Lives or Livelihood is the Wrong Question

I have loved ones that are considered high risk.  Being infected with Covid-19 would place their lives in extreme peril.  The thought of them, infected, so sick and so alone, possibly dying alone is unthinkable.  Two of my five daughters have immune issues and being infected would be life-threatening.  I can’t imagine, as a mother, not being with them should they have to battle this wretched virus.

I watch the battles over public opinion on the news.  Should the bans be lifted?  Are the governors taking the correct steps?  Are the protestors correct for standing up for their Constitutional rights or is it okay for those rights to be limited in extreme cases?  And if so, for how long?

The range of extremism is crazy, founded on fear, hyped up by the media.  (Yes, I said it.)  On the one side there is the “this virus will take months, possibly a year or more to resolve.”  On the other side there is  “the rate of death from this disease is still only one percent of those infected.”  (Some sources say 3%.  An accurate count has been difficult to obtain.) 

We face an economy that, if not started soon, could face consequences that make the 2008 recession seem like a walk in the park.  But people don’t understand what it means when the oil price bottoms out below zero or what rampant deflation can do. They don’t understand what industries will collapse if oil production is halted and a crisis comes.  And after hurricanes, floods, and wars, despite living in a pandemic, many still feel a crisis won’t occur.  Wars are started for less.  Depressions are sparked by less.  And yet, when those that know economics and history speak up, urging us to open whatever we can, they are attacked viciously, with words that accuse them of neglect and even murder. But read and research for yourselves!  Read about the impact of deflation!

Social media viewing is like a roller coaster ride after eating hot dogs and nachos and cotton candy.  It makes you nauseous.  It’s a snapshot, I believe, of the varied opinions that are freely shared without repercussions or accountability.  One person I know only shares negative Covid-19 articles about doom and death.  Another only shares conspiracy theories. It makes me wonder if the calamities that have befallen before in our history we’re forgotten or just didn’t impact them like this one.  Perhaps, on 9/11, it seemed remote because they didn’t know someone that died and didn’t experience the terror and destruction except through a TV screen.  Perhaps in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it wasn’t a loved one of theirs that served.  For many, this is truly the most life altering event that has ever occurred to them.  What blessed lives they must have lived up to this point!

History teaches us many lessons, but nearly four in ten Americans can’t name one right guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. So when those rights are trampled, they think it okay and can’t understand the outrage in others.  The term “inalienable” is not one they truly understand.  History lessons that happened during the Spanish Flu or The Great Depression are not ones that seem applicable to them.  One daughter of mine always used to say, “it’s a bunch of dead people,” until she began to read and learn about the struggles and determination in those people. How many of us understand that those times could be repeated? 

Life for many of us may has stopped or has been contained in our dwellings, but that won’t stop the bills that come due.  There may be a temporary suspension on certain things like evictions, foreclosures, and cutting off of utilities.  There may have been a stimulus to help, for which many are still waiting, but it won’t cover everything for long.  All of these  measures are merely band-aids on what is slowly becoming a gushing stab wound.   The economy isn’t just “livelihood;” It is the future.  Just because you can’t see the calamity happening from your living room doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. 

We won’t just pick up where we left off back in the beginning of March with no penalties.  The unpaid bills will come due.  Unemployment, as many learned in the 2008 recession, only lasts for so long before it runs out, leaving millions with no income to feed their families and pay the bills.  As the artist Eminem stated, “... these *%#* food stamps don’t buy diapers.”  They also don’t pay the bills.

Recovery from the 2008 recession didn’t end suddenly.  It took years for many to get back on their feet.  The domino effect was felt for a long time as people ran out of unemployment benefits and had to take jobs that  paid significantly less than their previous income.  The banks wanted to be repaid in full.  Defaulting on mortgages, bankruptcies, and the economic downfall impacted many families for several years after the 2008 recession.  

If you haven’t lost everything you spent years building, it is hard to understand the toll it takes.  It isn’t just the lost houses, but the degradation of failing, even when it isn’t your fault.  A working class family may scrape for years to save a few thousand dollars, only to see it disappear within weeks of an economic downturn. It impacts marriages.  It impacts families.  It impacts, like ripples in a pond, every area of life.  Unemployment leads to higher rates of depression, spousal and childhood abuse, and even suicide.  So no, it isn’t “livelihood.”  It’s lives...  pure and simple.

Covid-19 could cost the lives of my daughters, but so could losing the jobs that provide insurance for quality health care.  Anyone that believes “Medicaid” and other state-sponsored insurance programs give the same quality of care as job-sponsored or premium-paid health insurances has never been told they had a six-month wait to see a dentist because the one office locally that accepts the government insurance only sees “Medicaid” patients one day a week.  They have never been denied needed treatment or access to treatment programs because their government insurance isn’t accepted.  They haven’t had to drive for an hour one-way to see a doctor that accepts their insurance, only to be told that their appointment had been cancelled or wait for hours in a crowded waiting room because this doctor or dentist is always  full. 

The lives lost may not come immediately, but a severe economic downturn does cost lives.  

