by robinsteele1@gmail.com | Nov 15, 2019 | Book
Hey Everyone!
I (Robin) want to give you an update on my book project. I finished the manuscript a couple months ago and sent it to the publisher. I picked WestBow Press to publish it for several reasons. They seemed to have a smooth process, great distribution, but the biggest reason is that they are a sister corporation of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan. Obviously, those names are the best in the business. If the book does well there is potential for one of them to pick it up and run it through their channels as well.
After I sent in the manuscript, it had to go through an initial examination for content. They wanted to make sure it fit their standards for writing and Christian content. I was quite nervous about this process. I tried my hardest during writing to make sure I covered all the details. However, I had not cited or sourced a paper since college (20 years ago). Do you remember how to do a bibliography? Yeah, me neither! Ha!
They came back with 4 areas that needed changes. I needed a couple of my endorsers to send in a permission email. There was a story that I used in the book that they were concerned might be a libel risk. (The person I talked about might not like being in the book) They wanted me to change the story or reach out to him and get his permission. There was no way for that to happen so I was stuck. I really wanted to use the story. Then, something amazing happened. Someone came into my office this week with the exact same situation. I counseled him and then said, “Would you mind if I use your story in my book?” He agreed! So I got a notarized statement giving me permission. Wow!
The publishers were also nervous about a section of a Martin Luther King Jr letter that I used. They said that I had to get official, legal permission from his estate before I used it. Of course, I was quite nervous about this and wondered what it would take. I looked them up online and sent an email explaining the book and portion I needed to use. They were so kind but referred me to their legal representatives in New York. I wrote to them and they had me fill out a long legal form. There was a blank that they would fill out that said “fee_______”. How much would it cost for me to quote MLK? I was so impressed by this. How awesome that it costs to quote someone that has been dead for decades? However, I was quite unsure about if I could afford it. They finally responded that it would cost $150 to use the portion I needed!
The final change that the publisher needed me to do was funny and tough. They said that I used three words that were profanity! ha!! I never dreamed that I would be marked for profanity. The first word was “heck”. HAHAHAHA The second word was “screwed”. Those two words were easy changes. The third word was “retarded”. They said they do not allow that word in their books. I was a bit troubled when I saw this. I wondered if they even read the book of they just used software that scanned the book for certain words. I called them and asked, “Did you actually read the book? Do you know that my daughter was born with a severe disability? Do you think I would ever use that word in a derogatory way?” The man was very kind and said he understood. He would take it up to the next level of management and see if he could get an allowance for it. He sent me an email a few days later saying, “I’m sorry. You can’t use that word. This is coming from Thomas Nelson.” So, I changed it. If you want to check out our thoughts on the word retarded, click on this post.
We now go through another evaluation that is a little more detailed. It is more about structure of the writing and trying to find out if we could improve it from a literary perspective. This is the longest part of the process.
We have been working on the cover in the meantime with Michelle Hagerty, Luke Tharp and Erica (the best critic I have!). Those watercolor images are concepts we are working through for the cover. Icebergs are a big illustration in the book. That pic does NOT do them justice.
We were hoping that the book would release in January, but it is looking like it will be in early spring. The main issue is the holiday delay coming. Oh, but what a good delay that is!
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by robinsteele1@gmail.com | Sep 24, 2019 | Book
This is the second post in a series from my (Robin) new book! Here is an excerpt from chapter 7.
Everything begins to fall apart for Adam and Eve (and the rest of us humans) when they listened to the serpents offering. He tells them that who they are is not good enough. He says that what they have accomplished is not sufficient and He offers them more. Before this temptation, Adam and Eve were content simply being God’s kids. They were not seeking more power or knowledge. They were not even hungry for the actual fruit. However, when the serpent tempted them with more power and knowledge, merely BEING Adam and Eve was not enough. Now they needed to add something to their existence. At this point, people lost their contentment with simply being.
When God begins his path of redemption for humanity, he goes back to the original plan. He identifies a group of humans as “his people.” Starting with Abraham and Sarah, God identifies Israelites as special simply because of WHO they are.
