My Mother, My Brother, and I

Use the good china.

I have nothing against paper plates and plastic forks … Oh wait, yes, I do. My mother never uses them. If she invites you over for hamburgers, she uses porcelain plates, silverware, and stemmed glasses. The food is always served in decorative bowls. She has cabinets full of them in every size and for every reason from pickle dishes to large glass trays.

Guests are worth the time for you to wash things afterward, and they’re happier because you’ve made the effort.

Buy gifts. And don’t be cheap.

She has a card for everything, keeps a cabinet full of them. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays where it’s required, she will send you one. She has a running account at the florist where they know her by name. Generosity is part of her nature, and if, for some reason, she’s roped into spending more than she has planned, she never complains. Giving is important and the heart behind it of the most value.

People are wrong.

When I was girl, I’d come home, quoting things I’d heard at school, and she’d look me in the eye and say, “They’re wrong.”

That mentality solved so many situations in my life. Because, the fact is, a lot of people nowadays are just plain wrong. Not everything goes. The rules are there for a reason and not meant to be broken or changed. Rules make you a better person, a freer one.

At the same time, she always says:

It’s okay to be different.

Her saying was, “If it’s immoral or illegal,” don’t do it.

This means, I can hate watermelon and refuse to drink coffee. Neither one are illegal or immoral. I can prefer to stay home and refuse to leave home after dark. Conversely, you can sleep in and stay out late and eat all the melons you desire.

It’s okay to be unique and bad to condemn others for things that aren’t against God’s Word.

Be thankful for everything, no matter how small.

Even if you hate it. She’s eaten more meals she didn’t like (Fish!) and not said a word crosswise. She prepares dishes for her guests that she won’t eat.

She writes thank you cards for gifts she’s given and reciprocates in kind. Being thankful is an important part of being a good guest and a good person. Always appreciate other people’s efforts. This seed of kindness will multiply back to you one hundred fold.

Lower your voice.

Use your inside voice. There’s no need to yell. In fact, though I fail at this one regularly, she doesn’t raise her voice ever. I can’t recall hearing her shout, unless she was calling my dad in from his woodworking shop.

Politeness is cool.

Say please and thank you and excuse me. Don’t blow your nose at the dining room table. Clean up after yourself in the kitchen or the bathroom. If you are renting a room on vacation or staying with friends, always leave the place better than it was when you arrived.

The biggest key to politeness is to always consider the other person first.

Refuse to take offense and be sure to walk in forgiveness. Hate and anger only lead to bitterness, and bitterness will cancel out your faith.

Apologize even if it isn’t your fault.

It is most important to walk in peace. The Bible says to “seek peace” to “pursue it”. That means, even when you know the other person was in error. If your refusal to say “I’m sorry” fosters strife, then it is your job to apologize and correct it. (Ps 34:14)

Keep your word.

Sometimes this means not making promises in the first place. Other times, it means doing things you’ve changed your mind about, but an honorable person will “swear to their own hurt” and follow through. (Ps 15:4)

Most of all:

Stand up for what you believe.

Never compromise to fit in, and always tell the truth. Lying will get you nowhere. And God is able and willing to take care of you in the first place. Nothing in this world is worth turning aside from your faith.

Book 3 – MOMMY WEARS A GREEN T-SHIRT
Coralee Avery is having a baby, but the thought scares her to death. If not for Roman, her adoring husband, she’d fall apart.

Yet as time goes by and their future together becomes more real, the dynamic changes, and it could be that she’s the stronger one and he needs her more than she ever thought possible.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwiliams.com

She shut the door and stood over Morgan, gazing down at her slumbering form, then slowly sank onto her knees. All she cared about was laying right there and in the other bedroom. Why couldn’t Carol see that? And why couldn’t someone tell her how to take hold of the peace and happiness she’d searched forever to find?

Maybe Chris could. Maybe that was why she had such a need to be near him.

The day Christopher Piel walked into their mixed household to fix the cable, Tansy Marsh’s life changed. Here is a man unlike any she’s ever met – kind, generous, faithful. But people like that can’t possibly exist.

Rejected by her parents and living underneath someone else’s roof, the only love she’s ever known comes from the three foster kids in her care. Yet what begins as attraction, proves to be far greater, and it just could be that the God he believes in is big enough to fix her heart.

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I woke up a few days before Easter with a word from the Lord replaying in my heart.

"I deliver babies, not Easter eggs," He said.

Unsure what to do with it and overwhelmed He'd spoke something so powerful to me, I lay there, pondering. (Lk 2:19) In the end, I kept it to myself because I knew He did not want to condemn anyone for their planned Easter festivities. Condemnation is not in Him. (Rm 8:1)

One morning days later, I got in line behind a woman wearing a t-shirt which sponsored foster care, and this short story came into my thinking, and with it, once again, that word from God.

God, the Father, sent God, the Son, to earth as a baby. ON PURPOSE. It was not a last-minute decision but one planned out from before the foundation of the world. (Heb 10:5; 1Pe 1:20) He sent Him to earth to die but also to be raised back to life by the power of the Spirit of God. The death was nothing without the RESURRECTION which followed.

And God's planned gift of abundant life began with a baby.

