC Barcelona, Brazil, and my own Los Angeles Galaxy, was fun…I guess.  But in the short while I was doing these freelance articles and interviews,  I soon discovered that this soccer was not the same as our soccer. These matches just weren’t quite as thrilling as our “Grandma’s house” showdowns and  covering a match near Stockholm then writing all night in order to get the story in on time – all on the eve of my daughter’s ninth birthday – just didn’t feel the same as the World Cup games I watched while cradling her in my arms as a baby.

One sunny California Sunday, this realization really hit home.  I was sitting in the press box at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles, in a leather seat between seats reserved for Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl and some German reporter I had never heard of.  David Beckham had just signed with the Galaxy, and he was making one of his first appearances with the team, albeit in a five thousand dollar, Armani suit instead of a jersey. Los Angeles was abuzz with the prospect of a major star joining the MLS, and you could tell by the mob of fans waiting by the door to the locker room elevators after the game.

I could have caught the press conference after the game that day, could have headed for the Galaxy locker room in order to try and catch a glimpse of Beckham as he met with his new teammates…but I couldn’t help but feel that this was Sunday, and Sundays were made for barefoot, backyard sprints and makeshift lawn chair goals.  Sundays were made for our game, our soccer.

soccer poster

After staring at the elevator doors for a few seconds, something washed over me like gentle rain, a deep and defining sense of “who cares?”  And so instead of going downstairs  I turned around, put my press pass in my pocket, and headed for the parking lot.

See, I’ve seen soccer matches all over the world now, exhibition matches in Tokyo, playoff battles in Europe, even a few World Cup games

… but no matches will ever be as beautiful as the ones played on our field.

Tags: , , , ,

Heart Spaces Part One: Abuela’s Desk

11 Mar

 

I ‘m fifteen, and I’ve just gotten home from another painfully long day of high school. But I’m home now, and that’s a good thing.  I trudge upstairs and, on my way to my room, see my mother through the open door at the end of the hall.

The room is sun painted, and she’s sitting at her desk…always at that desk, writing lists, cataloging photographs, organizing birthday cards scribbled years ago by one of her five children, children that won’t understand the depth of her love until they eventually have children of their own.

The image is hazy now, the gray fog of time blurring those Technicolor moments. But still it lingers, like a distant radio station fighting to rise above the static.

My mother’s gone now, but the desk remains, in my mind…and in that room.

A while back, my daughter and I dashed into that same room. We were visiting my dad, and my little red head needed an atlas to do her homework.  Like in my high school days, the two of us raced upstairs to her Abuela’s room to find one.  The desk, a mahogany bureau, was closed, and, since the house was up for sale, I figured it had been emptied of its contents.

But it hadn’t.

Abuela's Desk pamphlet 2 copy

Each letter sent from her native Argentina meticulously ribbon wrapped, the How to Care for Baby pamphlet the hospital gave her when my sister was born, stacks and stacks of hastily handwritten birthday wishes that meant more to her than it ever did to us back then, absolutely everything was exactly as she had left it on the last day she had sat there.

Opening that desk, it knocked the wind out of us, and I couldn’t help but notice the tears pooling in the corner of my daughter’s eyes.  See, before she died, Abuela had been living in a home for Alzheimer’s patients, and she had forgotten our names, forgotten how to converse with us, and even forgotten how to listen…  and, sadly, we had begun to forget her.

But, suddenly, we remembered, her smiling eyes, the fresh flower scent of her perfume, the gentle cadence of her accent. We could almost reach out and touch her in the memories that flowed freely like a sparkling, blue flood.

It’s strange really, but it’s as if my mom somehow knew that one day she would lose her ability to remember… the smell of baby shampoo on her newborn’s head, the excitement painted on the corners of her children’s eyes as they gave her crayon covered, paper gifts on Mother’s Day, the longed for letters from her faithful husband who had left Argentina first to make a better life for our family in America.  And so she collected, collected each and every memory and stored them in the drawers of that old, mahogany desk.  And there they stayed safe, safe and sound so my daughter and I could find them, and laugh and cry and remember the gentle hands and heart that placed them there.

And Abuela? Well, she’s safe too, safe in the arms of her dearest friend, the Heavenly Father who catalogues every hope and fear, collects every teardrop and whispered prayer… the God who remembers.

