God is so Faithful!

                                                           It's been a busy time in Marie's writing studio! I hope to finish my new novel by the end of 2012. But my big news today is the John Ramsey book is just out called THE OTHER SIDE OF SUFFERING.  I spent a year working on that book with him and I'm so happy to hear the responses. John was on "Good Morning America" yesterday and "The View" this morning. Tomorrow he'll be on "Inside Edition" and then  "Nightline" on ABC – March 14; "Anderson Cooper" March 16, "Inside Edition" airing March 16 and "CBA This Morning on March 17.  He'll be on Huckabee, Fox News Channel – March 17 & March 18; "Good Morning America Weekend," ABC – March 18; "Starting Point," CNN (formerly American Morning) – March 19, and "Celebration," on  Daystar – March 19, and Table Talk with Joni, "Daystar"  – March 19.

              


And you might want to pick up a copy of PEOPLE Magazine, March 14th when it's issued for a feature story on this amazing man.  It's truly an inspiring story and I hope you'll get a copy of the book.  When you do, let me hear from you.

I received an email today from a woman I prayed for who told me she & her husband thought they were $30,000 in debt to the IRS and it turned out to be $140,000. She said God intervened and completely wiped out the entire debt. She wrote to thank me for praying.   May I just shout a big old, "Praise the Lord"??

Keep an eye on my website www.mariechapian.com because I'm coming to Chicagoland in April, and my itinerary includes  two all-day seminars in DesPlaines and I want to see YOU there!

 

it's 2012!

      Wow, and one of my New Year's resolutions is going to be to keep up with my blog.  The only other resolution I made was to give up sweets.  (This is no biggie for me; I do it all the time.)  However, last night at a college faculty meeting I ate a cookie.  I just up and ate it, just like that.  I didn't even think about it.  It was one of those oatmeal raisin cookies we tell ourselves are healthy. haha.  I've given up sweets for a year at a time and so it's kinda fun actually.  I get to be creative with fruits. (Ixnay on the oatmeal raisin cookies, Marie.)
     Fruit; yes, praise God for fruit.  Which brings to mind the fruit of the Spirit.  I love it that faith is not only a fruit of the Spirit, but a gift of the Spirit as well.  We're covered.  God surrounds us with faith opportunities.  We can never exhaust the subject of faith.  It's new every morning, like His faithfulness.  I feel like meditating on that point right now.
     Well, I'm excited about 2012, are you?  I join the other prophets' words expressing great things for God's children this year.  Great things happen by our agreeing with His will. 
     My book, THE EMANCIPATION OF ROBERT SADLER has been re-released this month.  Oh, please do check it out.  This man, Robert Sadler, sold as a slave when he was a boy of five -- and one of the greatest human beings I've ever known.  His story is amazing.  You can get it on Amazon or buy it from me -- just go to my website, www.mariechapian.com --  It's also in Christian bookstores everywhere, published by Bethany House.
     And the book I wrote with John Ramsey comes out next month.  Talk about a modern day Job.  He's the sweetest, kindest man who ever walked the earth -- and the father of the little beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey who was murdered in their family basement the day after Christmas in 1996.  The name of the book is THE OTHER SIDE OF SUFFERING.  It's a must-read book. 
     If Robert Sadler and John Ramsey can overcome, we can too.
     Praise God, it's going to be a great year of overcoming and prevailing and fulfilling the will of God.  Agreed?
     Love, Marie

Overwhelming Abundant Good Peaceful Contented Sweet - I could come up with a pageful of adjectives to express my prayers for this sacred season. Each year I feel a more intense pull to the holiness of this set-apart time -- that is, if we can permit it to be a "set-apart" time. What I mean is, a time to pull away, not into the swirl of busyness and stress. Oh thanks, Marie, how do we do that at Christmas? I think, for me, it's by concentrating on my inner life, by looking within. I may have more demands and pressures put on me than ever, but my mind is fixed on the words, "Peace I give you, not as the world gives..." and "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me..." (that includes being happy).