The Lord had said to Abram,
“Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).
God tells Abram to leave all that has defined him. He is to leave his homeland and family and be redefined entirely by God. God changes his name from Abram to Abraham to signify the complete identity revolution that is happening. God’s instructions are big, yet they are not complicated. In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that he will make him the father of multiple nations (v.4). “I will BE your God, and you will BE my people.” The entire covenant is about identity between God and Abraham and his descendants.
From this point forward, the Israelites are known as “God’s people.” They are to be the vehicle for God’s salvation for all people. Through them, God speaks… to the world. Through the Jewish bloodline, God brings a savior that will redeem every broken part of the earth, creature, and person. However, all this meaningfulness rests NOT on the Jews’ ability to save the world. It is entirely reliant on them simply being God’s people and allowing God to work through them. If you have studied Israel’s plight through history, you know they have failed countless times to represent God. However, God never abandons the plan. God knows that their identity of being his people is enough.
If we fast forward to the beginning of the New Testament, we see a God who continues to love the world deeply, yet his people have lost their identity. There is so much confusion and turmoil. This text says it so clearly,
“the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:21-22 NLT).
Well aware of this groaning, God is about to transform everything and everyone when he enters the world as one of us, Jesus, the Son of God. Through Jesus, God will renew the earth literally from the ground up. Every creature, plant, and person can participate and reflect God’s beauty. This movement will remain in the same pattern as every other move of God. That is, God will identify his people.
We see this taking shape in the New Testament when John baptizes Jesus. As Jesus comes out of the waters of baptism, a voice from heaven says, “…This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy” Matthew 3:17 (NLT). At this point, Jesus had not taught a sermon, healed a blind eye, and had not died for the sins of the world. He was God’s son and brought great joy BEFORE he did the massive work of salvation. As he leaves the Jordan River that day, he begins his public ministry standing on the foundation of BEING someone and belonging to someone. All of his meaning (and obedience) stems from his identity.
Unfortunately, most of us do the opposite. We try to find our identity by what we do, what we like/dislike, how we dress, what groups we relate to, etc. We do good, obedient things to be in approved by God. We want His favor, so we exert an excessive amount of time and energy striving to be in good standing with God. When we are nailing it as a Christian, we feel terrific about ourselves. We feel like we are in good standing with God and therefore His son or daughter. When we are doing well, we are tempted to take the credit for our good behavior and we look down on those who are not holding their end of the bargain. In reverse, when we are struggling to live a righteous life with constant mess-ups, we regularly beat ourselves up. We live in guilt and explore ways to pay penance for our sin. In these moments, we feel God is far from us, and we do not deserve to be His son or daughter, and we feel less meaningful.
I would love to hear from you!
What kind of activities/actions make you feel important?
Who in life makes you feel the most valuable? How do they do that?
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by robinsteele1@gmail.com | Sep 13, 2019 | Choices, How to deal with pain
This post is the first in a series of posts from my (Robin) upcoming book. Release date is early 2020.
This excerpt is from Chapter 6:
Kennady spent the six weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after she was born including Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the day the University of Texas played the BIG 12 Championship. (Those are big days in Austin, TX!) She had tubes hooked up everywhere. Machines were blinking stats to hospital staff. Nurses were walking around, and there were probably 30 other babies in cribs very close by. We had to wear gowns and face masks to protect the infants from potential illness. Fortunately, each bed had a rocking chair, so at least one parent could sit and rock their baby.
The NICU is not known for its homey atmosphere or welcoming décor. Unfortunately, it is either dark and cold or fluorescent bright white and cold. Either way, it is lousy lighting and chilly. We spent hours in those cold rooms feeding her a bottle, rocking her to sleep, singing songs, and introducing her to new friends and family one person at a time. Visitors had to put on a gown and a face mask and then scrub their hands for 3 minutes before winding through the cribs to see our little miracle.
