Book giveaway!

“I realized I wasn’t alone in my suffering, and my wounding wasn’t just for me,” writes Tina Samples.

“I realized that God’s plan to work in my life, and my family’s life, had a broad scope; He wanted to bring healing to others facing the same issues.” (from newly published Wounded Women of the Bible: Finding Hope When Life Hurts; emphasis mine)

David Wolpe says it this way:

“When God, for whatever reason, has wounded you, 

you learn how to minister to others with the same wound…. 

Even the keenest anguish can be, as the poet put it, 

a ‘gauntlet with a gift in it’—

a challenge to use the wisdom to help others in the same pain.”

 David Wolpe

Tina understands David Wolpe’s message: She has both a gift and a challenge to share her story with others who need hope and healing.

Tina’s co-author, Dena Dyer, writes, “We’ve also seen God use excruciating wounds to purify, mold, and shape us into more resilient, hopeful believers.”

Dena, too, knows about the gift and the challenge.

In Wounded Women of the Bible: Finding Hope When Life Hurts, Tina and Dena have woven together stories of women in the Bible and stories of today’s women, and their prayer is that “you would find His peace for your pain, His joy in the midst of your trials, and His hope for your heartache.”

I am humbled and honored that Tina and Dena's book includes a story from my memoir, Grandma's Letters From Africa.

To celebrate Tina’s and Dena’s new book, I’ll give away a free copy to one of you readers!

Here’s how it works:

Between now and October 9, e-mail me a vignette about the ways God (a) helped you heal from a wound, tragedy, or heartache, and (b) in the process, taught you new things about Himself and strengthened your faith, and (c) used the incident for His glory and your good.

By sharing your story, you will be doing what David Wolpe and Tina and Dena encourage: You’ll be offering a gift of hope and healing to others who are suffering their own wounds.

That’s what 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 is all about: “the God of all comfort … comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

Aim at 800 words. I will publish here the vignette I select (I’ll be happy to edit before publishing) and will send the author a free copy of Wounded Women of the Bible: Finding Hope When Life Hurts.

E-mail your vignette to grandmaletters [@] aol [dot] com (remove the brackets, replace the word "dot" with a period and scrunch everything together) and do me a favor: Write WOUNDED VIGNETTE in the subject line. Otherwise I will probably delete it as spam.

Here are a few quotes from Tina and Dena’s book which, I suspect, will resonate with you and give you story ideas:

“We can’t see what God sees, we don’t know what God knows, and we have no idea how God will deal with any given situation. But we can rest in the assurance of Psalm 56:8, ‘You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book’ (NLT). Psalm 147:3 says, ‘He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.’ God will restore us in due time.”

 “God understands even when things don’t make sense to us: ‘Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit’ (Psalm 147:5).…  He will mend our broken heart so that we can find a way to fully live.”

Oh, how I appreciate those words: He mends and heals so we can “fully live.” Not just limp through life but fully live!

Tina writes: “One day … I came upon John 16:33. I remember weeping as I experienced a sense of the Lord’s presence. At that very moment, God revealed to me that through Him I could have peace in all things, and that although we live in a fallen world, I could have joy through Him—because the world has no power over God. He has overcome the world. He is the conqueror, defeater, and deliverer, and He reigns over all things. That Scripture has carried me through my high school years, until I left home and found healing. God used it to give peace to my heart during my toughest days.”

“God uses everything—even the most undesirable parts of our past—for His, and our, good.”

“…What looks detrimental to us, God, in His mercy, can make beneficial.”

Ready, set, go! Write!

Related post: Wounded Women

If you’re not following SM 101 on Facebook, 

you’re missing a lot of additional resources.

Click on the Facebook link in the right column toward the top.

Writing your memoir “one sentence, one paragraph, and one vignette at a time”

If you’re writing a memoir, you know the process can be mysterious and intimidating. My advice? Tell yourself you’re only writing a rough draft—for your eyes only—and then keep writing.

“Write with the door closed,” suggests Stephen King. “Your stuff starts out being just for you.…” (On Writing)

“The first draft is the child’s draft,” writes Anne Lamott, “where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and you can fix it up later.…” (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life) 

“Small steps are better than no steps,” says Victoria Costello.

“Writing memoir might be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.… Feeling overwhelmed comes with the territory.… When you feel that sinking feeling, remember that a memoir is simply a string of personal vignettes. Take small steps and focus on finishing one sentence, one paragraph, and one vignette at a time. Worry about threading the story together later. (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Memoir; emphasis mine) 

Yes, eventually you will fix up your rough draft: you will revise, reorganize, and rewrite. Every writer does. It’s not punishment.  It’s polishing and shining and clarifying for the sake of your readers.

