Alzheimer’s Awareness Blog Tour

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2decover_1300x992(91)Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness and Caregivers Month Blog Tour

President Ronald Reagan designated November as National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month in 1983. At the time, fewer than 2 million Americans had Alzheimer’s; today, the number of people with the disease has soared to nearly 5.4 million (Alzheimer’s Association, 2014). The Author Community of Helping Hands Press is getting involved this month, and hopes to help raise awareness for Alzheimer’s disease.

Staring Nov. 3rd, with Anne Baxter Campbell’s blog post and Sue Badeau’s appearance on blogtalk radio, and finishing on Nov. 25th with Mark Venturini’s blog post, many of the authors in the Helping Hands Press Community will be sharing their personal stories.

Who are the authors, their blogs and what days?

Here is the list:

Nov.3rd-Anne Baxter Campbell- http://pewperspective.blogspot.com/

Nov.4th –Doris Gaines Rapp- http://dorisgainesrapp.blogspot.com/

Nov.5th-Marcia Lee Laycock- https://marcialeelaycock.com/thespur/

Nov. 6th –Ruth L. Snyder- http://ruthlsnyder.com/

Nov. 7th –Sheila Seiler Lagrand- http://sheilalagrand.com/

Nov. 8th –Giovanni Gelati- http://gelatisscoop.blogspot.com/

Nov. 10th –Ruth L. Snyder- http://ruthlsnyder.com/

Nov. 10th –Cindy Noonan- http://www.cindynoonan.com/

Nov. 11th-Sue Badeau- http://suebadeau.webs.com/apps/blog/

Nov. 12th-Peggy Blann Phifer- http://www.whispersinpurple.com/

Nov. 13th-Sandy Sieber- http://pahistorybooks.blogspot.com/

Nov. 13th– Joy Ross Davis- http://joyrossdavis.com/blog/

Nov.14th –Karen Gass- http://www.cottonspice.net/

Nov. 17th –Patti J. Smith- http://gridirongrannyfootballfanatic.blogspot.com/

Nov. 18th-Tracy Krauss- http://www.tracykraussexpressionexpress.com/

Nov.19th –Melanie M. Jeschke- http://melaniejeschke.blogspot.com/

Nov.21st– Andrea J. Graham- http://www.christsglory.com/

Nov.22nd-Linda Wood Rondeau- http://lindarondeau.blogspot.com/

Nov.24th-Diane Huff Pitts- http://dianehuffpitts.com/

Nov.25th –Mark Venturini- http://markventurinijourney.blogspot.com/

 

Travel and What it Does to You

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Hi

I have just returned from a 16 day trip across the Pacific Ocean. Being on open water for that long eventually gives you good sea legs but when you return you find you also have an inner ear that seems to insist that you are still bobbing and rolling along days after you have arrived on dry land.

Returning home also comes with the disorienting feeling that you’ve been away for months instead of days, while the “catching up” adds to the feeling that you really didn’t go anywhere at all. Somewhere in between all of that are the memories.

They cling tHawaian adornment (2)o you, images of tropical jungles and a variety of plant life that is stunning, smells that put you right back in the spot where you bent to sniff that flower, and sounds that make you stop and listen for those brightly coloured birds. Then you realize all of it is now far away and remains only in your mind. But the colours remain vibrant, the sounds crisp and clear.

And then there are the people – the woman you met who is likely making her last voyage on this earth; the tiny lady with exuberant energy who always wore a hat; the woman from India who remembered your name even though she had only met you once over a week ago; the American who kept bumping into you and saying, “oh yeah, you’re the writer;” and the girl from Indonesia whose smile lit up the whole room.

All of it aIao Mntn - Kuka'emoku Valley (14)dds up to an experience that changes you, a space of time that shifts your attitudes and makes you thankful for the life you lead and all that’s in it. I saw fish I could never have imagined existed and the largest Banyan tree in the world that spreads its roots and branches over an entire city block. I felt the steam of a volcano and the rough texture of the land its eruptions create. I laughed at jokes that really only make sense in another language and tried to twist my tongue to make those unfamiliar sounds.

Oh yes, there were a number of “first world problems” – internet access was almost non-existent, the living space was a little cramped and sometimes the coffee wasn’t really hot. But life was made more broad, enriched; opinions were challenged and sensations stimulated.

