My Journey to becoming A Published Author

We lived on Yorkshire Lane in Manassas, VA, and the year was 1991. One day I went to Yorkshire Market to get some groceries, and as I exited my car, I noticed a father and son near the entrance of the store. I was appalled as I saw (and heard) the father hit his son (who appeared to be about eleven or twelve years old), shove him toward the door, yelling at him saying he was no good, worthless, etc. His father hit him over the head as the boy cowered, trying to cover his head.

My heart pounded with high, mixed emotions. I wanted to run to that father and tell him to stop, and I wanted to put my arms around that young lad and comfort him and tell him God loves him and has good things for his life. Did I dare accost the dad? Should I say something? They disappeared into the store, and I don't recall seeing them inside anywhere while I shopped. I prayed, "Lord, what should I do? What can I do? How many families are dysfunctional like that? What can be done to bring change and help families? How can abused children know that such behavior is not normal, and it is not their fault?"

As I thought on my prayer, the idea came to write books for children that model a good, stable family life. The idea came to take a course in writing for children. Shortly thereafter I got an advertisement in the mail for a course from The Institute of Children's Literature from Connecticut in writing for children! (I didn't use a computer at that time, so I know I didn't search online for a course. It came to me in the mail!) I only had a manual typewriter that used corrector ribbon, but I signed up for the course, and enjoyed my instructor's helpful comments and encouragement. I still have my lesson submissions that he graded and returned to me! I wrote a few short stories and other things for my classes and got my certificate of completion on July 20, 1992. I also wrote in journals and notebooks, and I realized I was a teacher at heart. Then life got busy, and I put my writing aside for a few years. In 1997, my first grandchild, Alissa Rose, was born, and I was busy babysitting her for three plus years until her sister, Nicole Ann, was born.

(Alissa loved to hear me tell stories, especially the Bible story of Jarius’ daughter raised to life. Alissa lay on the couch and pretended to be the daughter, and I was Jesus, who came in and took her by the hand and said, “Little girl, get up!” Alissa asked for that story many times, and it was always a spiritual moment when we enacted it. She also loved to hear me tell of a little boy who got into trouble when he climbed a ladder, got into his father’s paint cans and made a mess everywhere.)

When I stopped babysitting Alissa, I really missed her, and remembered how she loved stories. So, I decided to write a story for her about rabbit family “children”, whom I named Biff and Becka. That first four-page story was titled “Biff and Becka Go to Town.” 

My first Biff and Becka story

 Years passed, and I did other writing interviewing people and tried to find a market for my narratives. I did sell one article titled “The Angel That ‘Flied’” to Guideposts magazine; they bought my story for $300, interviewed the person themselves, and rewrote it to their satisfaction, and published it in Angels on Earth magazine; it made the cover story of their May/June 1997 issue, and was titled “Silent Words for a Frightened Mother.” (I felt they diluted the story by leaving out key components of how the mother prayed, but that’s another story.)

I tucked my writings away as I became a consultant with Home Interiors & Gifts and was quite busy doing home shows. Years passed.

Then one day in 2011 my friend Jane and I planned to have lunch. I wanted to give her a token of my friendship and thought about what to give her. She too had grandchildren, and I suddenly remembered the Biff and Becka story I had tucked away. I printed out a copy and gave it to her to read to her grand-kids. A few days later, she called me and said, “Elaine, you have to write more about Biff and Becka! It’s really good!” I was quite surprised, as I had no intention of writing more about them. To make a long story short, I began to put ideas on 3 x 5 cards and spread them out on the kitchen table to see how I might fit these ideas together to write another story. 

My first published book by Wine Press Publishing

 It developed from one story into an eight-chapter book I titled Biff and Becka’s Springtime Adventures, my first book published by Wine Press in 2012. Some months later I learned quite by “accident” that Wine Press was no longer in business! (It was truly a God thing!) I did manage to get Wine Press to return my manuscript, and I hunted for another publisher, deciding on WestBow Press, the assisted-publishing arm of Thomas Nelson and Zondervon publishers. I started over.