For now, don’t worry about polishing. Just take the small steps, “one sentence, one paragraph, and one vignette at a time.”

Related posts:

Triggering story ideas for your memoir

Memories: How can you retrieve them?

Do you need story ideas?

Using photos to help you remember and write

From settling old scores to singing new songs

“The memoir-crazed 1990s.” Do you remember that era?

William Zinsser (one of my favorite writing mentors) reminds us that, “Until that decade memoir writers drew a veil over their most shameful experiences and thoughts; certain civilities were still agreed on by society. Then talk shows came into their own and shame went out the window.”

It was an era, he says, when “no remembered episode was too squalid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the titillation of the masses.”

Memoirists, like talk shows, disclosed shocking information, indulged in self-pity, and sought revenge from those who wronged them.

“Writing was out and whining was in,” says Zinsser.

But, he points out, those types of memoirs didn’t stand the test of time.

“The memoirs we do remember from the 1990s are … Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, and Pete Hamill’s A Drinking Life.” (from “How To Write A Memoir” in The American Scholar; emphasis  mine)  

 “If these books by McCourt, Hamill, Karr, and Wolff represent the new memoir at its best, it’s because they were written with love. They elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness, arriving at a larger truth about families in various stages of brokenness. There’s no self-pity, no whining, no hunger for revenge…We are not victims, they want us to know.” (Zinsser’s Inventing the Truth; emphasis mine)

Their stories’ message: “We come from a tribe of fallible people and we have survived without resentment to get on with our lives.”

He counsels memoirists: “Don’t use your memoir to air old grievances and to settle old scores; get rid of that anger somewhere else.” (from “How To Write A Memoir” in The American Scholar; emphasis mine) 

That somewhere else could be a journal or a fictionalized version of the story. Or it could be in a first draft. Dr. Linda Joy Myers says, "Write your first draft as a healing draft. Get out what you need to say. Make it bold and real. Then stand back and think about how you want to revise it for publication." (from Will My Family Get Angry About My Memoir?; emphasis mine)

The important thing is to vent, to deal with the problem, to find healing and forgiveness and closure. Just don’t seek revenge in memoir.

There’s another reason to avoid seeking revenge in memoirs. Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk said well it on Facebook a few days ago: “Whenever I condemn others, I am condemning myself. Whenever I judge others, I give God permission to judge me.”

Jesus said it this way, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about the speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?… Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye.…” (Matthew 7:1-5, NLT)

I suspect that’s what Thomas à Kempis had in mind when he wrote, “We are too quick to resent and feel what we suffer from others, but fail to consider how much others suffer from us. Whoever considers his own defects fully and honestly will find no reason to judge others harshly.”

Yep, nobody’s perfect. Each of us has failures and shortcomings.

So, have we asked God’s forgiveness? And then have we forgiven ourselves? (Read more at How do you deal with this elephant in the room?)

In writing our memoirs, let’s extend to others the same forgiveness, grace, and mercy God has extended to us. (Read more at How do you write about your family’s baggage?)   

Zinsser, with grace, encourages us to strive for the best goal: to do all we need to do to “elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness.”

And isn’t that what “singing a new song” is all about? (Psalm 40:1-3, Psalm 96:1, Psalm 149:1, Isaiah 42:10)

And why should we sing a new song? Because God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25)

And He says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

How can we not sing a new song in praise of the new things God has done in and for us? How can we not sing a new song after God has turned our harsh wilderness into a lush place?

Yes, sing a new song!

And isn’t that one of the most important elements of memoir? Memoir is about the old you and the new you, and how you got there, and what you learned along the way.

“The main character … —in a memoir it’s you!—is changed significantly by events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies,” writes Dr. Linda Joy Myers. “The growth and change of the main character is imperative in any story, and is the primary reason a memoir is written—to show the arc of character change from beginning to end.”

So, write about the old you, write about the new you, write about how you got there, and what you learned. 

Sing a new song. 

“Elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness.”

Related posts:

“Remembering only the pain, or only the joy, would be incomplete”

Does forgiving leave room for forgetting AND remembering?

Your memoir: sharing about sin and God’s forgiveness

The Four R’s of Memoir Writing, by Mary Gottschalk

On sputtering flames and rekindling sparks

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person,” said Albert Schweitzer. “Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

Read those two sentences again and pause to think:

How many times has your light dimmed and faltered, only to be rekindled by a spark from another person?

In what ways was God arranging events to bring that person into your life? You might not have recognized His efforts at the time, but if you take time to give it thought, perhaps you, like Jacob, will wake up and declare, “God was here all along but I wasn’t even aware of it!”

Connect the dots and pin down the ways God hovered close, working out His good plans for you.

