Thursday Thoughts on Reading

Today I'm a guest blogger on Pamela S. Thibodeaux's site, Pam's Wild Rose Blog.

Check out my "Thursday Thoughts" on reading here.

Suburban Dangers is available in paperback or e-book on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Tuesday Treasures Guest Blog

Today I am over on fellow Pelican Book Group author Pamela Thibodeaux's blog with a guest post on the things I treasure.


Stop by and say hi!


Link to blog

A Blog Visit and a Giveaway of Suburban Dangers

Marianne Evans is hosting me and highlighting Suburban Dangers over on her blog, A Minute with Marianne.

I'm also offering a giveaway of an e-book of Suburban Dangers. Head over to her blog to enter. She will announce the winner Friday, May 26th.

Here is what people are saying about Suburban Dangers:

"This book is a page-turner that defies a reader’s ability to stop once the book is begun. Lee is quickly becoming one of my go-to authors for a good read." —Edie Melson, author and blogger

"Megan Whitson Lee has written a book that should be on the “must read” list for all teens, boys and girls, as well as their parents and grandparents."--Amazon Review

"A fast paced, eye opening, well written novel, depicting a problem that may be closer to home than you think. When you start it you will have a hard time putting it down!"--Amazon Review

Wild Women of the Regency Era: Claire Clairmont

This month's theme is wild women of the Regency era. This week I'm featuring Claire Clairmont (1798-1879).

 

Claire Clairmont was seventeen when she met Lord Byron. She was the stepsister of Mary Shelley, and it was through Mary Shelley and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley that she met the famous poet. Like so many other women in England, Claire fell head-over-heels in love with Byron. With a passion bordering on obsession, Claire threw herself at him repeatedly until he finally gave in.

With her dark hair and black eyes, Claire wasn’t Byron’s type and he was never in love with her. “I never loved nor pretended to love her—but a man is a man—and if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours—there is but one way.” Claire later claimed that ten minutes of passion had ruined her life. By her own words she was confused about the demise of his affections. “The passion, God knows for what cause … disappeared, leaving no trace whatever behind it, except my heart wasted and ruined as if it had been scorched by a thousand lightnings.”

Unfortunately, Claire became pregnant with Byron’s child. Her daughter Allegra was raised in a convent and died at the age of five, having never known her father or her mother.

In her later years, Claire wrote a memoir in which she described Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley as “monsters.”

When I was young, I could be counted on to pick the bad boy and the wrong guy. It’s not uncommon for teenagers and young people to do that. A lot of young people make poor choices, but some of the choices have life-altering consequences.

Often, following our heart is the wrong course but the easier one. Involving our head in decisions of the heart is never easy.

Do you tend to follow your head or your heart?

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9

I decided to try out a video blog this month. Let me know what you think.

Exciting Announcements and News

The last couple of weeks have been filled with unexpected and wonderful blessings. First of all, my newest novel, Suburban Dangers, which deals with the topic of sex trafficking, has been contracted by Pelican Book Group. I am so excited about this because of the subject matter and its importance, but also because I started writing the story in January of 2015, and it has evolved from a five-character narration mixing first- and third-person point of view into a story that focuses on two characters in third-person POV. There is now much more emphasis on the young victim.

I'll keep everyone posted on this news.

The second bit of news, equally exciting, is that Captives is a finalist for the 2016 Selah Awards in the Women's Contemporary category. I am joined by extraordinary writers, Marie Wells Coutu for her novel, Thirsting for More, and Cynthia Ruchti and her novel, As Waters Gone By.

Just last year I was sitting in the Selah Awards banquet at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers' Conference thinking what a wonderful honor to be nominated and/or receive a Selah Award. Last Wednesday, I was shocked to open my email and see a message of Congratulations announcing Captives as a finalist. This was an unexpected blessing, indeed!



More on both of these announcements in the near future.


Next weekend I will be attending the conference in North Carolina, and I am excited to see what God does there in terms of bringing new people into my life, teaching me tools for writing and marketing, and reminding me of His spiritual truths.


I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Review of CAPTIVES

Head on over this evening to A Bench with a View to check out a review of Captives.

Betty, my blogger buddy, was kind enough to feature Captives today on her wonderful blog, A Bench with a View. It's a great review, and she also features a new suspense novel by Chris Fey, 30 Seconds.

Check out the review and Betty's blog HERE.

Sales and Giveaways

Captives Kindle version is on sale for just $0.99 until tomorrow. Click HERE for amazon link.




