DOUBLE SQUEAL!! i apologize, but I’m so SUPER excited about the cover of my brand-new picture book, coming in July 2019. All the best stories are true… and this one is MINE, based on the birth of my first son, many years ago.
I was just 25 years old, and the night he was born I had an amazing experience that has stayed with me ever since. It was as if the moon and the stars knew about his birth, the trees clapped their hands, the rivers laughed, and all creation rejoiced with me.
With stunning illustrations by Aurelie Blanz, The Wonder That is Youcaptures the utter elation I felt that evening and the universal joy parents feel as they celebrate the arrival of a new child in the family, whether through birth or adoption.
So that means that if you didn’t yet choose that one-of-a-kind special gift for Father’s Day, you have just one chance left to win a free copy of both these cute books. Just visit Children’s Ministry colleagueDeDe Reilly to read her review and enter the giveaway.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the tour, everyone who entered the giveaways, and everyone who took the time to leave those all-important reviews. They mean more to me than you will ever know.
Now that my virtual author tour has ended, I’m about to begin a real-life one, over the pond, in England. This time next week I’ll be visiting three Primary schools in the north of England, where I was born.
I hope to encourage these children to discover what it is that God made them good at, to work hard at it, pursue their dreams, never give up, and see what our great God can do. Because I know that amongst those listeners, there’ll be authors, and illustrators, and athletes, and physicians, and teachers, and wonderful parents… they just don’t know it yet.
Stay tuned for photographs of my visit there and in the meantime, read about what happened at my very first author visit to Sutton Oak Primary School, England.
If you’ve peeked inside the pages of God Made Daddy Special you’ll have seen these adorable images of animal babies with their dads…
These wonderful illustrations were drawn by Estelle Corke, a British illustrator 🙂 living in the south of England.
Now if you’ve ever wondered, like me, where illustrators come up with their ideas, or what they do with sketches they’ve drawn but can’t be used, or how long it takes to develop characters, then you’ll want to take a trip to my next blog stop on the Mommy and Daddy book tour, where I sat down with Michelle Huddleston to chat about the books.
As well as seeing a little live interview with me, you’ll get to read all Estelle’s answers to the questions above, plus more. (Can you guess which of these animal daddies and their babies she had never drawn before: was it Daddy Octopus or Daddy Skunk?)
These words won’t make sense to anyone who doesn’t know me well. But my family, my close friends, and my four brothers and three sisters know only too well who the ‘Secret Supper’ maker was…
Let me take you across the Atlantic Ocean, almost fifty years ago, to a red brick home in northern England, where I grew up with my seven siblings… Continue reading →
Well, maybe that’s a lie. I was, in fact, the largest of my mum’s eight babies, weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds. But the joke in my family for a long time was that I’ve never put any weight on since.
It’s true though, that through no merit of my own, I managed to give birth to four children and then shrink, almost immediately, back to my previous slim self. The same skinny jeans that I’d discarded a few months prior slid easily over my hips without too much trouble. And I continued in that same skinny vein for years and years. If you don’t believe me, here’s a 1990’s picture to prove it… Continue reading →
Oh Glenys… this is the phone call you never wanted.
I hear the tremor in my brother’s voice. He’s 4000 long miles away, and I say a prayer in my head.
God, whatever this is, give me strength.
Dad is dying.
I can hear those three words like it was yesterday. My heart is beating fast and I kneel by my front window like I always do when I don’t know what else to do.
That was one year ago today.
My little grandsons are running around the house. There’s Christmas music playing. I’m setting the table with a cheery red cloth, preparing for a party. And then the next day, I’m on a plane, England bound, where I get to kiss my dad for the last time as he lies with his eyes closed cold and his hands folded in that quiet, quiet room, with a stuffed dog at his feet and an acorn tucked in his pocket.
Please, God, let me know you are real.
Let my dad be living in heaven.
Let my faith not be in vain.
Let my words, let my words that I write for children, be true.
Because sometimes, just sometimes, there’s this little nagging doubt that creeps up inside me and I wonder what life is all about, and if I really will get to see my dad again, like I told him with absolute certainty on the phone as I knelt that day in front of my window.
I love you Dad, and I WILL see you again.
I could hear his breathing.
My voice was strong, and in that moment, I was convinced, just like Paul, that NOTHING,not even death itself, can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But today, I’m not strong. I’m not convinced. And I’m trying hard to hold on to my faith, my God, like I’m drowning in the ocean and it’s my only life-line, my only hope and it’s slipping fast through my fingers.
But what is faith? What is hope, the writer of Romans said, if it can be seen?
The day after I kissed my dad goodbye, as he lay in that simple wooden box, I stood in the street just a few doors down the road, while my sister and nieces played Christmas carols in the brass band. The icy wind blew my sister’s hair, and the rain in Wigan was cold. I wondered if my dad could hear them play his favorite carol, as he lay there, all alone.
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
I know my dad has been raised. I know my dad has gained that second birth. I just miss him terribly, and there’s this big, empty hole in my heart that no one can fill.
