Happy New Year, everyone!
As I compose these words, I’m still perched on the precipice of how to move forward with posts for 2026. For now, I want to take a moment to reflect upon the past year, when I was blessed beyond measure with the publication of two children’s books.
“The real trick in life is to turn hindsight into foresight that reveals insight.”--Robin Sharma
Yes, Lord, please improve my vision!
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”--Romans 15:4
While looking back at posts from last year, I was drawn to my February blog on love. I think some of its content merits re-sharing:
My ear worm keeps repeating that Bing Crosby song “What Can You Do with a General Who Stops Being a General?” What can you do with a teacher who stops being a teacher and becomes a writer? Submit an all-important book review. Give her book a five-star rating.
Reading those reviews from my former students has been like that final scene in White Christmas when the general reunites with his former soldiers.
That’s amore!
Let’s continue that thought as we move into a new year and strive to make 2026 the year of love.
In that same blog post I referenced Amy Parker’s words in her board book How Big Is Love?
“Our love grows every time we give it away.”
This concept is aptly described in one of my favorite songs I used to sing with the Cumberland Voices many years ago.
“It only takes a spark
To get a fire going,
And soon all those around
Can warm up to its glowing,
That’s how it is with God’s love
Once you’ve experienced it.
You spread His love to everyone.
You want to pass it on.”–-Kurt Kaiser
Like ripples in a pond, our love and kindness can have far-reaching consequences and blessings that can make the world a better place.
Consider the parable of the sower in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. As I used to tell my students, what you put into something will determine what you get out of it.
Consider the prayer for peace from St. Francis of Assisi:
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O, divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
This is my prayer for myself, for you, and for our world in 2026.
I want to thank you again for the love (and pardon and faith and hope and light and joy) you have given me as you have supported my writing journey this past year. You gave and I was blessed to receive!
I have also been blessed on this journey to meet some wonderful Christian writers. Their faith and their perseverance have inspired me, and I hope to pass on their insight in this coming year. We have often commiserated with each other about the changes in Amazon’s algorithms. That’s why reviews are so important to authors and publishers, and that’s why I’m humbly asking you to submit a review if you have not already done so. Even if you purchased a book from another source or if you checked it out of a library, you can write a review.
To write an Amazon review of Max and Her Stacks, scroll down and look for “write a review” on the left side of the screen.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
In the coming year may your own life be blessed with love and kindness, and may you pass it on to others.
More reposted from February 2025 blog:
You can also help love grow by applying to your own life these characteristics of love from the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“That best portion of a good man’s life: His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”–William Wordsworth
“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”—Thumper
“Teach us, O Lord, to focus on our faith in You instead of our worldly fears and to see Your goodness in the land of the living.”–Day 1 prayer from my 2026 devotional journal
Matthew 7:12; Matthew 13:1-23; Romans 12:9; Hebrews 13:16
Thumper was one smart critter and his lesson should be shared with all that venture out in public and hold positions of responsibility and trust. Sometimes “silence” is truly golden and thoughts and words are best kept t oneself.
😊