Also, be sure to sign up for the free giveaway on Goodreads. I'll be giving away a free paperback copy of the book when the contest ends on January 31st!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Captives

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends January 31, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Have a great weekend!

Giveaway of CAPTIVES

Enter the giveaway on Goodreads for a free paperback copy of  Captives. The winner will be randomly selected on January 31st.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Captives

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends January 31, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Meet the Characters of CAPTIVES

Three very different people--all of them on a journey where their lives intersect...

Blaise Timothy is a world-renowned cellist who has made her living traveling all over the United States and Europe, but her success in her professional life is in direct contrast to the failure in her love life. Moving from man to man, she is easily sucked into romantic relationships that are toxic and ill-fated. When her sister, Amy, goes missing, Blaise puts her life on hold to search for her younger sister. In the process, she learns more than she ever wanted to know about human trafficking as well as the darkness of her own heart.

Andrew Victor lives across the street from where Amy’s body is found and witnesses her covered body being carried out of the ravine. By profession he is an artist, but at thirty-one he has returned home from New York City without any money or direction. Andrew must live with his parents as he struggles to gain control over his life and an ever-increasing and dangerous addiction to pornography.

Asha Edgewater and her husband live in Washington, DC and work as missionaries. As a girl in Nepal, Asha was sold into sexual slavery—a bondage she didn’t escape until she was well into her twenties. Haunted by her past, Asha attempts to help others who have fallen victim to the enslavement of prostitution, and she feels a particular connection to Amy Timothy—the young girl whose life is snuffed out too soon. But for the grace of God that fate could have been hers…

Who are some of your favorite characters in literature?

Guest Spot Today for CAPTIVES!

I'm very excited to be a guest today on the site of my blog buddy, Stephanie Faris! Stephanie writes middle-grade and children's fiction. She is also a freelance writer with thousands of articles to her credit.


She's featuring Captives on her blog today, so stop over to her site to check it out. While you're there, check out Stephanie's wonderful books, Piper Morgan Goes to the Circus, 25 Roses, and 30 Days of No Gossip.


Have a wonderful and blessed weekend!


Link to Stephanie's Site is HERE.


By the way, Captives is now available for order in paperback as well as Kindle format!

An Excerpt from CAPTIVES

Okay, folks! Here’s a short excerpt from the opening of Captives…

 

A

my’s coffin had been closed for over an hour, but Douglas Timothy still couldn’t get the image of his daughter’s dead body out of his mind. The girl in that box looked nothing like the Amy he had known—the Amy he had loved and raised. Instead, the girl in the coffin was an emaciated skeleton with sunken-in cheeks and eyes, pierced and tattooed beyond recognition. It had been difficult for them to dress and make her up in a fashion that hid signs of the life she had been leading before her death.

When they identified the body, Anne, his wife, had even gone so far as to say, “That’s not Amy. That can’t be Amy. It doesn’t look anything like her!” In his own desire to believe that Amy might still be alive, Douglas had been swayed momentarily. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she was still out there and they just needed to keep looking. But he knew it wouldn’t do them any good to deny the truth. It might not have looked like Amy, but there was good reason for that.

Amy had been seventeen when they last saw her, a junior in high school preparing for college. Although hospitalized briefly when she was sixteen for an eating disorder, she had always appeared to be a strong-minded girl who filled her life with all sorts of activities. Amy was a member of the school’s swim team, drama club, and her church’s youth group. She was, by most accounts, a typical seventeen-year-old. The girl on the slab in the morgue was twenty, a prostitute shot full of drugs, a victim of sex trafficking.

A Glimpse into Captives

So what is Captives about?

Captives is a novel that explores the consequences of a society demanding, distributing, and enslaving through sexual exploitation, but offers a message of hope, recovery, and redemption through God’s saving grace.

Here's the summary:

When seventeen-year-old Amy Timothy disappears from a rural Virginia truck stop, world-renowned cellist Blaise Timothy puts her life on hold to join the search for her sister. While conducting her own investigation into Amy’s disappearance, Blaise seeks solace in addictive and destructive relationships.

Three years later, the search for Amy becomes a homicide investigation and catches the attention of national media and sex trafficking activists. Less than a mile from where Amy’s body is recovered, Andrew Victor attempts to manage a failing career in art, an addiction to pornography, and a family secret that links him to the murder investigation. In Washington, DC, Asha Edgewater knows first-hand the horrors of sex slavery and lends support to the Timothy family even as she comes to terms with her own past. As all three lives intersect in their search for redemption and healing, they find it is only possible through God’s saving grace.