Heart Spaces Logo

This post is the first in my Heart Spaces series, a series about places that have made an impact.  If you have a Heart Space that you would like  to share, email me at:  imnobodynovel@hotmail.com

After reviewing submissions, I just might share a couple of them on my blog. Happy writing!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Drive

2 Mar

van title

This is our van, our thirteen year old, beat up, hideously purple van.  We call it the grape around my house because of its ugly, grape-ish hue.  (I really have no idea why we chose purple, but there must have been some reason). The paint is peeling off the top now, making it look more like a rusty can than a car these days, but we really don’t mind.

Sure, it would be easy to head on over to the dealership today and pick up a new one, with new paint, better gas mileage, leather seats, and a port for our MP3 players, but we’re not planning to, and this is why.

Five Reasons Why We Love Our Purple Van.

1. It’s paid for.

My wife and I have always been careful with our finances, and we’ve definitely not tried to “keep up with the Jones’s” – we don’t have enough money for that.  So keeping our clunker has allowed us to do other things with the money.  Decisions like our “drive the van till it dies” plan have allowed us to take the kids to Tokyo, Paris, London and beyond, and even spend an entire year getting to better know their grandma in Sweden.  We never want money to become a dictator, and because we drive a beat up old car, it hasn’t.

2. It’s the van that brought my youngest daughter Izzy home from the hospital.

She was bundled up in a blanket, staring wide-eyed from the back bench seat where she sat with her two excited siblings.  The final score was in, two girls, one boy, and we couldn’t have been happier.

3. That van has carried us across thousands of miles of highway, on roadtrips that will be etched in our minds forever.

From the blowout that left us stranded in a Colorado Walmart for countless hours to the spur of the moment road trip we took when my youngest was only six weeks old, that van has been a faithful friend. I can still remember the kid songs on the cassette player as we barreled our way towards Canada with two toddlers and a baby in tow.  The cassette player’s broken now, but the song still spins in my head as if it were yesterday- we’re going camping now, we’re on our way. We’re gonna climb up a mountain, run and jump hooray!

4. I taught my teenage son how to drive in that van.

Yes, on more than one occasion our lives were in danger, but it was definitely worth it. See, as my son gets older, there aren’t so many things left to teach him anymore.  And one day that nervous boy behind the wheel  will become a confident man, in fact I can see it happening already.  Just this morning, he drove off in that van to minister to underprivileged families living in a barrio near our area.  Yeah, I want to keep the van around so I can remember…remember how far he’s come and how proud I am of him.

5.  My hours stuck in traffic in “the grape” have been among the best in my life.

One of the biggest blessings in my life has been driving my kids to school.  Each morning, we sleepily pile into our van and head off on our forty-five minute drive on heavily congested, California roads.  On our daily drives over the years, we’ve talked, laughed, cried, and prayed our way to work, and I so often thank God for my precious freeway companions.  My kids are getting older now, and soon they’ll be off to college. The van will seem pretty lonely then, but I’m trying hard not to think of that.

 So there you have it, the reasons we keep driving an eyesore.  I know, I know, one day its going to roll it’s last inch and ease gently to a stop at the side of some road, but, until then…

I’ll keep hoping it drives forever.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Book Giveaway: I’m Nobody

28 Feb

amazon kindle

There’s a giveaway going on at Dianeestrella.com . Visit the site for a chance to win my middle grade/YA novel I’m Nobody.  You can enter until March 7 right…here 

Enjoy the weekend and the fact that spring is right around the corner.

.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

How Long Has It Been Since You Believed In Magic?

26 Feb

You’ll have to forgive me as I get academic on my blog today. It’s just that – while researching for my latest novel, I’m Nobody - I learned some interesting things from the life of a very interesting lady…Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson struggled, with a lot of things. She wrestled God and faith and definitely fear.  As a teen and even into her early twenties, she rejoiced in the faith of her youth. Thrilled by the magic of revival spinning in the Amherst air, she breathed in each word of the sermons she fervently listened to, her excitement evident in a letter she sent to her brother Austin after one particular service:

“I never heard anything like it, and don’t expect to again, till we stand at the great white throne…”

But time passed and pain came, and Emily began the spiritual struggle many of us face as childhood unexpectedly dawns into adulthood – the struggle between faith and fear.  Her closest childhood friend passed away, with a young Emily at her bedside during those final hours.  Then the Civil War rained down on the nation with a toll of lives incomprehensible to anyone alive at the time.  At the same time, a group of scientists, led by none other than Charles Darwin, were telling her that man was more animal than angel, and that life was little more than a scientific process.  And that’s when the magic, so evident during her youth, began to fade.