In short, I joined the ranks of the privileged and traveled. And I am thankful.

“Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2).

 

Writers’ Process Blog Tour

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Welcome to the WRITERS’ PROCESS BLOG TOUR.

Thanks for following from Carolyne Aarsen’s blog.

1. Who are you?

Laycock-MarciaMy name is Marcia Lee Laycock. I am a pastor’s wife and mother of three adult daughters who are all beautiful like their father and talented like their mother. 🙂 I am also the caregiver to two golden retrievers who mostly lie around all day. Oh and a writer/author/novelist/poet/journalist and devotional writer, not necessarily in that order. Above all I am a child of Christ, born somewhere on the road to Mayo, Yukon in 1982. That day changed my life forever.

 

 

2. What are you working on?

At the moment I’m doing a final edit on the second book of a fantasy series, The Ambassadors, which has been releasing in volumes on Amazon as ebooks. The entire first book will release on August 27th and the first volume of Book Two will release on Sept. 4th. I am also writing the third book and doing a course in playwriting with Lucia Frangione, which I am enjoying very much.

 

3. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

My first two novels were contemporary fiction. They both have strong elements of suspense and a touch of romance. I’d say they differ from others in that they are, to quote Mark Buchanan, who has endorsed my work, “grimly real but deeply hopeful.”

 

4. Why do you write what you do?

I can’t not write. I have been doing it since I was very young – my mother used to say she thought I was born with a pencil in my hand because I was always “scribbling something or other.” I have been blessed to have many wonderful teachers and encourager along my journey and really can’t imagine doing anything else as my life’s career. Specifically, I write fiction because I believe that story is important to us all. It keeps us tied together and it keeps us moving forward. My first two novels began with a conversation I had with a woman from a pregnancy care centre. She asked me a question that just wouldn’t go away until I tried to answer it on the pages of those books. I write devotional material because I seem to continually see things in my life and in things/people around me that point to the grace and mercy of Jesus. When I see it I can’t not write it down.

 

5. How does your writing process work?

I am a “seat-of –the-pants writer. I don’t outline until I get into the thick of the story, then I might stop and do a bit of a timeline and sketchy outline. I love that process because it keeps me on the edge of my seat, wondering what’s going to happen. I figure if I’m there my readers will be too, and that keeps them reading. Right now, because I am working on more than one project at once, I do have to try and schedule my time well, setting out time to work on each one. I write mostly in the mornings but sometimes I will find myself at the computer for a good portion of the day. Those are good days.

Click this link to see my books. All are available on Amazon, at Christian bookstores (distributed by Ingram) or by contacting me personally at the email listed.

Now click this link to visit the next author on the tour.

 

 

How a Boy Named Mouse Taught Me to Pray

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sunset prayerLadyhawk. It’s an old film released in 1985. Matthew Broderick, in one of his first film roles, plays a leading part as a young boy, Philippe Gaston, aka, Mouse. The film is a touching love story of mythic proportions, full of medieval scenery, chivalrous knights and beautiful horses. The cinematography is stunning.

But I still think of Ladyhawk as the movie that taught me how to pray. I was a new Christian and had just come across these verses in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I was especially struck by the phrase, “pray continually.” I was reasonably familiar with the idea of asking God for things. That had been my go-to method on the rare occasions when I thought I needed something from God. But pray continually? I was wondering what that meant exactly, what it would be like to do that, when I watched Ladyhawk and met that boy named Mouse. They called him Mouse because of his ability to get in and out of places through small holes. You see Mouse was a thief. The movie opens with him escaping through the sewer system of a medieval prison. As he is quite literally worming his way through the pipes he prays and bargains with God. He promises that if God gets him out, he’ll never steal again. He ends up in a river – yes, God gets him out – but it isn’t long before he breaks his promise by stealing a man’s money pouch, apologizing to God as he does so. We follow Mouse as he continues to find a way to survive.

And all that time, he is talking to God.

And that’s how I learned what “pray continually,” or “without ceasing,” as the King James version says, really means. God was so real to Mouse that he conversed with him as though He were walking beside him, traveling with him every moment of the day, even as he continued to get into trouble and out again.

