Welcome back to the launch celebration!
:: UPDATE: I just wanted to let you all know that we will announce all the winners on Friday. ::
This is our second festival day, complete with giveaways and a few new updates. First, in case you missed it in the confusion yesterday (things kept changing), Caught Up in a Storyis finally available. You can go HERE to get your copy.
I'm so, so delighted to have this book in print. It's been a labor of heart and love and imagination, crafted from the best memories of my childhood, the best gifts of soul and mind I have ever received.
Second, today's giveaway is an original piece of art donated by my lovely friend, Katy Rose, at Goodwill Living. I will let her explain the idea behind this beautiful work. What a treasure it will be, a window looking into a place of grace and beauty woven through storm. In her words:
In John Bunyan's (author of
The Pilgram's Progress
) final book,
Excellency of a Broken Heart,
he reflected on what had become unmistakably real to him through a life marked by suffering:
"Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think . . . . It is wounding work, of course, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving. . . . Where there is grafting there is a cutting, the scion must be let in with a wound; to stick it on to the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back, or there will be no sap from root to branch, and this I say, must be done by a wound."
This painting reflects dark and light - suffering and joy - mingling to create beauty.
And be sure to scroll to the bottom to enter the ongoing giveaway for the grand prize... it's open until 11:59 on Thursday night.
Lastly, I want to direct your attention to the RESEARCH tab on the home page. I've taken great delight in the past days in stocking it with research on books and reading, with book recommendations for parents, links to the marvelous websites and blogs of kindred spirit storyformed friends, and in keeping with our theme of art today, creating a "this & that" page with illustrators and art sources as well as other fun things. Take a ramble round and let me know what you think, and what kind of resources you'd enjoy seeing on this page.