Captives is available on Amazon Kindle and will release in paperback by next week.


Have a blessed weekend!

Captives Released!

It's out! Well, at least it's out on Kindle. The paperback version should be available by next week.


For the next few days, I plan to post on Captives, its characters, and its inception. I will also have a few posts on the very real problem of sex trafficking.


This novel has a long history that starts in 2006 with a paragraph I wrote as a brainstorming exercise. I’d wanted to write about human trafficking for some time, but the right story never surfaced. At the time, a good friend of mine was the sexual trafficking liaison at the Salvation Army, and she had supplied me with tons of good material, case studies, and statistics. It was grim reading, but I realized then that this was something important that people needed to know about (and a lot of people really didn’t know about it).


I started with Blaise’s narration telling the background of her sister’s disappearance via trafficking; I later added Asha’s story to show the international side; once I realized that pornography and prostitution were linked, Andrew’s narrative came into play.

The novel originally came out in 2009 and was titled All that is Right and Holy. That year it won second place in the Christian Choice Book Awards through Xulon Press.

In 2015, a lot has changed in both the spectrum and spread of trafficking, especially within the United States. With that in mind, I decided to update the novel and re-release it under a different title. My husband designed the new cover. I love it! What do you think?

When did you first become aware of human trafficking?

Favorite Things Friday: The Best Book I Read in March

It's time to reveal the best book I read in March! For those who don't know, I participate in the monthly blog by The Cephalopod Coffeehouse in which we share book reviews and recommendations.

I'm one of those people who buys a book for my kindle and then sits on it for a year before I ever get around to reading it. That's what happened with this book. I started it months ago and then stopped thinking it didn't really interest me. But then I decided to try it again. I don't know if I was more focused on the reading or simply more interested in the story, but this time I found it riveting! My favorite book from March is...

Big Little Lies is a mystery of sorts, but it's also a domestic drama, and I think that's what I really like about it. I love the combination of mystery and soap opera played out in an Australian suburb. Told through three different points of view, the plot revolves around a group of mothers (Madeleine, Celeste, and Jane) whose children attend the same elementary school. From the beginning of the novel, we know that something really bad has happened. The tension of this event which is yet to come continues throughout the story fueled by snippets of interviews from bystanders, school staff and administration, detectives, and other neighbors. We don't know what has happened or to whom, but it's bad enough that the police are involved. Alongside the mystery, the lives of Madeleine, Celeste, and Jane are laid bare, and the secrets of their-not-so-blissful domesticity spill forth.

Liane Moriarty is my new favorite author. She has this talent for writing storylines about regular people that could easily happen, but the what's-going-to-happen factor is so strong that you just have to read on. Her realistic dialogue is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, but always spot on. Right now I'm reading The Husband's Secret, and the style is similar to that of Big Little Lies (several narrators, domestic story, mystery tossed in for good measure), so if you like Big Little Lies, you might try The Husband's Secret afterwards.

If you're looking for a party this afternoon, stop by my Facebook Party link below from 3-9 p.m and join the party link. I'll be featuring Song from the Ashes from 5-5:30, but there will be other authors in different time slots giving away books, gift cards, and other loot!

Facebook Party Link

Favorite Things Friday: The Best Book I Read in January

It's that time again! Time for The Cephalopod Coffeehouse and the best book I read in January!

Everyone knows I am the slowest reader in the world! I love to read, but between trying to write every day and a stressful full-time job, I'm lucky if I get 30 minutes of reading time a day! It usually takes me around a month to finish one book. Add to that the fact that I tend to start 4 or 5 books at a time! Therefore, imagine my surprise when last Friday (on a whim) I downloaded on my Kindle the Paula Hawkins novel, The Girl on the Train...and it took me less than a week to finish it!




The concept tag for this book is Gone Girl meets Rear Window, and I think that's an accurate description. This novel has all the page-turning suspense of Gone Girl combined with the voyeuristic delight of Rear Window. This novel resonated with me right away since I used to live in London and took the train often into English suburbia and beyond. I spent hours looking out train windows and wondering who lived in the passing row houses and what their lives were like. That's kind of the premise with which this novel begins.  Rachel, the main narrator, travels on the same train at the same time every day. The train stops daily at the same signal light where she is able to glimpse the backside of a Victorian row house and the couple that lives therein. She's constructed a whole life for this unknown couple, given them names, talents, careers. The narrator soon reveals that this house is only four down from where she used to live in her old life that included a husband and a job. Her life is very different now, and as the novel unfolds, Rachel recalls life then and now. Because of her struggles with alcoholism and blackouts, she becomes embroiled in a murder mystery, sure that something she's forgotten is a key clue in solving the mystery.