I don’t recommend bargaining with God, or apologizing to Him as you disobey Him. But it was Mouse’s faith that impressed me. Even though he was a rather unrepentant thief, his belief in a very real God who could and would help him in spite of all his failings, stirred my heart. And I began to practice what Mouse taught me. I began to talk to Jesus as though he were standing beside me every moment of the day, not just to ask Him for something, but just to talk. Like Mouse, there have even been times when I’ve had to be careful that I wasn’t talking out loud, lest someone think I was a brick or two short of a full load.

That practice, teamed with the other parts of that verse, being thankful and rejoicing always, has brought God close, shown me such stunning answers to prayer that I could barely breath and taught me that Mouse was right. Jesus hears you as clearly as someone who is walking beside you. He will stay with you, even when you fail continually.

For this is God’s will for us all, in Christ Jesus.

 

Go To Your Altars

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by Marcia Lee Laycock

Altar

At a recent writing seminar those attending were challenged to write the last few words we would give to the world before we died. A sobering thought. I’d been thinking a lot about altars lately, since I had been doing a Bible study on the ancient tabernacle and how it relates to us today. The study led us to realize that we are now the temple, the place where the Spirit of God resides on this earth. Another sobering thought.

The Bible study detailed the role of the various altars and furniture used in the tabernacle that was built and carried by the Hebrew people during their time in the wilderness. They were instructed in the construction and placement of the altar of sacrifice, the altar of incense, the table of the bread, the lamp stand and the brazen laver and, most significant of all, the ark of the covenant that sat behind the veil in the Holy of Holies. Each one had a specific purpose. At each altar the priests were to perform specific rites for the atonement of the sins of the nation.

That led me to wonder – if I am a temple, where are my altars? Do I have an altar of sacrifice – that place where I lay down that which is precious to me as an offering to the Lord? I should do so daily, within the sincerity of my heart. Do I have a brazen laver where I wash myself before entering God’s presence? I should do so on my knees, humbled to know that I can proceed into His presence because of the spilling of His Son’s blood that has washed my sins away forever. Do I have an altar of incense, that place from which praise and prayer and worship emanate? Again, it should be a daily practise, erupting from my mind and my mouth like a fountain.

Do I have a table, where the bread, the body of my Lord, is displayed in all its simplicity and glory? Is there a lamp stand, that place that burns with His holy fire that can never be extinguished? I must hold it up high for all to see. And is there an ark in me, a place where the remembrances of God’s faithfulness and holiness are kept? I should cherish them in the depths of my soul, bowing before that mercy seat and acknowledging the forgiveness He has extended to me by His death on that cross.

These altars all require my service, the death of my own agendas and ambitions, the breaking of my pride and a bowing down to His sovereignty.

So these are my few words, words that I would say to myself and to all of us who would be believers in Christ –

Go to Your Altars

the altar of incense, shouting out praise, petitions and songs; the altar of washing, bathing in His mercy, acknowledging His grace; the altar of the lamp stand, feeding the flame of faith as a light to the world; the altar of sacrifice, relinquishing your ambitions, your dreams and your pride. Go to your altars. Lay yourself down.

A Good Cleaning

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It’s that time of year again – time for spring cleaning. We’ve been doing a lot of it lately, and not just in our own home. We’re helping missionary friends get their home ready to be put on the rental market. It’s a big job and when we saw the condition of the house after the last tenants moved out, we despaired of getting it done quickly. But we were thrilled when several people showed up when we called a work bee. They came with rags and mops, rubber gloves and sponges, shovels and rakes, and they set about giving the place a good cleaning.

There was a team assigned to the garage, one inside the house and one outside. Before long the whole area was a hive of activity. I was working with the crew inside so didn’t see what was happening outside until it was almost time to leave. I was stunned when I saw the transformation. When we arrived the yard had been matted with old leaves and grasses, a web of winter mould laying on top. The flower beds were quite ugly, with dead growth carpeting the soil, smothering anything that might have been trying to grow.

Several men had gone to work with rakes and shovels and the result was obvious. I was surprised to even see some green shoots coming up in the lawn. Then a friend pointed out the bright green shoots in the garden – crocuses, tulips and irises were pushing through.

