It's 8 Sentence Sunday time! #WeWriWa

“Just once I want to be someone’s first choice,” Cali whispered to the floor, embarrassed at the inherent selfishness of such a statement.  She was the bratty baby of the family, ever the attention seeker as her mother was quick to point out.  And for once in her life Cali had to agree her mother was right.  “I can’t share you, Cooper.  I won’t take second place.”

“I would never ask that,” Cooper offered, his voice growing stronger as he stepped closer to her.  “Jessie is my future sister-in-law.”  Cooper placed his hands on Cali’s shoulders and she melted into the chair.

Thanks to the crew at WeWriWa for hosting 8 Sentence Sunday.  Be sure to check out all of the authors sharing #8sunday at www.wewriwa.com

Cooper Hensen is back in the Midwest, a place that holds haunting memories for him.  Worse, he’s been labeled the newcomer, the guy now responsible for replacing a pro bowl, quarterback superstar destined for the hall of fame.  And while the other guy’s name graces everything around the city from a children’s hospital to a golf course and philanthropic foundation, people keep misspelling Cooper’s, driving him crazy.  Twice in as many weeks he’s heard his neighbor, a die-hard other guy fan, refer to him as Copper.  Seriously?

Cali Carter is a hard charging, no non-sense district attorney determined to clean up the city of Indianapolis.  But lately things have shifted and she’s felt torn between her work and the position she fought so hard to achieve, and helping her sister, who’s struggling to manage her own young family and run the small café where she’s invested all of her heart, not to mention her life savings.

When a bossy, quick thinker who likes to fix things meets a man with incredible potential clouded by a haunted past, can two household names find a balance of power within their relationship and share the spotlight?

Readers can find Faith 15 at the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-15-Men-Book-ebook/dp/B00TE8IMWW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423935283&sr=8-1&keywords=faith+15

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-faith15-1742047-149.html

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/faith-15-bethann-buehler/1121191363?ean=2940150273641

It Is Well...

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It’s like this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make wonderful plans.  The Colosseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice.  You learn some handy phrases in Italian.  You book a plane flight and reserve a room.  You make dinner reservations.  It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  You board the plane feeling more anticipation and excitement for this trip than anything you’ve experienced before.  Several hours later the plane lands.  Italy, what a dream come true!  You have arrived!  Then the stewardess comes in and says “Welcome to Holland!”

“Holland?” you say.  “What do you mean, Holland?  I signed up for Italy!  I’m supposed to be in Italy.  All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”  But there’s been a change in the flight plan.  You’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.  The important thing is that you haven’t been taken to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It’s just a different place.

So, you must go out and buy new guidebooks.  You must make new hotel arrangements.  Dinner plans will have to be altered.  And you must learn a whole new language.  You must make new reservations at new places.  And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met if you hadn’t landed here.

To make matters worse, everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they have there.  They share Italy stories and offer Italy advice.  Little of it applies in Holland.  For the rest of your life you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go, too.  That’s what I had planned.”  And the pain of that will never go away because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

Holland is a different place.  It’s slower paced than Italy.  It is less flashy than Italy.  But after you’ve been in Holland for a while you catch your breath, you look around…and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills and Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts.

If you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special and lovely things about Holland.”

         **Excerpt from a story by Emily Perl Kingsley as printed in “Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul”

Trimester 2 finals are in the books and it’s weeks like this one, when my family finds itself knee deep in the debris of train-on-tracks, spectrum living, that I long to run away with my ticket in hand, desperate to secure my spot in a country I long to visit.  Even though the opportunities have come and gone, I’m desperate not to let the topic drop but to say just one more thing in case it’s the right one.

Italy.  I was supposed to be over there, not here.  And while I’ve had almost fourteen years to adjust to living here and while Emily Pearl Kingsley is correct, Holland is incredible in its own right, a part of me sometimes wonders what I’m missing over there, in that other place.  But pining for Italy is a slippery slope and I know firsthand it leads me far from where I want to be.  From where this family and the child I adore need me to anchor myself.  Far from where God has planted me.