Frederick Buechner observes that on the road to Emmaus, Jesus recognized the disciples even though they didn’t recognize him.

Buechner continues, “In this dark world where you and I see so little because of our unrecognizing eyes, he, whose eye is on the sparrow, sees each one of us.… And I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or believe in him or not, or even know his name, again and again he comes and walks a little way with us along whatever road we’re following. And I believe that through something that happens to us, or something we see, or somebody we know—who can ever guess how or when or where?—he offers us … a new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome.”  (Secrets in the Dark; emphasis mine)

Take a few days or weeks or even months to recognize those occasions. Make yourself a working document: a two-column list of both the events and the people who stepped into your life and invited you into the light.

Each of those incidents is a story waiting to be written and shared with others in your memoir.

When you write, dig deep and deeper. Refuse to skim over the shallow surface of life. What lessons did you learn through both the faltering of your light and the rekindling? As a result, how did your life change? What new person did you become? How did the experience strengthen your faith?

If you write your stories, your memoir can rekindle a flame for someone else whose light is sputtering.

Related posts:

Connect your dots

How an HGTV program demonstrated Jeremiah 29:11

Your “Sacred Stories of the Ordinary”  

“Histories of families cannot be separated from the histories of nations”

Are you following SM 101 on Facebook? 

If not, you’re missing a lot of extra-special stuff! 

Go to the right column here and click on the Facebook link.

When you get to Spiritual Memoirs 101, 

click on the “Like” button. 

Be sure to add it to either your news feed or your special interests list.

“We are not used to associating our private lives with public events,” writes Susan Griffin. “Yet the histories of families cannot be separated from the histories of nations.…

“There are so many strands to the story.… I begin to suspect each strand goes out infinitely and touches everything, everyone. I am reminded that nothing stands alone. Everything has something standing beside it. And the two are really one.” (A Chorus of Stones)

Yes, you and I have observed history-in-the-making—sometimes as bystanders and other times as the movers and shakers—and our personal histories are intertwined with our world’s history.

When we include the historical settings of our stories, we place ourselves into a bigger story, a story that includes our city, school, religion, nation, ethnic culture, gender, industry, or profession.

When we link ourselves with the history that surrounded our lives, we anchor our stories in time and place.

Our stories can make history come alive—they can make history personal—for our readers.

Below is a module I wrote about the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Do you remember what a module is? It’s a short account—in contrast to a stand-alone story that has a beginning, a plot, and a conclusion. A module is only part of a story. Read more at Modules Add Zing to Your Memoir.)

This module is still in rough draft form. I welcome your feedback. Feel free to leave your response in the comments section below.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Against a black velvet autumn sky, the American Flag glowed brilliant, like diamonds and rubies in the spotlight, but my tears blurred its radiance.

Our high school band played The Star Spangled Banner while my friends and I stood, singing along, in our football stadium. But I was choking on the words:

“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

It was Friday evening, October 26, 1962. All I had ever known of being an American—and even of being alive—hung in jeopardy.

Our nation trembled at the forefront of the most dangerous point in recorded history: America was engaged in a nuclear face-off with the Soviet Union.

From my earliest childhood memories, our nation’s people had been gripped in fear over a potential nuclear attack. Fallout shelters, and stocking them with survival supplies, were common topics of discussion. Weekly, usually Wednesdays, every community and school conducted air raid drills. When the siren screamed, we students practiced hiding under our school desks until we got an all-clear signal.

So now, in October, 1962, it had come to this: On Sunday, October 14, US reconnaissance flights revealed that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had installed nuclear warheads in Cuba, just off the Florida coast.

From there, Hiroshima-sized bombs could destroy American cities up to 1,550 miles away—virtually all of the US’s southeast states and beyond—beyond Chicago, beyond Kansas City, beyond Dallas.

Soviet missiles could deliver three-megaton bombs to Washington, DC, within five minutes.

Not only America, but the entire world, stood on the brink of nuclear war and, no doubt, World War III. It would be annihilation. Armageddon.

By Wednesday, October 17, the US had begun Operation ORTSAC (Cuban dictator Castro’s name spelled backwards), with a mock invasion of Cuba carried out in nearby Puerto Rico.

The next day, US forces started mobilizing for an invasion of Cuba.

Friday, October 19, news agencies reported military activities in Florida. The 81st and 101st Airborne were placed on alert.

In response, on Monday, October 22, Nikita Khrushchev said he’d use nuclear weapons to thwart a US invasion of Cuba, and he put Soviet forces in Cuba on alert in readiness for a US paratrooper drop.

That same day, President John F. Kennedy announced a naval blockade of Cuba.