As I bent to examine them it made me think of the work God does in our lives. We sometimes must look as dreary and dead as that yard looked, layered with the leavings of old sin and smothered with the webs of guilt that threaten to smother us. But God is in the business of giving us all a good cleaning.

How thankful we should be that Jesus has cleared all the rubbish away, just as surely as those rakes and shovels cleaned that yard. He did it by his death, the death we will celebrate in only a few short days. It seems odd to say those two words in the same sentence – death and celebrate. His is the only death I know of that is celebrated, by the people who say they love Him. We celebrate it because His death means our release, His suffering means our freedom and His mercy means we will have life everlasting. That’s why we call it Good Friday.

And that’s why we celebrate not just his death but his resurrection.

As Jesus said to his friend, Mary, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25,26).

Mary said yes. Will you?

Waiting

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DSC_2198Ask anyone in the country and they’ll tell you it’s been a long cold winter. Spring’s feet have been weighed down with ice, her blood still running cold and sluggish even though it’s well past the date they designate as the first day of spring.
And everyone has had enough. Everyone is longing for green, for the sound of running water, the sight of clear blue skies and the feel of a warming sun.
The longing of our hearts can be an ache that won’t let go. It can be for something as simple as a change in the weather or it can be a deep yearning for the return of a loved one who is gone, the desire to return to a time and place that gave us pleasure, or the deep deep longing to be forever in God’s presence, in a place where there will be no more pain or suffering, no more longings.
These feelings are indications that we are not yet where we were meant to be, that we are not yet who we were meant to be. It’s the deep deep longing for communion with God Himself. These longings can sometimes build into frustration with ourselves, with our circumstances, and even with our creator.
The scripture tells us that even nature “was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:19-23).
The waiting is hard, especially when the end result we long for is delayed or perhaps even seems like a mirage. There are days when it seems it’s too much to bear, but we know the end will come. The trees will bloom and the soft warm breezes will blow. And we know some day we will be in the presence of our creator, the One who has put these longings in our hearts to remind us that there is something so much more and so much better to come.
And as we wait we have His promises, His presence with us, the daily mercies that tell us He knows and understands our heart’s longings. And we can know that His intention is to fulfill them, to give us our heart’s desires in ways that we cannot now comprehend. The redemption of our bodies, our minds and our souls will someday be a reality, just as the arrival of spring is sure.
So “put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130:7).

 

Almost by Marcia Lee Laycock

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“Tell me your story,” my friend said.

I smiled and warned her that we might be there for a while, but she said she wanted to hear all of it. And I was excited because I love telling it, not because it’s my story but because it is, from beginning to end, God’s story. It becomes obvious to those listening and even more, to myself, that God’s hand of protection has been over all of my life. There were so many times when I could have/should have had disastrous things happen; times when I almost died.

As my husband has said, “You walked into the fire and right out of it again with hardly a scratch!” Well, the smell of smoke often lingered, but he’s right. I can relate to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

There was that day I should have drowned but was saved, that night I could have been raped and even murdered but was left alone, that time I ingested a poison but it left no effect, the times I trusted strangers who could have been demons but turned out to be angels. Over and over again God protected me.

Oh yes, I have had my share of tragedies and trials, but even in those circumstances, God was there. There was the moment when I heard those mind-numbing words, you have cancer, the days when the chemo treatments were almost too much and others when I almost could not make myself walk through the doors of the clinic where I would lay on a table and allow radiation to burn my body. There was that day I was almost overcome when I realized the child I carried would not be born alive and the day I got the phone call telling me my father had died. There were those years when the pain of the circumstances almost drove me to curse God.

In all of those times it was God’s presence, and above all His love, that kept me sane, kept me going, and kept me in the shelter of his wings. It was Jesus who kept me from going beyond ‘almost.’

I love that old song that says, “The Name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are safe.” The words are true. The name Jesus keeps us safe, even in the midst of the fire or in the midst of a raging storm – not always safe from pain, but safe from separation from Him. And that is the only agony we would not survive.

These words are also true: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed” (2Corinthians 4:7-9).

That is our testimony, our story as believers in Christ Jesus. When we have Him we will always have that word, almost.