During this time, I joined a Christian writer’s group where I learned some helpful new things and decided to re-write and expand the first book to include more chapters, more adventures, and eventually titled it Biff and Becka’s Springtime Escapades. Because of my experience with Wine Press publishing, I had hired David Miles as my illustrator, because he did work for them. So, I had him draw new pictures, and I made the target audience for kids ages seven to eleven. Thus began my journey into writing my second and third books in the trilogy: Biff and Becka’s Stupendous Vacation, and Biff and Becka’s Splendiferous Christmas.

I was recently approached by a mother in our church who informed me that her daughter wanted me to write book number four about Biff and Becka! (My third book ended with the Christmas surprise for Biff and Becka that they were going to have a baby sister or brother.) She wants to know what will happen with the new baby in the family! Oh dear. Another challenge! We’ll see where it leads.

Since my third book published in 2015, I have also published a cookbook, Elaine’s Kitchen, in the fall of 2016, and more recently published Journal Gems: Nuggets from My Heart to Yours, all with WestBow Press. The editorial assessment for my next book, Rhyme and Reason: A Collection of Poetry and Short Stories, came back yesterday, so that book should soon be ready for distribution as well.

My journey into writing began one step at a time. I did a lot of praying about my writing, and I truly enjoy it. I feel like writing something every day—one way or another. I am always gratified to hear how my writing blesses others. As for the Biff and Becka trilogy, here is a quote from a friend:

“Elaine, you really touched my heart with the explanation of your desire to minister to abused children. I was one of those abused kids, as were several others in our class. We grew up distrustful, ashamed, feeling worthless, and taking the blame for everything that was killing our spirits. But I was a voracious reader as a child, and I read about “normal” families, and homes where children were valued and loved. It was just a dream to me, then, to imagine that there were parents who nurtured their children and taught them godly values. I knew there was a God but it was impossible for me to trust Him as a child. But many years later, with my own family, all that reading paid off. I knew what “normal” was supposed to be; I knew what nurturing and teaching godly values was all about BECAUSE I HAD READ ABOUT THEM when I was a kid.

So I know the good you are doing. And today, when child abuse is a much more openly talked-about thing, where there are resources for children, where there is mandated reporting of abuse, where teachers and other adults reach out to children they suspect are being abused, there is still that need for your books. You may have some idea of the good you are doing, but you don’t know it all yet, nor will you until you get to heaven.

Bless you, Elaine; bless you, bless you, bless you, many times over.”

Alma*

*Name has been changed to protect privacy

 (Alma’s comment is published on my website, elainebeachy.com.)

Our Constitution

It is amazing to me that in one hand I can hold such a weighty document as the Constitution of the United States -- not hundreds or even thousands of pages, as some documents of law today. The small booklet, available from The Heritage Foundation, consists of only forty-some pages, is 3 1/2" wide and 6 1/2" high, and only 1/8" thick. But the words are weighty, and strong enough upon which to hang the rule of law for the entire United States of America.

Despite the severe opposition to freedom for all races by some, the Declaration of Independence states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. -- " The document then proceeds to list the grievances of "repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these states," and a multitude of unjust practices against the colonists by the King of Great Britain.

Our Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, and I am so thankful! Man was born to be free -- not enslaved by anyone or anything. Is anything unfair in our Constitution? No. But highly prejudiced courts and judges twisted the intent of the Constitution to render unjust, highly offensive decisions, such as in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case, when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney did violence to the Constitution when he ruled that black people could not be made citizens. I cringe at such injustice! It seems the Constitution has always been at the mercy of men sitting on court benches, who by cunning and shrewd manipulation endeavor to extract decisions to suit themselves, and disregard the Constitution's intent.

When President Lincoln freed the slaves, Major General William Sherman gave forty acres of land and a mule in 1865 to freed slaves to provide them with means to start their own farms. But when Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Jackson became president, and he reversed the orders! Such cruel injustice makes me both angry and sad.

John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence rightly said, "Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." He also said, "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."