And so as my family gather in England today to celebrate and remember the life of the most Christ-like man I have ever known, the one I was utterly, utterly privileged to call Dad, I will take a walk in these Michigan wintry woods, and I’ll admire the splendid trees, all covered in soft snow, and I’ll listen for the birds he loved so much, and I’ll thank God that my dad, my wonderful dad, is in heaven.
I remember when my mum discovered ‘catalogs’… the perfect, stress-free way to shop for Christmas for all eight of us. We would pore over the pages, and then she would order what we wanted.
One year was a big disappointment. It must only have been a few days before Christmas when she broke the devastating news to an expectant ten year old:
Glenys, I’m sorry, but your pogo stick didn’t arrive.You’ll have to choose something else.
I didn’t want anything else. I wanted a pogo stick so I could boing up and down the driveway to my heart’s content. I don’t even remember what I chose as an alternative.
But what I DO remember is coming downstairs that Christmas morning, waiting patiently outside the living room for all my siblings to line up, and then opening the door to see…
a POGO STICK!
It had arrived after all, and my dad had dutifully hidden it away in the back of his wardrobe so it wouldn’t be seen. (He’d also forgotten to tell my mum). How excited she must have been to be able to surprise me with that gift after all.
I was a happy little girl, and spent the next several months boinging away happily to my heart’s content, up and down the drive. It was the best surprise ever.
It wouldn’t be Christmas without surprises. A little baby, in a manger, who would grow up to be King of the Whole World… what could be more surprising than that?
Traci Smith, a Presbyterian pastor in San Antonio, has a Christmas surprise for her two young sons. She wrapped up 25 books and beginning December 1st, they’ll open one book a day until the 25th.
And can you guess which book they’ll save for last? It’s Christmas Love Letters from God. What a wonderful surprise for me to find that out!
Read her post and be sure to enter the Christmas Love Letters from God giveaway. You never know… you might win.
I’ll never forget the thrill of writing the dedication in my first book.
This book is dedicated to the oldest and youngest members of my family…. I wrote.
To my dad, Harry Hughes, who first told me the wonderful Story of Jesus. And to my grandchildren, Xander, Sam, and Brixham, who are just beginning to hear the wonderful Story for themselves.
When I penned those words I was nervous. I wasn’t sure whether my dad, frail at 90, would ever be able to hold that book, or turn its pages, or see that it was dedicated to him, or even remember that his daughter was the author. But he did. I have the photographto prove it:
And how glad I was, because he never did get to hold my second book. He died while it was in the mail on its way to him, all wrapped up in Christmas paper, on route over the wide sea from Michigan to England.
If he could have opened it, he would have seen that I dedicated that book to my first granddaughter, newly arrived into the world.
For Colette, my first granddaughter, I wrote. How my dad would have loved to meet her, and lift her high onto his shoulder. But it wasn’t to be.
There is a time for everything, Solomon wrote, a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to weep and a time to laugh.
Isn’t that true?
When the time came for the third title in the series, Christmas Love Letters from God, I was ready when my editor asked, Who would you like to dedicate this book to?
I knew, straight away, whose name would be printed in the front of this book, and why. And so when Laura Sassi, children’s book author, welcomed me to her blog, and asked me to share the story behind its dedication, I was happy to do so.
Do you know who I dedicated Christmas Love letters from God to?
One of the most marvelous things about becoming an author is what happens next. And it’s marvelous because what might happen is totally unpredictable.
Time after time in this publishing journey, I have seen the principle of Ephesians 3:20at work in my life. And don’t you just LOVE how The Message Bible puts it?
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
Oh, yes indeed! Here’s five things I never, ever, in my wildest or craziest of dreams, could possibly imagine happening:
That when I sat down to pen the very first words of Love Letters from God, that book would one day become a serieswith its own brand.
That I would walk in to a little British Primary schoolone May morning to see the walls literally covered with children’s love letters to God.
That I would hear, time and time again, how adults have been impacted by these books, not just little ones. (Which I guess just goes to show that although my target audience is children, God’s target audience is the world.)
That Christina Embree, a United Methodist Children’s Ministry Director in Kentucky would take Christmas Love Letters from Godand work out the perfect way for families to use it to journey through Advent and into Epiphany together. (I am the author, and I have never thought of using the book in that way!)
I don’t know what your dreams are… for yourself, or your children, or your future, but what I DO know is this:
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!
There is nothing that our great God cannot do.
So keep believing! Let the wonderful, mysterious Holy Spirit keep working quietly and deeply within you.
But before you leave, let me share with you a wonderful little story from Kate, who won our last Christmas Love Letters from God giveaway. The winners are chosen at random, but I really love what she plans to do with her book. In her comment, Kate wrote:
Our church family has a special single mother with twin daughters who will be receiving this book on their doorstep (secretly!) on Christmas Eve in hopes that this book will be part of their Christmas Eve traditions.
I just love thinking about this…
that on Christmas Eve, there’ll be a secret present, all wrapped up in love, sitting quietly on someone’s doorstep, just waiting to surprise them on Christmas morning.
It reminds me that each of us can do our part in delivering God’s love letter to the world, and sharing the wonderful story of Jesus with those who need to hear it…