 

Written in Stone

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Written in Stone
Written in Stone

The tables in the hall gleamed with china and glass. The church family smiled and chatted, all dressed in their “Sunday best.” The banquet, celebrating our friends’ many years of ministry, was about to begin. Then the M.C. asked everyone to take a seat and told us that this was our opportunity to honour the couple whose lives and ministry we were celebrating that evening.

One by one people went to the microphone to speak about what that couple had meant to them over the years. Most of it was complimentary and inspiring. But I remember what one young woman said. She smiled at her former pastor’s wife and said she was thankful to her for being an example of stylish dress.

I was stunned. Really? That’s it? I felt a kind of emptiness as the young woman sat down. And I thought, would you want that engraved on your tombstone? And it made me wonder, what will I be remembered for?

It also made me think of an interview I’d read with Malcolm Gladwell in which he talked about writing his latest book, David and Goliath. He interviewed Wilma Derksen, the mother of a young woman who was brutally murdered in Manitoba. As Wilma talked about forgiveness  Malcolm Gladwell recognized something astounding in that woman – “to borrow that marvellous phrase from Pierre Sauvage— (it was) the “weapons of the spirit”—the peculiar and inexplicable power that comes from within” (Relevant Magazine).

I hope and pray that I end up like Wilma Derksen. I hope and pray that people see God’s Spirit in me day to day. Sometimes I despair of that being so, because I know my flawed nature all too well. There are many times when I know I have not exhibited the love and grace of God. But I hope, indeed, I do know, that as I have grown in Christ over the years, those days become fewer and fewer. I am being changed by the Spirit in me.

I often grab hold of these verses in Philippians 3:12-14 – “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

I am so thankful that God’s grace is new every morning and each day is another opportunity to get closer to Him, to read His word, to practise His presence and to watch for examples of how others are living for Him. That’s the only way to learn how to wield those “weapons of the spirit” Pierre Sauvage mentioned.

Those weapons are mighty. They can change us. They can change those around us. They can change the world. Those weapons of the Spirit are the key to being able to live for Christ. And they will produce in us something worthy of being written in stone.

Just like Him by Marcia Lee Laycock

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Smiley Barbeque

My eyes fluttered open to the sound of howling wind. More snow, I thought, and thought about slipping deeper under the covers. But I was awake so I headed to the kitchen to make my usual cup of coffee and start the day. I expected there would be another few inches of snow on our deck and the thought didn’t make me happy. Coffee in hand, I wandered to our back door. Yes, there was another thick layer of the white stuff, but there was something else that caught my eye. A smiley face, grinning at me. There, on the side of our barbeque’s cover was a perfect smiley, eyes and all.

It made me laugh out loud. And then tears came to my eyes. You see, I’d been feeling a little blue lately, a little “under the weather,” as they say. I’ve been chalking it up to the grey days we’ve been having lately, combined with the fact that I’ve had some health issues that haven’t been fun to deal with over the past while. I tried to talk myself out of the ‘funk’ by reminding myself of all that I have to be thankful for. That helped, but the grey mood still lingered. So I asked the Lord to lighten my spirits a little. He knew just how to do it.

As I stood there grinning back at our barbeque, I thought of all the other times He has done something similar. The time he made a tiny flower glow with the promise of hope in my living room as I lay on our couch aching from chemo treatments; the day he showed me a perfect rosebud that had just bloomed in a Papua New Guinea garden when I was struggling to walk after being hit by a debilitating virus; the day he showed me the delight in my three-year-old nephew’s eyes when he saw a cluster of blue irises for the first time; the morning my mom woke my brother and I so we could see the marmot that had taken up residence in a pile of logs beside our house. These were all ‘smiley’ moments – moments of delight sent by the hand of God. It’s  just like Him to know exactly what we need at exactly the perfect time.

We shouldn’t be surprised. The scripture tells us He delights in delighting us. “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory” (Psalm 149:4).

The Scripture also says “because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam.3:22,23).

And “great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2).

Are you a bit “under the weather” these days? Ponder the works, the love, the faithfulness of our Lord. And don’t be afraid to ask him to lighten your spirit. It’s just like Him to find the perfect way to do it.

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flatecover(98) Marcia’s novella, An Unexpected Glory is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo

 

 

Missing Christmas 1600

Marcia’s short story, Missing Christmas is available on Amazon