Told through the point-of-view of three narrators, this novel is a fast-paced and riveting dark mystery with well-developed, likeable, and believable characters. Rachel is a sympathetic character who is terribly flawed but recognizes her shortcomings. This is one of those novels I would term brilliantly crafted, as the writing is as good as the story, and the plot twists are well-paced and placed. The Girl on a Train is suspenseful and not predictable, and although I did figure out "whodunnit" before the end of the book, it took nothing away from the story.

Not only is this the best book I've read this month, it's the best book I've read in several months!  I dare you to put the book down!




There are only a couple of days left to enter the free giveaway of Song From the Ashes on Goodreads! Enter here to win!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Song from the Ashes

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends February 02, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Free Giveaway of Song From the Ashes

Enter the Goodreads contest to win a free copy of Song From the Ashes!

Contest ends February 2nd!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Song from the Ashes

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends February 02, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Favorite Things Friday! Top Ten Favorite Movies, an Adoptable Dog, and a Free Book Giveway!

The third week of the month is usually the featured adoptable dog week. I’m still going to feature a dog in need of a home, but at the request of a friend, I’m going to feature my top ten movies of all time.

I have to dig back a few years for these (in fact, none of them are later than 2007, so clearly I’m not an avid movie goer these days). Okay, so here we go:

1.       The Remains of the Day

Any friend of mine knows about this era of my life. It marked an intense love affair with England, a long-lasting May-December crush on Anthony Hopkins, and an early-life reflection (I think I may have been 22 at the time the movie came out) regarding whether I was missing out on what was left of my life. This is an outstanding movie based on an astonishing novel by Kazuo Ishiguro about a butler in the evening of his life trying to correct mistakes from years before. I recommend both the novel and the movie (but especially the movie).

2.       Revolutionary Road

Every year for the past few years I’ve read and re-read this novel. I think Richard Yates may have been one of the best writers of the twentieth century. The movie only captures the flavor of the novel, but it successfully highlights the truths about the difficulties of marriage and the disappointments in life. Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet star.

3.       Howard’s End

Okay. Clearly I love English films. Clearly I love English films based on novels. And this IS another Anthony Hopkins movie. I’ve been watching this movie since 1994, but I just read the novel last year. I loved the novel every bit as much as the movie, but the film is visually stunning and worthy of repeated viewings. With a cast that includes Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham-Carter during the height of their careers…well, I just don’t know what else I can say. The story line follows three families from each socioeconomic level, and asks the questions with great subtlety, who will inherit England?

4.       Lantana

This is a little-known film in America, but it was critically acclaimed when it came out in 2002. The film is Australian, and I was in living in Australia at the time. I remember going to see it in the theater at least twice while I was there and finally buying the film when I returned home. Very much like the movie Crash, Lantana follows the lives of different couples and individuals who are all intertwined and connected by the death of a woman (shown at the beginning of the film). Until well into the film, you don’t know who the woman is, whether or not she was murdered, or her connection to these other characters . Starring Anthony Lapaglia, Jeffrey Rush, and Barbara Hershey, this is a gritty, honest look at marriage, infidelity, and miscommunication.

 

5.       Shadowlands

Okay! I know! I know! Another Anthony Hopkins film. There for a while he was on a roll of wonderful films. This is another English film about the wonderful Christian writer and theologian C.S. Lewis and his romance and marriage to Joy Gresham. Make no mistake—this is a tear-jerker, but it’s powerful and redemptive. Shadowlands is a beautiful movie that unashamedly reveals the danger, joy, and pain of true love and poignantly conveys that God’s plan is perfect--even in the midst of the pain. I used some of the music from the film in my wedding!

 

6.       Rebecca

Yes. The 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier and based on Daphne du Maurier’s extraordinary novel. The film is black and white, but I show it to my 9^th grade students every year after we read Du Maurier’s short story “The Birds” and they almost always love it. Hitchcock was simply ahead of his time. He knew what he was doing with shadows and camera angles, and his choice of casting Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers, the creepy, obsessed housekeeper was nothing short of brilliance. The mystery of finding out what really happened to the doomed (and apparently wicked) Rebecca still appeals to modern audiences.

