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Emmanuel: Truth — Even in Chaos, God is With Us
Chaos, here we come. I’m out of my mind. I’ve officially lost it! “Chaos”, was what I thought this week when I scheduled a meeting with my developmental editor to go over a manuscript I’ve spent the past several months refining to (hopefully) make my debut as an author. That means dealing with chaos. The weather gets colder and messes with my body. Even when I oversleep on the day I’m supposed to meet my editor. I scramble to reschedule! I (barely) succeed. (Yeah, that happened. Not proud of it, but I’m offering transparency to hopefully make a point.) Holidays can mean chaos Chaos seems to reign at the holidays.…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
Today marks a major American holiday, Thanksgiving, that is often overlooked or used as an excuse for excess. But for me, Thanksgiving has always meant something different. This year, I’m thankful, more than ever, for my family and my health. Health Challenges The art of Thanksgiving and being thankful is easy when you’re healthy. This year has been a struggle for me. I’ve talked on this blog at length about how my own stubbornness and fear led to an injury becoming worse than it should have been. I’m on the mend now, and I’m grateful to God for getting me through it. That alone is enough for me to have…
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I trust the One who calms the waves: How a recent injury tested my faith and made me stronger
It’s scary to step out and do new, different things. I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s been hard, and that there are times when fear has gotten the better of me. I’ve openly struggled with my mental health in a way that’s been freaking me out a little lately, but I trust that things will get better the more I work toward what I’m supposed to do. Because I live with a disability that affects my feet, I find myself dealing with issues with them all the time. If it’s not my feet, it’s my knees or my legs in some way. I haven’t been able to walk since…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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FaithFest 2025 still has room to improve, but offers hope in the midst of struggle.
If you know me, you know that my other great love, besides Jesus and writing, is music. This weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Wilkesboro, North Carolina for a Christian Music festival called FaithFest. If you have no idea what that is, allow me to explain. FaithFest is a two day music festival held in western North Carolina. Based in Wilkesboro, FaithFest’s open air venue is unmissable — you’ll know it when you arrive, because there is a giant white cross erected on the grounds. FaithFest is a great experience for Christian music lovers, and it does have some things I’ve never seen before I began attending. One…
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Remembrance and Honor
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Never Forget: Hope amid reflection on September 11
If you’re an American, today is a very somber day in our history. Most people in the United States remember where they were on September 11, 2001. I was sitting in a class at my middle school. I was eleven years old. Memories, or lack thereof There are certain things that I can’t remember or that my memory has changed over the years for reasons I don’t even know. For example, I don’t remember being told that the towers had been hit until my school day ended and my mom came to pick me up holding back tears. What I do remember: Psalm 23 by Jeff Majors playing in the…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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“My Complex Relationship With Disability, Representation And Healing Made Me Shift Perspectives. But Are We More Accepting Now?”
My relationship with my specific disability diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy has always been tumultuous at best. Most people who know me personally will tell you I am one of the most joyful people they have encountered. Church people tell me that I have what they call a “sweet spirit” or that I’m strong because I deal with such a challenging life. I live with my aging parents, spending most of my time in my room typing blogs or editing my novel. We have a van, but I still rely on them to get to appointments or places because the paratransit in my city is unreliable. (That’s something I will discuss…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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Faith over Fear…Defining and Utilizing Faith in the Everyday
As a Christian, I’m taught to choose faith over fear. Sometimes, faith isn’t what we believe it to be. As someone who lives with a disability, there’s a lot of fear that tends to try and creep into my life. Fear that my disability will get worse. A worry that I’ll end up alone. The voice that tells me that I’m too held back by those things to really make the calling that I believe God has on my life stick. I’ve been feeling a lot of these. I’m a currently unpublished author, in the weeds of editing my first novel in a series. I also live with Cerebral Palsy.…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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Exploring True Freedom: Reflections on July 4th and Personal Struggles
Happy belated Fourth of July to my American subscribers! Yesterday was a pretty quiet day for my family. We’re fairly low key when we’re home for the Fourth. That is, unless we’re in West Virginia visiting my relatives who live in that area. Once again, my disability has been causing some issues. The wounds on my foot have healed, but I have an ingrown/infected toenail that I am squeamish about getting treated. (Bear with me, I’ll tie back to that in a moment with a disability anecdote. To quote Shakespeare [because I’m a nerd and I can’t resist the reference]: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” –Polonius…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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The rise and fall of NaNoWriMo, and a disabled author’s take.
NaNoWriMo? More like NaNoNoMo. At least, that’s what a lot of people seem to be saying this November. If you’re just now finding me, let me take a moment to give you a quick rundown on why this is so important to me. Short version? “Hi, I’m Erin, a fantasy romance author, who also happens to be a Christian, disabled, and weaves romantic themes into her stories!” Long version? Read on, my dears. For the uninitiated, I’m a 10-year veteran participant of the writing event known as National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo for short. The goal of NaNo is to create the rough draft of a “novel-length” work (50,000…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
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The benefits of rest
Sometimes, we all need to slow down and take a break. Recently, my disability reminded me of this the hard way – by causing a problem with a sore on my foot that became infected. One of the downsides of my disability is that I don’t have a lot of feeling in my feet. This often causes me to have sores or other issues without being able to feel them, or know how bad they really are. To my detriment, I’m also incredibly stubborn. I hate going to the doctor unless I absolutely have to. So when my mother dragged me to urgent care a few weeks ago, I was…
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True Thanksgiving: Gratitude in Spite of Challenge
Thoughts on Life, Faith, Disability and the Writing Craft from E.S. McLaughlin
