Merry Christmas!

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is about to come to a close. So much happened this year that it has fairly flown by. I’ve traveled more than 7,600 miles this year to meet readers and sign books, attend and teach at conferences, and visit the headquarters of one of my publishers (hope to get out to the other one next year!). I’ve had three books release this year (A Case for Love, Ransome’s Crossing, and Love Remains) and been a finalist for a Christy Award (for Stand-In Groom). I’ve met so many wonderful readers, authors, and industry folks along the way. I’ve edited more than a dozen books for other publishers, and, somewhere along the way, managed to squeeze in writing three novels this year (Love Remains, Ransome’s Quest, and The Art of Romance). I taught at three writers’ conferences this year (North Louisiana’s RWA chapter conference, Middle Tennessee Christian Writers, and American Christian Fiction Writers) as well as a month-long online class for ACFW, and hope to do more of that in 2011.

On the personal front, after years of having no church home and searching for the right place for me, I joined a new church—and “converted” to a new denomination (from Southern Baptist to United Methodist). I’m planning to join the fabulous choir in 2011, and love everyone at my new church like family already.

And then, just as I was getting all excited (and stressed out) over the upcoming holidays, on November 4, 2010, at around six in the evening, coming out of the library at my undergraduate alma mater, I fell and fractured/broke both bones in my ankle and dislocated my foot—on the one day of my life that I left the house without my cell phone! Because I live alone, and because I have no insurance, my parents drove over from Arkansas to bring me home with them so that I could have my surgery here and convalesce at their home. I’d been planning on spending a few weeks here with them through the holiday season (at Thanksgiving and Christmas), but not two whole months!

Though I know God didn’t cause this to happen, He’s been using it—using it to make me take stock of my life and my career (as a writer and as a freelance editor) and pointing me in directions I might not have been willing to consider before this accident happened (no, I’m not quitting writing). I’ve had to learn to slow down, to ask for help, and to allow others to serve me (so frustrating when I’ve prided myself on my self-sufficiency and independence for so many years—so He’s teaching me humility, too). I’m not certain how I’m going to pay for what I know will be a huge medical bill in the end (emergency room, doctor’s visits, surgery, overnight stay in the hospital, follow-up visits, and physical therapy), but I trust that somehow, God will provide—even if it’s just providing me with a monthly payment plan I can afford.

So 2010 is ending quite differently than how I’d imagined it. But God knew this turning point was coming, and He was ready for it—so I’m confident in the knowledge that I need only to trust Him, to try every window and door before me to see which one opens, and to stay positive about my healing and recovery, and 2011 will start off wonderfully well.

I wish you and yours the very happiest of holiday seasons and a blessed Christmas,