 

7.       The Others

I'm beginning to realize that almost all of these films I’ve mentioned are foreign (mostly English) and many are period pieces to boot!) The Others is a late 90s film starring Nicole Kidman. A ghost story taking place on the island of Jersey  during World War II, the protagonist’s husband has apparently gone off to war leaving his wife to care for the huge, isolated mansion with her two children suffering from porphyria (an illness that prevents them from being exposed to light). This is not a horror film, but it is a scary thriller with a completely unexpected twist at the end.

8.       Bridget Jones’s Diary

I loved the book. Dare I say I loved the movie a teensy bit more? Bridget, the unlucky-in-love heroine is sympathetic and adorable (played perfectly by Renee Zellweger), a train-wreck every time she opens her mouth or attempts a romantic relationship. Colin Firth is the perfect Mr. Darcy (not only because he played THE Mr. Darcy in BBC’s Pride and Prejudice but also because he embodies that attitude of the English gentleman who is aloof-bordering-on-rude but actually turns out to be a warm-hearted softy). Hugh Grant knocks Daniel Cleaver’s character out of the park. Who knew Grant--usually the bumbling, mumbling, self-effacing English gent--could play the smarmy, sleazy, yet devastatingly attractive scuzball so well? Laugh-out-loud funny movie.

 

9.       Christmas Vacation

Two comedies in a row! And no one even knew I could laugh! This is the film I view every year while assembling the Christmas tree. It is a favorite of my family and we regularly recite lines to each other (we know every single one of them). If you’ve seen National Lampoon’s Vacation or European Vacation, you know the sort of humor you’re dealing with here. It’s slap-stick to be sure. But the glory of this film resides in its indisputable truths of family and the holidays. Nothing ever goes the way you expect; there is always drama of some sort; and invariably, something always goes up in flames. Enjoy the laughs on this one!

10.   The Age of Innocence

Finally! An American one.  Scorcese directed this one back in 1994, and the film was nominated for several Academy Awards.  Of course, my most recent novel, Song from theAshes, is based on this novel. Like Howard’s End, I only read Wharton's novel in the last few years, whereas I’ve been watching the movie for over twenty!  Scorcese’s attention to detail, color, and accuracy creates a visual feast! The genteel appeal of this delicious world of 1870s New York society makes you want to crawl into the screen and live there for a while as Newland Archer fights against the gossip and expectations to decide which direction (and love interest) he will choose.

So there you have it! My top ten of all time! Now it’s your turn! What are you favorites? 

But before you go, check out Polly. She’s a galgo from Spain. Galgos are Spanish greyhounds who have a much harder life than their American counterparts. After their usefullness is over (they're used as hunting hounds) they are abandoned or killed.

Polly is about five years old, and she’s a little shy around men, but she warms up once she gets to know you. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, and I immediately fell in love with her. She is so sweet! Her adoption fee is $650 which includes her spay/neuter and transportation from Spain fees. If you’re interested, send an application to Sighthound Underground at: http://sighthoundunderground.com

Finally, don't forget to enter my free giveaway on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Song from the Ashes

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends February 02, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Favorite Things Friday: A Russian River Zinfandel, a Virtual Wine Tasting, and a Goodreads Giveaway!

Trader Joe's wine is usually associated with Charles Shaw, but here's a little wine gem that may surprise you. Yes, it's from Trader Joe's, but it's produced and bottled through Pezzi King Vineyards in Healdsburg, California in the Russian River Valley region.

Trader Joe's Reserve Zinfandel from Russian River Valley in Sonoma County (2012) is perfect for steak or Italian food--such as spaghetti or lasagna. In fact, it's fabulous in the sauce! Juicy, spicy, and a little peppery with blackberry, cherry, and licorice flavors, this is a well-balanced, medium bodied wine with a nice, lingering finish.

At 14.2% alcohol, it's not one of your bigger zins, but for weekly or every day drinking, this is a flavorful and well-rounded wine.

Cheers, everyone! It's Friday!!

And after you get back from Trader Joe's head over to Good reads and enter my free giveaway of Song from the Ashes.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Song from the Ashes

by Megan Whitson Lee

Giveaway ends February 02, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Favorite Things Friday: New Year Hopes

           

 Happy 2015 to everyone! One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to do a better job keeping up with Favorite Things Fridays and the blog in general. I’ve had a really hard time keeping up with the blog since September when I had to start teaching again, and I really don’t want that to be the case starting NOW.