Christmas and Chanukah and all holidays ask a little more of us than everyday life. And they can be difficult to navigate through. If it's not stress, it's depression. That's why it's important to focus within.

We need to see ourselves as beautiful and cherished by God Almighty. We need to rest in that knowledge even while buzzing about doing our stuff. Money is always an issue, no matter how much we have or don't have. I go through some pretty lean sacred seasons and I handle the situation exactly as I handle all issues of my sacred life-- by proclaiming His Word into my spirit. I choose to "seek first the Kingdom of God," which means I live by faith, not by sight; which means I put on the "full armour," which means I take life to the full, Abundant, Good, Peaceful and Sweet. I suffer NO lack because I'm filled with His Spirit, all things working together for good, always prospering, always bearing fabulous fruit, always strengthened and chosen to prove Him and His glory.

Just like you!
Have a sweet Jesus Christmas and Chanukah -- know how loved you are!

What is Black Friday? Today, black Friday, people are rushing to hit the big sales. You’ve seen the photos, watched the News, and maybe you’re out there right now pulling in the bargains. People ask me where the name came from. Well, Black Friday is a good name because it means a day for businesses to try to get into the “black” and out of the “red.” So when you’re bringing home that $200 42” TV from Best Buy you’re helping them get out of the red at the same time you’re getting an amazing deal.


Me, I’m not into Black Friday. Not because I don’t want to help boost the economy or empty my own pockets, but because I honestly and truly don’t like shopping even on a day without crowds and bargains. It’s one of my weirdities. When my kids were growing up I’d take them to Macy’s or some other store with big expanses with racks of clothes and buy their clothes for the whole season. Clerks loved to see me coming. Heaps and heaps of clothes, whole outfits, shoes, accessories – all at once. The kids loved it, and I was thrilled to get it over with.

In her last years I bought my mom’s wardrobes and instead of giving her a sweater at Christmas or a new coat or whatever, I’d take her to Dayton’s (Minneapolis) and just buy for the whole year. Clerks loved to see us coming. My mother loved it. I loved it, and then we’d have lunch.

My daughter is the World’s Greatest Shopper (can we be related?) That girl can sniff out a bargain a mile away. Today, Black Friday, she’s not at Best Buy or Macy’s, she’s thrumming out the 50% off thrift stores. She’ll come home with designer dresses for 25 ¢ each. When we were in New York for my other daughter’s art opening, she bought so much stuff I didn’t think she’d get on the airplane with it all. Me, I think I bought one book at the MOCA museum store.

Books, yes, I’ll buy books. I’m a writer after all, I buy books. I don’t check out the best sellers from the library, I buy them. I buy non-best sellers; I buy books. I tell my writer-students, “Writers read. Writers buy books.” But when it comes time to get an outfit to speak in or a new pair of boots, I’ll do anything to put off shopping. “Heavens, I can’t go shopping. I’ve got to paint the garage.” Any excuse will do.

So imagine my anxieties at Christmas. I’ll never forget the time I did all my Christmas shopping at once at CostCo. I mean it, all of it, at once. I hauled this enormous dolly heaped with toys and food and clothes and electronics – I mean, heaped with stuff – I could hardly roll the thing to the check-out. The guy behind me in line was so shocked I could hear him muttering to himself, and I know he was thanking his lucky stars I wasn’t his wife. Finally, he said to me, “Girl, you are 86’d! You cannot buy another thing. Have you got that? You cannot buy another thing.”

(The term “86” means you’re done. You’re out of here.)

I laughed so hard. He had no idea that I covered every Christmas need in ONE trip, including the extension cord for the lights.

Enough about me. What are YOU doing today?

