To Pray or Not to Pray, That is the Question

Before I begin my blog, I’d like to make a plea to all readers of my books. Please take a few minutes to review my books on Amazon or Goodreads. The publishing industry has changed so much in the past ten years, and now, the only way for an author to survive is by amassing reviews on Amazon. It’s crucial that readers spread the word about books they’ve enjoyed. On another note, I’d love to chat with your book club in person or via video. Just send me a message! contact@amyschislerauthor.com


The other day, I learned that a fellow author and friend of mine received the unexpected news that she has cancer and that death is imminent. To know, to plan, to seek help, and to fight are all things which humans are adept at handling. To be told, out of the blue, that there is nothing to be done except gather your family together is, to me, unimaginable. It would be a blow so detrimental to one’s emotional and physical being that I can’t grasp the enormity of what she could be feeling. For me, I believe that I would have to hand all of the fear, uncertainty, and anguish over to God. I would need Him to take on what I could not and to reach out His hand to lead me home.

My first instinct when hearing about someone who is sick or facing death, is to pray for them. While it’s not necessary to tell them that I’m praying for them, I’ve learned that many find it comforting to know that others are offering prayers for their healing or comfort. 

So, what do you do, how do you offer comfort, when the person does not believe in God? What words can be said other than the dreaded, “I’m sorry”?

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I humbly believe… Read more

Let The Dead Bury the Dead

Yesterday, our family received the news of the sudden and unexpected passing of a dear family friend. She and her husband were the first friends my parents made after they were married. They have remained friends for over fifty years. While the husband has been sick for a long time, nobody thought his wife would be the victim of a sudden heart attack. It’s just another reminder, for me, that we should tell our families and friends how much we love them every day. And not just tell them, but show them. Read more

From Sorrow, Joy

IMG_5884It’s snowing outside, and at last check, the temperature was 26 degrees and dropping. Yet, as I pass by the dining room, I have a reminder that the world will not remain dreary and cold. Outside, the snow lays on the ground, but inside, flowers are blooming on my table. Though we are entrenched in the shadows of winter, in time, spring will return as my father reminds me every day with his Facebook countdown (he reports that we have 62 days to go).

And so it is with life. We have cold and dreary seasons and then warm and sunny seasons. Without the cold or the snow or the rain, we would have no new life, nothing to look forward to, no buds blooming or fruit trees blossoming. Without sorrow, we cannot know joy. Without pain here on earth, we cannot begin to fathom the true joy of Heaven that is to come.

As our family finds itself entrenched in the shadows of woe, I remind myself that there will be a spring. Even in the darkest moments, there is light. 

I’d like to share a short story. On Monday morning, Ken’s mother, his brother and sister, and our families met at Mom and Dad’s farmhouse for breakfast. Dressed in black, steeling ourselves for a day that would be shrouded in grief, we met to enjoy a family breakfast provided by the mother of Morgan’s boyfriend. We feasted on an egg and sausage casserole, fruit salad, coffee cake, and danishes. We drank coffee, apple and orange juice, and hot tea. We sat for a solid hour, relishing not only the food but the love and thoughtfulness that brought it to us and that surrounded us. And as we ate, we shared stories and memories. We laughed until we cried, and then, joining well over a hundred people who filled the little country church across the road and the reception afterward, we cried until we laughed. 

I am reminded of Ecclesiastes, 3:1-8:

There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.

A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.

A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.

A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding.

A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.

A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.

For where there is snow, there is a flower underneath, waiting to bloom. Or a tomato plant.

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In loving memory of David Schisler, 1946-2018

What I was writing about this time last year:  Hidden Figures and Orbiting the Stars

Amy Schisler is an award winning author of both children’s books and sweet romance novels for readers of all ages. She lives with her husband and three daughters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her books, Picture Me and Whispering Vines, are recipients of Illumination Awards, placing them among the top three inspirational fiction books of 2015 and 2016. Whispering Vines was awarded the 2017 LYRA Award for the best romance of 2016. Amy followed up her success with, Island of Miracles, which has outsold all of her other books worldwide and ranked as high 600 on Amazon. Her next children’s book, The Greatest Gift, is now available; and her novel, Summer’s Squall, is now on sale online and in stores.