Christmas morning, marked our thirtieth day in the NICU. Instead of sitting around a beautiful tree and opening gifts with extended family, Erica and I dressed Kennady as a little red elf. We sat around her hospital crib and thought of what life would be like when we left the hospital. We had ridden the roller coaster of emotion. Our daughter is born! What a miracle! She has a horrible diagnosis. She is recovering well! She looks different than healthy babies. We were up and down. Up and down.
One unforgettable day I was visiting with Kennady by her crib. At the foot of the bed was a clipboard of doctor notes. Back in 2001, it was typical to leave a chart at the crib so doctors and nurses on other shifts can stay apprised of the patient’s situation. However, on this day, my sideways glance caught the last line of the progress report. In the doctor’s hand, it read, the parents understand that there is no chance of their daughter having a meaningful life.
The bang of those words rang in my mind like a gavel strike. Judgment passed over my daughter’s entire life with a short yet sweeping sentence. I was utterly crushed and seconds later angry. I thought, My daughter has meant more to me in the last two days than you will ever mean to me. I was furious. The indifference! The audacity! Suddenly his credentials, his education, his years of training were meaningless to me, just as my daughter was meaningless to him.
For ten years, I thought about that moment at the crib and always wanted to go look up Kennady’s medical records to see if they reflect that statement still. I wanted proof. I had almost convinced myself that I misread it. Undoubtedly, the transcriber edited the comment to read more appropriately or medically correct. In fact, one time we mentioned it to our palliative care doctor and she could not believe that a doctor said that.
So, in early 2011, I went through the process of accessing Kennady’s records. They told me that it would take several weeks to get the documents and that I could come to the hospital to find the correct record. Kennady was in the hospital 42 days during that period. You can imagine how many pages of records that included. I finally received the call that the documents were ready, and I scheduled an appointment to review them.
Erica dropped me off at the front door of the hospital and waited outside for me to “run in and get them.” My emotions began to swell as I walked the same stark halls a decade before. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. The clerk took a few minutes and then returned with a large folder of documents. It was about four inches thick. Fortunately, the information I was looking for was close to the top. I turned the 6th page of records and saw this:
Tears fell down my face. I couldn’t believe it. There it was. First of all, the statement in the report was incorrect. Erica and I never expressed the understanding that our daughter’s life was meaningless. That is what seemed so disturbing. It was like they were saying we agreed with them. Wrong. False. Untrue.
At this point, I think it is important that I clarify a few things. The doctors and nurses did a phenomenal job physically caring for our daughter in the NICU. We are incredibly grateful for their hard work. We also do not feel like the doctor had a vendetta or was intentionally trying to be mean in his assessment of Kennady’s life. It merely was a clear sign that our doctor, like many others, was tangled in the entrapping lies of society that define meaning with skewed and perverted definitions.
I stood up from the table, slid the big stack of papers back, and asked the attendant to make a copy of that one piece of paper. I am sure that the rest of the documents contained valuable information about Kennady’s care; however, at this point, all that information seemed worthless. The attendant graciously made a copy, and I walked out of the office. I trekked back down the stark halls. I made it back to the mini-van at the hospital entrance. The three kids were in the van with Erica, laughing and talking and in their world. I got in the passenger door and just sat there. Erica said, “Well, what did you find?”
To which, I flatly replied, “It was there,” and then handed her the copy.
Erica and I often wondered what our daughter would have to accomplish before the doctor would deem her meaningful. If she could walk, would she cross the threshold of meaning? If she was able to form words or write sentences, would she be meaningful? Would she have a high market value if she were able to go to college or get married?
I would love to hear from you!
Please comment/respond to the questions below and be a part of the conversation.
Have you ever wrestled with someone else’s declaration over you?
How has that affected the way you live and see yourself?
How have you been successful at redefining yourself?