Holland is a beautiful place and while this season brings with it some grey days, I can’t let myself forget that this is right where I need to be.  After all, spring is coming.  And I’m looking forward to the tulips.

8 Sentence Sunday--WeWriWa

This is an excerpt from my newest novel, Faith 15, book two in the Men of Faith series.

“A regular guy,” Cooper mumbled.  “All I'm hoping is for Cali to see me as a regular guy.”  As he ran the tip of his toe over the weathered deck board wondering how much further to expose himself, Jason Aldean's voice cut through the silence with a heated, country drawl promising something about memories and tattoos. Burke smiled at Cooper’s latest choice of ring tones and reached for his abandoned coffee cup before Cooper could manage another word.

“Here's your chance, big boy,” Burke laughed, slapping Cooper on the back.

How could Cooper have failed to remember that his best friend was a total pest when he wanted to be?

Thanks to the crew at WeWriWa for hosting 8 Sentence Sunday.  Be sure to check out all of the authors sharing #8sunday at www.wewriwa.com

Cooper Hensen is back in the Midwest, a place that holds haunting memories for him.  Worse, he’s been labeled the newcomer, the guy now responsible for replacing a pro bowl, quarterback superstar destined for the hall of fame.  And while the other guy’s name graces everything around the city from a children’s hospital to a golf course and philanthropic foundation, people keep misspelling Cooper’s, driving him crazy.  Twice in as many weeks he’s heard his neighbor, a die-hard other guy fan, refer to him as Copper.  Seriously?

Cali Carter is a hard charging, no non-sense district attorney determined to clean up the city of Indianapolis.  But lately things have shifted and she’s felt torn between her work and the position she fought so hard to achieve, and helping her sister, who’s struggling to manage her own young family and run the small café where she’s invested all of her heart, not to mention her life savings.

When a bossy, quick thinker who likes to fix things meets a man with incredible potential clouded by a haunted past, can two household names find a balance of power within their relationship and share the spotlight?

Readers can find Faith 15 at the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-15-Men-Book-ebook/dp/B00TE8IMWW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423935283&sr=8-1&keywords=faith+15

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-faith15-1742047-149.html

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/faith-15-bethann-buehler/1121191363?ean=2940150273641

A Different Happy Hearts Day...

Valentines Day is a tough holiday at my house because my birthday and our anniversary fall in the same week meaning the three occasions take place within five days.  With President’s day falling nearby (which means a long weekend for us), needless to say it’s a jam-packed few days.  Before our son was born, we made it a point to travel to Napa Valley every year and spent many a fabulous long weekend between San Francisco and the Napa and Sonoma valleys as a result.  Even now just thinking about those years makes me sigh and chant those were the days.  And they were, in their own way.

Now my son is in his second year of middle school and while I’ve never said this about a given year before, I can’t wait for this Valentines day to be over.  My son’s world has changed dramatically in the past few months as girls we’ve known since preschool have started texting and his first real girlfriend has come and gone, leaving his heart in pieces when she left. At times over the last few days, the uncertainty in his world has felt overwhelming to everyone in our house.  I don’t remember the first time I got my heart broken but I know enough to remember it wasn’t fun.

As a mom I think I’ve turned from thoughts of my own experience on the happiest of hearts day to that of my son.  I find myself wondering what I can do for him on February 14^th to help cover that new hole in his heart.  In years past we’ve celebrated as a family with cupcakes, candy and cards but this year I want to up the anti just a bit.  My son’s ex bought him Polo Black cologne for Christmas and I’ve noticed since they parted ways, he hasn’t worn it much.  That being said, in the wee hours before Valentines day dawns, I plan to use my mom superpowers to make said cologne disappear, leaving in its place on the shelf in his medicine cabinet a fresh, new bottle of Polo Red, complete with a note from me for his eyes only.

And while we’ll still have cupcakes and candy and share a card or two as a family, it’s that note, that little bit of encouragement shared from my heart to the heart of the child I adore, the one God has entrusted me to raise, that just might make this Valentines day the one I consider my favorite years from now.