You may follow Amy on Facebook at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor, Twitter @AmySchislerAuth, Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/amyschislerand at http://amyschislerauthor.com.

Amy’s books: Crabbing With Granddad (2013), A Place to Call Home (2014), Picture Me (2015), Whispering Vines (2016), Island of Miracles (2017), Stations of the Cross Meditations for Moms (2017), The Greatest Gift (2017), Summer’s Squall (2017)

 

 

Saint Buck, Patron of Granddaughters

Granddad1It’s the beginning of November, which means that one thing will be constantly on my mind all week. Actually, one person – my grandfather. You see, November 1st is All Saints’ Day, the day we celebrate all the saints in Heaven. November 2nd is All Souls’ Day, the day we pray for all the souls not yet in Heaven. And November 3rd is what I like to think of as Saint Buck’s Day, that day when our family celebrates the birth of a man dedicated to his faith, his family, and his community.

In my book, Crabbing With Granddad, I describe my grandfather like this:

“He was a large man, tall and muscular. His skin was the color of an old copper penny from spending so much time outdoors – mornings in the boat and afternoons tending his field. He always wore a baseball cap to shield his bright blue eyes from the sun. The hat did little to keep his head cool from the blazing sun for he had thick, curly white hair that stood up a full inch above his rough face. His hands were hard and calloused, covered with the lines of a man who had worked hard all of his life. To me, they were the gentlest hands in the world.”

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I was eighteen when the world lost this great man. I was a freshman at a very prestigious private college a couple hours from my home where the drug culture was in full swing, and I was the only girl I knew who wasn’t the daughter of a prominent attorney, famous actor, or member of Congress. I was lost and lonely, living in a world I wanted no part of, and, though I graduated from one of the best public schools in the state, was woefully unprepared for college. To say I was struggling doesn’t begin to describe my life. By the middle of October, I was counting down to Thanksgiving and trying to figure out how to tell my parents that I wanted to give up my full scholarship and transfer schools.

I vividly remember that chilly day, the nineteenth of October. Autumn had arrived, and everyone was finally wearing their jeans, sweaters, and fashion boots. I attended my morning classes, ate lunch with my roommate, and went to my American Lit class, the class I dreaded the most (I won’t digress into what a terrible professor that man was). We were discussing Moby Dick, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open (I learned early in my college career that I should never take a class right after lunch). As my professor droned on and on about the symbols in the novel, I suddenly had a moment of panic from out of nowhere. My heart began racing, my throat went dry, my hands started shaking. It was all I could do to hold back the tears as this feeling of dread washed over me. Though I had no reason to think anything was wrong, in my heart I knew. I’m not making this up, not exaggerating at all, I truly knew.

I left class in a daze and walked on autopilot to my job at the campus library. I had just started putting away a cart of books when my roommate and a good friend from high school walked into the library. I can still picture the scene in my mind as if it happened this morning. They entered the building, stopped, looked around, and both spotted me at the same time. I looked from one face to the other and began to cry.

“Your dad called,” my roommate said.

I nodded, “I know,” I told her. She looked surprised. After all, this was 1988. There were no cell phones, no laptops in every book bag, nothing but a pay phone at the end of our hall. “He’s gone, isn’t he?” I choked out the words.

“Your grandfather passed away about thirty minutes ago,” my friend, Greg, told me.

With confirmation that my fear was real, the tears began to flow uncontrollably. And that’s the last I remember of most of the next several weeks.

I’ve been told that over 400 people attended Granddad’s funeral, but I couldn’t tell you. I went through those following weeks enshrouded in a fog that would not lift. I rarely got out of bed, barely ate, and almost never went to class. I was drowning in a sea of despair the depths of which my friends and family never knew. I was certain I would never find the strength to break the surface and gasp for air. Between my misery at the school, the homesickness I couldn’t overcome, and the loss of the one person I loved more than any other person on earth, I had no desire to open my eyes and live. Today, everyone around me would have recognized that I had plunged into a deep depression, but that word was almost unheard of at the time, whispered behind closed doors and kept secret from everyone, for fear that it made one less of a person.