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by robinsteele1@gmail.com | Sep 6, 2019 | Book
I (Robin) am so excited to let you know that I just finished a round of edits on a new book coming out very soon! Several years back, I felt compelled to write a book. Of course, I didn’t know where to start, but I knew that it would be centered around our daughter’s life. Our journey with her has taught us so many lesson and encouraged 1000s of people. There was no question in my mind that God was calling us to get this into book form.
For several years, I toyed around with different ideas. We started blogging and trying to process all the thoughts, emotions, feelings, and theology that has come out over the last 17 years. I could never really nail down a concise message until the fall of 2016. I was speaking at a friend’s church in Austin, and he asked me to use our story with a particular verse in the Bible. John 5 talks about a crippled man who was asked by Jesus, “Would you like to be made whole?” As I began to dig into this passage and look at our daughter’s life, it was clear that she was a shinning example of someone who was whole. I knew that modern society would be shocked to hear this. How could she be whole? What made her whole? How did that play out in everyday life?
After I spoke that Sunday, I got a great response from the congregation (a very white, well-off crowd). Ha! Then, over the next 2 years, I did a lot of international travel and spoke the same message to people in Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and India. Typically, I really wrestle with speaking over seas because of the cultural differences. It is intimidating to figure out how to relate to people that are so completely different. However, I decided to simply give the same message using my daughter’s story. I didn’t change anything. In every country I got the same result. People were deeply impacted with the simple message of being made whole. While in Cuba I clearly heard God speak to me, “This is the message of the book. Write this message in book form and get it out to the world.”
Of course I went to some agents and publishers to see what the interest would be. The new nature of publishing is that you need 10s of 1000s of followers on social media to get a book deal. That wasn’t me! What should I do? I wrestled with this quite a bit and got another clear message from God, “I didn’t tell you to get a book deal or that it would sell a lot of copies. I told you to write a book and publish it.” Wow! What a release. From that point, I simply made the decision to be faithful in the process. I would write the book and self-publish. I finished the first draft in early 2018. A dear friend of mine had just had his book edited. I asked who was his editor and he introduced me to Deborah (will share more about that some other day). Deborah and I have been working over the last year to finish this round of tough edits. It is such a difficult and long process. Today, we finished!
Now, I have to connect with the publisher and move towards the final stages. I wanted you all to know about this first hand because of several reason: #1 – I want you to be the first to get a copy. #2 Before that happens, I want to share with you portions of the book. I would love your feedback. How you respond to different portions will let me know how it resonates and how I can market it to folks. I will be posting sections to our blog over the next few weeks. Be looking for it! I would love to hear your thoughts on the book!
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by robinsteele1@gmail.com | Jul 28, 2019 | Choices, How to deal with pain, trip
I (Erica) took a little trip, two weeks ago, to get some downtime for myself.
It was overdue. Robin and I talked about me leaving for a few days, to which I said, “I need to get out of here and not have anyone ask me for anything!”, to which he said, “You don’t have to act like you don’t like us!”
I LOVE my family. They are MY people, they see me at my worst and love me still. We trust each other, celebrate each other, cry with each other….but we also need our time alone.
So, I concocted a plan on Saturday, made reservations at an air b-n-b for Monday night, and took off driving, to the beautiful state of New Mexico.
I didn’t have much of a plan except for leaving town, eating, driving, and sleeping. I arrived in the quaint town of Taos, NM Monday night just as the sun was setting on the mesa.
It was beautiful. ..The cool breeze… dry mountain air…and slow pace.
I woke up Tuesday morning and decided to take a little road trip to see our first home we ever purchased (in Questa – 20 miles north of Taos). It was so sweet and nostalgic taking a drive down memory lane. Robin and I spent our first couple of years as newlyweds in the mountains, teaching ski school, working desk jobs, being a line cook, detailing cars, all while eating pizza and playing video games. It was a magical time for us.
That afternoon I headed up to Taos Ski Valley to eat a burger at Tim’s, and hike up to Williams Lake.
The weather was perfect and the mountains were stunning. I got my belly full and started my short 2 mile hike up the trail.
