My new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir

I hope you’ll check out my new blog about my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir.  You’ll find a few laughs there, a few adventures, plus some encouragement and inspiration along the way.

In coming months, on the blog you and I will delve into the challenges and unwelcome surprises—but also the joys and wonders—of living in Lomalinda, a mission center built on a cluster of hills in rural Colombia, South America. (In Spanish, Lomalinda means pretty hill.)

I’ll show you pictures from my scrapbook, intrigue you with links to related info, share recipes with you, and tell you stories you didn’t read in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go! A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

Sometimes you’ll hear from—and maybe interact with—people you meet in my book. (How cool would that be?)

You’ll join my family and me in our discoveries and adventures (some of them almost other-worldly), but you’ll also learn about and, I hope, learn from my lack of faith and my struggle to trust God—who never gave up on me.

And so, be forewarned: Reading this memoir and its blog could change your life!

Here’s a glimpse into what you’ll find in Please, God, Don’tMake Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir:

What’s a comfortable—and cowardly—suburbanite to do when her husband wants to move the family to rural Colombia, South America, so he can teach missionaries’ kids?

Linda begs God, “Please don’t make me go!” but He sides with her husband, Dave. So, with a good attitude—well, a pretty good attitude—she turns her back on the American dream and, with timid faith and wobbly courage, sets out with Dave and their kids on a life-changing adventure.

But when culture shock, tropical heat, and a certain boa constrictor threaten to undo her, she considers running away and hiking back to the U.S. Instead, she fights through it and soon falls in love with her work alongside current-day heroes of the faith disguised as regular folks.

Once life is under control, predictable, and easy, Linda receives an unwelcome surprise—a request to travel to one of the world’s most dangerous drug-dealing regions where hundreds of Colombians and Americans have recently died. In fact, most of Colombia is dangerous. Marxist guerrillas don’t like Americans, proving it with bombs, kidnapping, and eventually murder. Linda doesn’t want to leave the only safe place—the mission center—because she doesn’t trust God or herself to make the trip.

Again she begs, “Please, God, don’t make me go!” But she does go. How does she find the faith and courage to set out?

In this heartwarming, sometimes humorous, and sometimes shocking memoir, you’ll walk alongside this young wife and mother as she must choose between:

• her plans and God’s,

• cowardice and courage,

• fear and faith.

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go will inspire you to cancel membership in the Society of the Faint-hearted, enjoy God more, take a quaking leap of faith, and relish the adventures God dreams up.

You can pre-order the memoir through your independent bookseller, or at Barnes and Noble (where it's on special for $14.84, an 18% saving), Powell’s Books in Portland, Books-A-Million, and Amazon. Those in the UK can order it through Eden Co UK.

Be sure to check out my new blog, Please, God, Don't Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger's Memoir.

“We need honest, true-to-life stories to show us how”

Courage. Joy. Integrity.

We all want to possess those attributes.

We want to teach our children and grandchildren to live with courage, joy, and integrity—and your memoir can help do that.

“If we are going to live with courage

and joy

and integrity,

we need honest,

true-to-life stories

to show us how.…

What excites me are stories

with all the grit

and beauty

and squalor

of human beings

attempting to live in service to God

and loving their neighbor.”

Peter Mommsen, author of Homage to a Broken Man:

The Life of Heinrich Arnold—

A True Story of Faith, Forgiveness, Sacrifice,

and Community

Your memoir can do that! Your stories can offer others courage, joy, and integrity—and so much more.

Sure, your stories might include grit and squalor, but beauty can blossom in them, too:

Dig deep and peel back layers—because when you do, you’ll discover the ways that common people living everyday lives serve God and love their families and their neighbors, because the Good Book says:

“The most important [commandment] is this,” said Jesus.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your mind

and with all your strength.’

The second is this:

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no commandment greater than these.”

(Mark 12:29-31, Matthew 22:37-39)

Your stories can inspire readers to live like that.

Do you doubt the power of your stories? If so, think again:

“For such a long time, I felt my story wasn’t important,” wrote Mick Silva.

“I didn’t know who my story had made me. It’d been too buried. But exhuming it, the healing had been profound, pulling from the ashes of charred memories.… And the things I’ve discovered have been treasures.…”

Mick continues, “[T]hrough writing I’ve discovered that…protecting and preserving our stories is about discovering God’s story.  What he did through us, with us, in spite of us, continually pursuing that story is a matter of faithfulness and obedience, to become aware and invest in this life he’s given. To speak its life-affirming power in proper words and context, it can be the delight of our lives, an endless source of inspiration.”

Read that paragraph again, and maybe even again.

Take it in. Ponder that message.

And then, write your stories!

Write your stories as a celebratory offering to God.