Hello Winter

Did you stand at the edge of something green or flowering and wave bye-bye to summer? And then in the fallen leaves looking up through bare branches at a pale sky, did you wave bye-bye to autumn? Now here we are, with arms open wide welcoming winter. Oh, I know we don’t look forward to 20 below zero weather, ice storms and blizzards, but there’s certain majesty in all seasons, don’t you think? A certain integrity of the seasons themselves. I grew up in Minnesota where the winters were bitter, mean and furious. From the third through the sixth grade we lived in North Dakota and I still have dreams about those winters in Grand Forks. We walked to school atop mountainous icy snow banks – it was joyous! We built caves, igloos, and forts in the snow. We had to make our own hills if we wanted to go sliding – but we skated until our noses and toes almost fell off. I froze my hands and feet more than once in those winters. I live in California now and I can’t say I miss the harsh winters of my childhood, but I do miss the child who loved them.


Now when I’m traveling in severe winter weather I think of flights canceled, bad roads, traffic, shoveling, skidding on ice, car trouble … I’d like to find that girl with four sweaters under her snowsuit, two pairs of mittens on her hands, and with her little brother, plunk down in the perfect snow and stick out my tongue for the snowflakes to land. I’d like to squeal with laughter with my brother again as the snowflakes pool on our faces and tangle in our eyelashes— I’d like to love the world like that little girl who dreamed only in the present and worried about nothing.

Delight yourself in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).  Praise God.   Hello winter!

Day of Atonement

Heavens, I can't believe it's been three months since I've blogged.  I've been working around the clock and burning the midnight oil writing new books and though it's been an amazing time in the Lord, I've lost my sense of time.  Forgive me!  It's Yom Kippur, the most beautiful High Holiday -- To rejoice and celebrate with our Messiah Yeshuah is beyond glorious, isn't it?  This is such a vital moment in human history and if we are the Benjamin Generation, we're truly in a good place.
I had a dream two nights ago I want to tell you about.  My Father was showing me His fields and I just loved those fields, so beautiful and golden and rich.  He was talking to me about strategy to make them even more beautiful, and  it was the happiest, most loving dream!  When I awoke and thought it, I realized the fields my Father showed me were all ripe for harvest!  The wheat whsipering in the wind, all beautiful and perfect for harvesting. (Joel 3:13; Matthew 9:37)
The word I'm hearing for us is Be Brave.  We are in an appointed time to prosper, grow, be healed, restored and to go forth fearlessly shining as His reflection in this world as never before.  He's calling us to His ripe fields -- The fields are His, so we're in the right place, His fields just ready for harvest.  "Not by might and not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts ..."  (Zechariah 4:6) He's giving us fresh strategies, direction and Holy Spirit anointing for this hour. Our job?  Be Brave.
Loved, Rejoicing, and His,
Marie

I have this dream to live in the woods as a monastic -- at least for a few months.  Me, God, and the woods.  As soon as I finish the book I'm writing now, I think I'll head for the woods.
I live a contempletive life pretty much now anyhow, studying Benedict's Rule and living a life of prayer, contending for others, nations, etc. etc.. 
The book I'm writing now is with Miles McPherson, who's picture is posted on the sidebar of this blog-- Former NFL football player, he's an amazing man of God, full of zeal and a dynamic preacher.  He pastors the mega church here in San Diego called Rock Church.  I'm pretty much sealed into this book because of our deadline.  It's about IM AGE.  (Do you love it?)   My work days never end until the wee hours of the morning, and that's fine because the Benedictines rise at 3 a.m. for prayer and I can join them right here from my writing sudio. (does that count for discipline? eh eh)
The writing life is not very glamorous, but I consider the life truly blessed.  Just me, God and the computer (and in this case, just me, God, the computer and Miles McPherson -- haha)  
"Monastic spirituality calls us to see everything and everyone - including ourselves - as holy. The tools of the kitchen and the office are to be regarded as sacred vessels. The places in our heart where we wrestle are to be embraced with kindness. The person who irritates us or makes us feel fearful is a window into how God is at work in our lives. Being a monk in the world means that there are no more divisions between sacred and secular."

 Big Jesus hug,
Marie