It was about the time I got to the trailhead and saw the signs “Do NOT FEED the wildlife”, which indicated that there may be bear, mountain lions, or other small animals, that I was reminded of my irrational fear of being eaten by a bear.
Now, you may laugh at this, but it is true. I am a healing hypochondriac, as well as someone who has an overactive imagination about animals desiring to attack me…and then eat me.
Meanwhile on Instagram, with no-one able to read my internal thoughts, and only able to see the beautiful, fun pictures I was posting. I was having discussions with myself about how I would fight off any animal that may come at me with my pepper spray and banging my metal water bottle (likely, while running downhill screaming). I am sure the pictures made it look like I didn’t have a care in the world!
Here I am hiking up the trail, and with each person I pass I am so thankful that not one is telling me there is a bear up ahead! (or running downhill screaming that they are being chased by a bear.) This was encouraging!
About half way up the trail I realize that I have not quite acclimated to the altitude. This “quick” two mile hike was going to take longer, and require more effort than I imagined. I would hike a bit, then stop and take a drink of water and catch my breath. I pretended that I wasn’t about to pass out, as friendly hikers walked by.
As the hike went on, the number of hikers was decreasing and I kept thinking I was almost to the lake. Maybe I would actually make it! So I began to pray “Lord, just let me see one more person (bear bait)”, and sure enough, here would come one or two more people!
Finally, as I was sure I was almost to the lake, I saw two people coming toward me and asked them casually, “The lake isn’t too much farther, is it?” (PLEASE, LORD, let it be close). They said “It’s only about 10-15 minutes up ahead”….. OH! GREAT! Just 10-15 minutes MORE of being potential bear bait!
Throughout my hike I would constantly speak truth to my fear, by stating that “bear attacks are rare…mountain lion attacks are rare”, “animals are more afraid of us, than we are of them”, “Jennifer Pharr -Davis has hiked thousands and thousands of miles ALONE and not been attacked, so surely I will be fine!”
I finally made it to the lake, admiring the scenery and taking a quick selfie, then saying to myself, “Did that! Check! And, I didn’t even see one bear!… yet…”
I stood for a few minutes taking in the beauty, then spotted a family hiking and thought, “OK, I don’t want to be behind them on the trail, so I will head back down, plus, they will make good bear bait!” (horrible, I know)
As I headed back down the mountain, I was reminded of the truth of my faith journey: The truth that if this life is not the end, then a bear attacking me and potentially ending my life… is not the end.
In the Bible, there are so many stories of God’s people forgetting what he has done for them, and what God promises he will do. In Exodus 11:7, God tells of delivering his people from slavery. He went so far as to silence every dog in Egypt. This kept coming to mind as I was walking.
God is concerned about every detail of our life.
In my morning devotional by Paul David Tripp, “New Morning Mercies”, he says, “In the life of the believer, fear of weakness amounts to God-forgetfulness. Timidity is a failure to remember the promises of the gospel…Giving way to temptation is overlooking the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.”
It hit me like a ton of bricks. How powerful is God! His presence transforms our lives! Each time I was afraid on my hike, I would speak truth, but it wasn’t until I began the hike down, that the gospel began to settle in my heart.
As I hiked down the trail, I took my time and really focused on the truth that God was here in that moment with me, that he was indeed over every moment, and that I could rest in THAT.
I got almost all the way down the mountain and stopped at a beautiful roaring stream.
I decided to sit down and pull out my book to read for a bit. It was such a blissfully peaceful moment.
My fears were laid down in trust, and the peace came to just enjoy what all was surrounding me.
After reading for a bit, I packed up and headed back to my quiet air b-n-b, exhausted and ready for bed.
Ceiling at my BNB!
This day for me was so good. It was a reminder to not live life bound by fear of the “what if’s”, and to rest in the gospel…pure and simple.
If I had listened to the fear in my mind, I never would have left the comfort of my vehicle or a safe restaurant to enjoy the nature that is so deeply renewing for me.
What is it that you need to say “no” to, to be able to say “yes” to peace and joy? I would love to hear from you!
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