I pray much for our country, for the preservation of the original intent of our Constitution, for just laws to apply equally to all, regardless of skin color or creed. I pray much for our Supreme Court, that judges will be confirmed and appointed who will rule on decisions based on original intent of this small document I hold in my hands. May God have mercy on us as a nation, and help us to love one another.

Copies of the above booklet are available from The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, 20002. Their telephone number is (800) 546-2843, and website is heritage.org.

Copyright © 2018 Elaine Beachy

Matters of the Heart

“What’s happening in this country today is beyond anything we’ve ever seen in American politics. Political debate, at the very heart of the founding of this country, has developed into outright political abuse.” ~ Judge Jeanine Pirro

One’s mind reels to hear of Congressional leaders calling for riots and relentless attacks and harassment against people who work for our president. Actors and actresses call for the president’s son, Baron Trump, to be kidnapped and locked in a cage with pedophiles. Outright lies and distortion of the facts are served up by the main stream news media as the truth just to further a political agenda. One sees, plain as day, the outrageous scheme by a group of FBI and DOJ top players who conspired to create a scenario to keep Donald Trump from winning the White House, and then lied to cover it up. One sees, plain as day, the conspiracy to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton as president in 2016, and all the finagling that went on, and the subsequent specially-designed witch hunt by “special counsel” Robert Mueller against the president, to focus deflection on what these dishonest players have done.

Common sense, decency, and morality seem eclipsed by scathing vitriol against Conservative leadership of any kind in our country. Where is the respect and good will that can result in good decisions for our country when both sides of the political aisle come together? The leadership on the Liberal side of the aisle will have none of it, but rather, delights in obstructionism just to be mean and ornery. A play from the devil’s handbook. Hell’s agenda against our country.

A great challenge confronts me as a Christian with reasoned conservative political beliefs with an innate, deep-seated sense of justice, to obey the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:44-45 (NKJ): “But I say to you, love your enemies; bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”

My heart wrestles with the challenge: how can I bless those who do such evil? How should I bless them? God’s Kingdom works in an upside-down fashion from the kingdoms of this world, to bring things right-side-up. I realize I need to guard my own heart, so I am not sucked down into the sewer of destructive thinking that wars against the Holy Spirit’s thoughts and will for me.

One can see from the scripture mentioned above that God is a Blesser. He desires for all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. When we were still sinners, Christ died for us, because He loved us and saw value in us. In a recent book I’ve read about blessing others, I read numerous testimonies of how God turned people’s hearts around when the offended ones chose to bless those opposing them. I took courage from that, and the Holy Spirit showed me that as I imitate God by blessing the ungodly, He has a direct inroad into their hearts because I humble myself to bless instead of holding resentment and bitterness against them. As I bless instead of holding up a placard of resentment that obscures God, He will move in and change obstinate hearts.

I do not bless the actions of a person; rather, I pray something like this: “Father, in Jesus’ name, I bless _______________ with an abundance of Your love; I bless their eyes to be opened, so they can come to the Truth. I bless them with health, strength, righteousness, long life and good days. I bless their hearts to be impacted by Your grace. Amen.”

What would happen if the entire body of Christ made blessing a priority in our lives? If we truly obeyed 2 Chronicles 7:14? “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

I want to do what I can to cultivate a culture of blessing within the body of Christ. With it, we can change the world, one heart at a time! Think of the peace that would come to our nation and the nations of the world. Blessing our enemies is powerful. Anyone can bless those who agree with them, but it takes a humbling of the heart to do it for our enemies. We must let go of offense and view others as God sees them: souls for whom Jesus died, and think of the eternal consequences if they don’t repent and turn to God. We plead for their salvation. We must have the heart of God for our world, and not be sucked in by the world. And when I choose the pathway of blessing, peace comes into my own heart in great measure, because I know God will now work on changing them.

No wonder God gives us this instruction: “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (I Timothy 2:1-4 NKJ) I need peace and quiet, don’t you?  

Will you be part of a culture of blessing? Maybe you want to start with those difficult people in your own family. God, give us grace to be a people of blessing. He will heal our land, but we have a part to play.

I press on, daily.

Copyright © 2018 Elaine Beachy