But Saint Buck knew just what I needed. He knew the main reason for the sadness that overwhelmed me. It wasn’t just that he was gone. It was that I was the only member of the entire family who wasn’t there to say goodbye. While everyone else was gathered around his bedside, I was three hours away, listening to the destruction of Ahab in his quest for the white whale. It was not just grief that had taken hold of my soul; it was guilt. And only the one person with whom I was most in sync could pull me out of my misery and force me back into the world of the living.

And so it was that, as I lay in my dorm room, about four or five weeks later, my grandfather stood beside my bed and told me to get up. Some may say I was dreaming. After all, I was doing nothing but sleeping twenty or so hours a day. Others might attribute it to a hallucination from lack of food and water. But I maintain that he was there, beside me, talking to me, telling me that I had a life to live. He told me that he knew what was wrong and that he had come to make it right. He told me that he had come so that I could say goodbye. Not so that he could say goodbye, but so that I could. As he always had, Granddad knew exactly what I needed. He never touched me, didn’t give me a hug, or lay his hand gently upon my shoulder as he had done so many times before. But he let me say goodbye, tell him I loved him and missed him, and ask him how I was supposed to go on without him.

“You have a whole life ahead of you,” he said, just as clear as anyone had ever spoken to me. “Now, by gawd, get out of this bed and start living it.”

With that, he was gone, and so was the weight that had been pulling me down. No longer in a daze, I rose from bed, feeling light on my feet but cognizant of everything around me. I walked down the hall and showered, went to the cafeteria for lunch, and even made it to my afternoon class. My grades recovered to the point where I was not embarrassed to show my face in class; and, over Thanksgiving, my parents agreed that I could transfer schools at the end of the year. I made it through the second semester by working hard in my classes, going on daily runs, and remembering the words of Saint Buck, “You have a whole life ahead of you…start living it.”

Granddad

What I was writing about one year ago this week: “In the End, Only Kindness Matters”.

Amy Schisler is an award winning author of both children’s books and novels for readers of all ages. She lives with her husband and three daughters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her books, Picture Me and Whispering Vines, are recipients of Illumination Awards, placing them among the top three inspirational fiction books of 2015 and 2016. Whispering Vines was awarded the 2017 LYRA Award for the best romance of 2016. Amy followed up her success with, Island of Miracles, which has outsold all of her other books worldwide and ranked as high 600 on Amazon. Her next children’s book, The Greatest Gift, is now available. Amy’s novel, Summer’s Squall, is on pre-sale and will be released on December 1, 2017.

You may follow Amy on Facebook at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor, Twitter @AmySchislerAuth, Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/amyschislerand at http://amyschislerauthor.com.

Amy’s books: Crabbing With Granddad (2013), A Place to Call Home (2014), Picture Me (2015), Whispering Vines (2016), Island of Miracles (2017), Stations of the Cross Meditations for Moms (2017), The Greatest Gift (2017)

In The Palm of His Hand

A favorite song of mine has been running through my mind all morning.  It’s called On Eagles Wings, and it reminds us that no matter what we are going through, God is there for us.  Life can be hard.  We never know what curve ball will be thrown our way.  Three Ocean Citynights ago, a friend of mine from high school lost her long struggle with cancer.  She was 45, unmarried, and without children.  She had so much life still to live!  This morning, our world was rocked with the news that another family friend has passed on.  Even more tragic, this young man was just twenty-one years old; his life was only just beginning.  My friend died knowing that she was being held, as the song and Psalm say, “in the palm of His hand.”  The young man did not, and I wonder if that would have made all the difference.

At every moment of our lives, we are being held in the palm of God’s hand.  Whether we are feeling peace or loss, profound joy or the deepest grief, God is there.  Even in the times when we do not feel His presence, He is there.  As the Footprints poem says, it is at the times when we need Him the most, that God carries us.  I know that I have relied on this belief many times in my life, and my wish for you is that you know that you are always “in the palm of His hand.”

Amy Schisler is an author of mystery and suspense novels.  Her first book, A Place to Call Home may be purchased in stores, online, and through ibooks.  Her previously published children’s book, Crabbing With Granddad may be purchased in stores and on Amazon.

http://amyschislerauthor.com/amyschislerauthor.com/Books.html You may follow Amy at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor on Twitter @AmySchislerAuth and on her web site http://amyschislerauthor.com