I’m ceded–I’ve stopped being Theirs–
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading–too—

With the magic fading, powerlessness set in.  The dragons of this world so easily slain in the halls of faith, seemed insurmountable in the open fields of pessimism, and fear began its march.  In the face of this terror, she began to retreat.  She stayed home, stayed in her room, for the rest of her life, never leaving, an agoraphobic lost in the swirling mists of anxiety.

But faith is not a whisper that fades in the wind. It is a seed that, once planted, can find its way through the toughest soil as it reaches towards the light. And Emily Dickinson’s story had not seen its last chapter.   Within the walls of her room, Emily wrote some of the most beautiful poetry our world has ever seen, words of celebration, of beauty, and of hope.  Words like…

Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace–
Unto supremest name–
Called to my full–The Crescent dropped–
Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.

Dickinson Text Vintage

 I’m Nobody

We live in Emily Dickinson’s world today, a world of pain, of doubt, and of fear. But as Emily found, it is also a world where faith can overcome and hope and love can make a difference.

This is the message I wanted to get across in I’m Nobody, my latest middle grade/YA novel.  In the book, we find agoraphobic teen Caleb Reed struggling with this same fear.  After the death of a sister who was his only friend, his life had taken on a hopeless, pale gray hue.  That is until he gets a visit from a mysterious stranger, a stranger who asks.

Caleb Reed, how long has it been since you believed in magic?

Tags: , , , , , ,

First Review

22 Feb

The first review came in for my latest novel, I’m Nobody, this week, thanks to Kellyvision.  The first review that comes along is always important because, before that, the only people who have read the story are your friends and family.  And family and friends tend to be  a little biased about things sometimes :)   So anyway, I was pleased to read this first review for I’m Nobody a few days ago. Just click on the link.

If you’re interested in reviewing I”m Nobody and would like to receive a Kindle copy send your request to:

imnobodynovel@hotmail.com

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Spin

18 Feb

The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey Spin.  They spin endlessly for hours, trying desperately to touch the divine.  They spin to hear heaven’s voice. They spin for healing. They spin themselves into a trance so they can leave the burdens of this earth behind.

As Christians, we shake our heads at the futility of this manic twirling.  But you know what?

ImageWe spin too.

We spin because we want God’s blessings. We spin because we’re hurting. We twist and turn because we want to hear His voice. We spin because it makes us look better.

We spiral because we desperately want God’s acceptance, acceptance we already have.

We spin because countless books, and radio hosts, and sermons tell us to…

Do more

Say more

Give more

Be more

But maybe what we really need to do is just STOP!

Stop and be still…

Be still and enjoy the life God has given us. Be still and enjoy our families, our friends, the blue sky outside, all gifts that came with no strings attached.

Or maybe it’s time to be still and sit patiently in the painful silence and wait…wait for the answers we’ve been crying out for instead of trying to conjure them up.

Then, just maybe,  we’ll be able to hear God’s whisper, the whisper that says

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

Notice the words weary, burdened…rest. There are too many people telling us to do too much. It’s time to stop spinning. There has to come a point in our relationship with God that we finally feel like we’re okay, comfortable, at ease with the amazing relationship God has given to us through His son.  It’s time to finally embrace the fact that God loves us already. He accepts us for who we are.  When He died on the cross we gained access. He hears our prayers, our sighs…our silence.

And you know what? No spinning on our part is going to earn us any more blessings than we’ve already been given.

So maybe it’s time to just stop, stop and take inventory. Stop for a few days, weeks, months and just listen.

And maybe this time, when God acts, when He heals, when He answers the cries of our hearts, we’ll finally know that it wasn’t because of our disciplined twirling, but because He is a God who cares, a God who has mercy on us, a God who loves us more than we can ever comprehend.

And this time, maybe we’ll finally give Him the glory for the miracles that find their way into our lives, because it wasn’t our spinning that brought the blessings.

It never was.

So to all of you who are tired of spinning, be still with me this year…

Be still and know that He is God

**Photograph courtesy of turkeyforyou.com

Tags: , , , , , ,

I’m Nobody Trailer

11 Feb

Making book trailers is always fun.  Here’s the latest clip for I’m Nobody: A Middle Grade/YA novel.  You can get the book for Kindle here.

Thanks for watching.

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 35 other followers