The next day, Tuesday, October 23, American F-8 Crusaders flew low-level reconnaissance flights over Cuba and took close-up photos of Soviet missile sites.

Wednesday, Adlai Stevenson, US Ambassador to the United Nations, put forward evidence of those missiles.

US military forces were ordered to the highest state of military readiness.

Friday, October 26, the day of our high school football game, US intelligence discovered evidence of short-range nuclear missiles ready to target US forces invading Cuba. Khrushchev was following through on the threat he had made a few days earlier.

As children, we’d been educated about the effects of a nuclear attack, but it was my junior high science teacher, Mr. Serwald, who drove home raw truths in the event that we never got that all-clear signal. As I recall, he said if our town came under nuclear attack that within a certain radius, humans would be vaporized. A little farther away from the blast, bodies would have all flesh burned off. A little farther away, bodies would be covered with blisters. Any remaining vegetation and water would be contaminated. The list of horrors went on and on.

Those images filled my thoughts that night at the football field while I sobbed through The Star Spangled Banner, eyes glued to the American Flag sparkling against the night sky.

Related posts:

You are an eyewitness to history

One of the great challenges for the writer is to

What can your memoir teach about looking fear in the face?

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face," said Eleanor Roosevelt. "You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." 

Think back. When did you look fear in the face? When did you do the thing you thought you could not do?

And what can your memoir teach your kids, grandkids, and other readers about taking a wild-eyed, white-knuckled leap of faith?

Read the quotes below, slowly, and pause as long as it takes to rediscover personal stories they revive, incidents you might have forgotten long ago.

“The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be…

Because of all I may become

I will

Close my eyes

And leap!”

(Mary Anne Rachmacher)

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” (Anais Nin)

“You can’t test courage cautiously.” (Annie Dillard)

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” (Nelson Mandela)

“Courage is contagious. When a brave young man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.” (Billy Graham)

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” (Anais Nin)

What stories do these quotes bring to mind?

What courageous thing have you done? Perhaps when you triumphed over fear, others watched. Or maybe you looked fear in the face and took action, even though no one else ever knew about your bravery. Was Anais Nin right? Did your life expand in proportion to your courage?

On the other hand, perhaps some of these quotes reminded you of a time you refused to take that leap, when you remained tight in a bud and chose not to blossom. Was Anais Nin right? Did your life shrink in proportion to your lack of courage?

Looking back now, whether you took that courageous leap of faith or not, what did you learn from your choice?

How did God help you? As a result, in what ways did your relationship with God change?

What Bible verses pertain to your story?

How did you change as a result of your experience?

Did you do things differently in the future?

What valuable lessons can you pass on to others?

Write your stories! Why? Because your children, grandchildren, and other readers will face situations in which their courage and faith are wobbly. Your story could make all the difference in their outcomes.

Why did you underline them?

What verses have you underlined or highlighted in your Bible? Look over a few and ask yourself why they are special to you. Why and how did they speak to your heart? During which event or era were those verses your delight? Or your instruction? Or your only hope?

Stories that go with those verses could provide good material for your memoir.

Recently I spent half an hour looking through an old Bible, the one I used from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. Reading underlined passages sent me back to the ministries I had during those years, and to specific locales, and they reminded me of people and situations and heartaches and joys.

Reading them again also showed me God was always there in the midst, working out His best, whether or not I knew it at the time.

Below are a few verses from Genesis and Exodus that I found underlined. Perhaps in reading them you, too, will discover story ideas of your own.

Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. (Genesis 24:1)

All nations on earth will be blessed because Abraham obeyed me.… (Genesis 26:4-5)

God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering. (Genesis 41:52)

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.… (Genesis 50:20)

I have seen the misery of my people.… I have heard them crying out.… I am concerned about their suffering.… I have come down to rescue them. (Exodus 3:7-8)

I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you.… (Exodus 3:16)

When they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.  (Exodus 4:31)

Now you will see what I will do.… Then you will know that I am the Lord your God. (Exodus 6:1-7)

The Lord kept vigil that night.… (Exodus 12:42)

They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. (Exodus 14:10)

I will sing to the Lord,

            for he is highly exalted.…

The Lord is my strength and my song;

            he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him. (Exodus 15:1-2)

I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Exodus 19:4)

Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. (Exodus 20:21)

Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness. Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.… Do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.… (Exodus 23:1-3)

Moses said to the Lord … “You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”(Exodus 33:12-13, 17)

Everyone who was willing and whose heart moved him came and brought an offering to the Lord.… (Exodus 35:20)

Take a few days to go through your Bible and find old passages you cherish, verses that changed your life, passages you held onto in dark times, verses that made you fall down in worship. Then write your stories!