The most innocent of life, that needed a mother's and father's care to grow to adulthood, was the promised Messiah. This cannot be stated enough. Here is the Father's heart for children, and in the work of the cross and the defeat of the enemy through His Resurrection, we see His love and forgiveness and healing for all of mankind. No one is excepted. No sin is too great.

His love is so much higher and broader and deeper than anything we have done. (Rm 8:38-39) We need only humble ourselves and believe it.

"Jesus called a little child to his side and said to them, 'If you tenderly care for this little child on my behalf, you are tenderly caring for me, you are honoring my Father who sent me. The one who is least important in your eyes is actually the most important one of all.'" (Luke 9:48 TPT2020)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com

Wings
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Books 1 and 2 under one cover. An allegorial look at the gospels and the book of Acts.

Book 1: Called from birth to carry the Light of God into a world filled with Darkness, seventeen-year-old Sara Benedict finds the mission this time has changed. This city, this school, is more about her growth. No longer will she function alone, but she needs Angus Finlay to fulfill the prophecies. Yet there’s something deeper going on behind the scenes, and the harder she tries, the greater the danger seems. Her work of rescue must continue, but this task just might shut off the Light inside her once and for all.

Paperbacks: Book 1 ~ Book 2

Graverobber (The Resurrectionists) Book 1
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He’d raised the dead, Lazarus-style.

Josiah Crews set aside his calling when his wife died. Consumed by grief, he buried his commitment to God and any thought of the lives he might save, determined to live a mundane existence. But when the death of a man in an alley brings the power of God onto the scene, a ripple of unusual events launches him back into service.

Veronica Murray moved to a tiny apartment in the city following a troubling divorce, but her teenage daughter’s behavior combined with their low income has made her life unhappy and stressful. When her neighbor reprimands her daughter, following a particularly bad outing, a friendship forms. Except nothing is what it seems, not why people are dying, nor his reaction to it. Nor how it affects their possible future.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com

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Savannah Sutherland never thought spying on people could hurt anyone. After all, she never tells what she sees. So what’s a little harmless fun?

But when her nosiness backfires, handsome, football jock, Boston Pitt, steps in to warn her. She’s about to make a big mistake. He’ll protect her, be her alibi, and no one will be the wiser.

Except what begins as a pretend relationship, for appearances only, soon blossoms into something more, something unforeseen circumstances and rash actions might ruin for good.

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I have re-released a few of my books that have been off-the-market for one reason or another. This sweet YA was misunderstood by some, not so much in content as in length. When it was originally released, readers, by-and-large, did not understand the premise of a short story.

Nor did they know I am actually a woman of few words. Give me time to write, and I can say what I need to. But approach me in person and I always joke I will answer in five words or less. I spent a great deal of time quibbling about sentences when I write, as well. I take out far more than I put in.

I mentioned this recently, in a previous post, but it bears repeating because the realization came into my life, on a personal level, that we should strive to live every day, every breath, as if the Savior is listening. Ask yourself this ... What if you had a running conversation with Him over every thought you had no matter how small or large or trivial it seems? How would that change your actions?

Bookstore review systems are set up to please a secular market. As Christians, we should use them to encourage and build up and not as places to air our judgment. As the Scripture says, you cannot remove the toothpick from someone's eye with looking past the telephone pole in your own (Mt 7:3). I am as guilty of this as anyone else, but a continual reflection on the words I say, in the last few weeks, has changed me for good.

We have the responsibility to react with the same compassion that Jesus showed. What if we thought like Him and saw His perspective on everything? That would stop us from our griping and complaining, dead in our tracks. If we want to be forgiven for our mistakes, then we should forgive others to an equal measure.

Another Re-Release

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Includes: RISE OF THE SUN (Book 1) and SPAWN (Book 2)

I have also re-released my cyborg romance pair of books, as a set under one cover. Here's another storyline that readers just didn't get. I think they were expecting one of the more popular sci-fi television series, but truthfully, I have little to no knowledge of those. These books were written strictly from my personal imagination, and were great fun!

God bless you!


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com

I have been busy at work. All of my books, with a few series-sets as exceptions, are now available as singles at all sales outlets. This includes stories previously exclusive to other collections. My decision to do this is a complicated one, so I won't bore you with it. But I wanted to send the above book along, as it is now only 99 cents.

Also, below, I am including my recent thoughts on God's love and His blessing on marriage, and children. I pray it will encourage you this weekend.

BLURB:
One troubled soul knows another.

Eighteen-year-old, Rosalie Fabrinni, left everything she owned and ran south to Miami. She loves her family, especially her real dad, billionaire Ludwig Fabrinni, but can’t take her stepfather’s abuse any longer.

A chance encounter with a man, who looks like Santa, gives her a temporary home and a job with his daughter, a well-known party planner. Here’s something that interests her, something she’s good at, and in light of the Christmas season, this is the perfect time of year to test her skills.

But living on the run, always looking over your shoulder, isn’t easy, and what does she know about being an average girl? When she meets young billionaire Cash McShane, her already tentative new life, takes a romantic turn. Except billionaires know billionaires, and the longer she stays, the more likely it is she’ll get caught.

A double crossover involving Atlas Bellamy of the Billionaire Boys Club series and the Fabrinnis from the Best-Dressed series.