            Quite honestly, this school year has been incredibly tough. It’s become increasingly difficult to teach for several years now and for many different reasons. Some people are natural-born teachers and some are not, and one thing I’ve discovered about myself over the past ten years of teaching is that I am not a natural teacher. In fact, often I find it quite painful and the difficulty of the job has taken over a large portion of my life making it hard to put a lot of energy into other areas. So that is one resolution for this new year. Put more time into my marriage, my home, and the important things in life.

            2014 carried many blessings and good things such as the publication of Song from the Ashes, and the opportunity to make new friendships through writers’ associations and online networking. For these things I am very thankful. I’m also thankful for my eighty-six-year-old grandmother’s recovery from pneumonia and a weakened heart condition. Just a few weeks ago she was in the ICU, and last week I was able to visit her in the comfort of my dad’s home where she looked as beautiful as ever.

 

My husband and I are truly blessed to have wonderful families. My grandfather and father-in-law both had ninetieth birthday parties this year, and Stephen and I are close with both our families and love spending time with them. I think that’s the most important lesson I’ve learned this year: family is king. I know a lot of people have major drama, hardships, and heartbreaks with their families, and it’s not always a pleasant experience for people. For us, we love time with both families and we’ve begun to realize that we need to be closer to them. Both sets of parents and all family members live in the South Carolina/North Carolina/East Tennessee area, and it’s becoming difficult to be the only ones up here in the rat race of Northern Virginia.

 

So for 2015 we are praying for positive change and whatever opportunities the Good Lord may bring our way. Ultimately, it’s all in His hands, and we trust and believe in his sovereign plans and provisions.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11

 

Gifts of Raindrops and Tears

A few years ago, my husband and I were desperately trying to have a baby. I was thirty-four when we married, and by the time we got serious about trying, I was thirty-six. After five miscarriages and six rounds of IVF, we finally admitted defeat in 2012 and threw away all the horrible fertility pills, hypodermic needles, and pamphlets on fertility foods (all a constant part of our life since 2009).

We briefly looked into adoption but decided against it after weighing the costs, stress and anxiety, and the fact that we were basically too old to pursue traditional adoption routes (I was 40 by that time; my husband was 47).

Despair settled in. It was over and we both knew it. For me, it sparked an intense period of anger with God and everyone around me. I could not be in the presence of a pregnant woman (it made me physically ill), and even someone discussing adoption raised my hackles.  I felt like an inferior specimen of humanity, and more importantly—I felt sure that God was withholding from me the one thing that I’d actually been designed to do (bear children). Yes, I believed that lie. I was sure it was some kind of punishment.

My long suffering husband had already come to terms with the losses and accepted that God had given us a final and resounding NO. He really wanted to be there for me emotionally, but he also didn’t want our lives to revolve around the label of infertile couple. He finally suggested that we do something that we could never do if we had kids: travel abroad. So we planned a trip to the United Kingdom, and that summer we traveled around England, Scotland, and Wales. It was the best decision we ever made.

When we returned, I was miraculously healed. I know. It sounds crazy, but it’s completely true. When we returned from the U.K., I was like, “You know what? I really don’t think I want kids anymore.” Part of me felt that this would be a passing emotion, but just the other day we were talking to family members, and I realized that I still felt the same. Nope. No longings there. It was a praise-worthy moment. God simply plucked those feelings from my heart and replaced it with his assurance--"My grace is sufficient."

Later, my husband and I talked about the fact that God really did know what he was doing when he withheld this gift from us. (Imagine that? God knowing what he was doing!) For four and a half years, the desire to have children had become an idol, taking over our lives. We'd been slaves to the doctors and fertility experts and everything they told us to eat, drink, and inject. Our marriage was swaddled in pain and loss, and there was very little relief as we careened through one failed IVF cycle and pregnancy after another. It eclipsed absolutely everything for a few years, including my relationship with God, as I remained in a perpetual state of anger.

The true, supernatural gift arrived with the release from obsession and idolatry of children. Next to  the gift of my husband, I consider this peace the best gift I’ve received in my life so far. I don’t know why we had to endure those tides of unrest, but I feel I’m a more secure person with a better relationship with God as a result. Realizing that the Lord is not an ATM machine or a cosmic Santa has made all the difference in my life and in my marriage.

At the end of the day, I know I will see my miscarried babies again one day on the other side. If I ever looked forward to heaven, how much more so now!

Yes, God answers all our prayers, but he doesn’t always give us what we want; instead, he provides what we need. Most importantly, his most precious gift is in our need for him. He longs for our faces to be turned toward him at all times, no matter if our cheeks are glowing with joy or bathed in tears.

"It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have." 1 Cor. 1-11 (NLT)

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!