And let’s talk about the lock-down of the economy and normal life.  Those “out-patient” surgeries that were delayed aren’t all little procedures.  My church is praying for a man in extreme pain due to a back injury.   The surgery to repair the damage was delayed.  His pain is unbearable.  And another man had a meeting postponed indefinitely about being placed on the kidney donor list.  He needs a transplant.  How long before dialysis stops working and he is deemed too ill for a transplant?  Again...  lives.  

The quarantine was put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19 and to protect the most vulnerable.  It was never meant to be a long-term situation.  We are still learning about this disease and don’t have all the answers.  It is called “novel” for the Italian word “novella,” meaning new.  The quarantine was meant to give time...  time for doctors and hospitals to prepare, time for medications and treatments to be developed and tried.  It was to give time to make sure ventilators and beds were set up and ready should they be needed.   The quarantine was never meant to last until a cure was found.  It was meant to buy some time.  But time becomes a game of Russian Roulette as we stay shut down, with the lives of those that might be most at risk are balanced with the lives of those where waiting also has an extreme cost.   That is what is meant by “the cure can’t be more costly than the disease.”

It’s not a decision I would like to be responsible to make.

Are you going to tell the kidney transplant candidate that his life is unimportant?  What about the man contemplating suicide six months from now when he and his family are homeless as unemployment rates soar and deflation overtakes the country?  And, if the economic downturn turns into a depression that lasts years, do you think we can just continue to print money to throw at the problems?   Basic economics tell us that leads to worse issues.

I agree that we won’t emerge from this crisis the same.  I think many believe that the only repercussions will be they will be more careful of their health.  The truth is that we won’t be the same because we had to make choices that weren’t comfortable or easy or fair.

What I hope is that fear stops ruling and wisdom makes an appearance.  It isn’t fair to ask me to risk my daughters’ lives...  or my parents’ lives or my friend with cancer to open the economy prematurely.  It is also not fair to dismiss the consequences of keeping it closed.  But I can try to protect my family members by all of us taking precautions and maintaining distance if possible. There is nothing I can do to protect my family from the impact of long-term unemployment and an economy that collapses.  Fear is ruling, and the proof is that I still struggle to find toilet paper or hand soap or disinfectant.  I read yesterday that frozen pizzas are now being hoarded.  Frozen pizzas!  

So, if we stay locked down, will getting food be a challenge the entire time?  The price increases we’ve seen in groceries and staples sure don’t match with the gas prices.  We’ve set up strict standards, are being tracked on our cell phones to grade citizens on their compliance, and have decided what is and isn’t essential.  Some states even have hotlines to report people not in compliance with social distancing measures.  Could there be anything more Nazi-like? Most are gladly willing to comply to save lives for a time, but how long is long enough?  Do we wait until no one is dying?  Because we already know a reoccurrence could happen in the fall.  Do we wait for a vaccine that might take a year or more to develop and certainly poses risks?  Do we wait until a couple weeks after the peak, as is what is being encouraged, and slowly open things back up in phases while continuing to protect the most vulnerable?  Do we continue measures in the hardest hit places for a longer period of time, but lessen them in the places that haven’t been impacted to the same degree?

Do we wait until there are no small businesses left because they have disappeared due to the weight of not being “essential?”  Do we watch our big stores that have already been struggling in the age of Amazon completely disappear from our landscape because they were closed for so long? Do we keep our parks, our restaurants, our schools as abandoned for another few months or a year?  Do we continue to hope parents can pay for their internet with so many having been laid-off; or for them to maintain the car payments to take their child to a WiFi hotspot so they can “do school” online, in the back seat?  What’s the limit and what qualifies you to make it?

Again, I am grateful it is not me having to make the tough decisions. 

I am blessed because we still have an income.  I am blessed because my faith has never been stronger.  I am blessed because my county has a .07% rate of infection.  I am blessed because we have been homeschooling for over a decade and this hasn’t completely altered my daughter’s life.  

I’m also aware and alert.  History is happening, and I don’t want to miss the lessons. 

Be Free or Die

“I will be free or die.”

The words spoken in the movie Harriet struck me to my core. Sitting between my mother and my twelve year old daughter, I was struck by the story of an American icon and hero.  She loved her family and her people so much, she risked her life repeatedly, going back into slave territory over and over, to lead slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. 

I didn’t hesitate to take my twelve-year old daughter to see the film.  It was gritty in spots, but I want my daughter to read books and see movies about history that are true.  If anything, this movie was tame in the depictions of slavery.  

I appreciated the fact that Harriet Tubman’s faith was not taken out of this depiction of her life.  She knew slavery was a sin.  She knew God.  She prayed.  She spoke to Him.  She loved Him.  She would rather have died than to remain a slave. 

At one point in the movie, she is addressing leaders of the Underground Railroad.  She explains to them the realities of slavery and the dangers of getting “comfortable” and “waiting for a war.”  She knew that suffering would continue unabated for thousands of slaves; that continuing to lead slaves to freedom was a risk worth taking. 

I heard a missionary tell my church a few years ago that, “There are more slaves today that ever in the history of the world.”   The reality of the sex-trade and sex-slaves is not in our face as much as slavery was in the face of those living in the south during Harriet Tubman’s life.  It is hidden in the profit-making businesses of porn, drugs, and prostitution.  We don’t see the children sold into slavery today at our local Walmart, but they exist today is numbers we struggle to count.  We don’t see the horrific videos of child sex-slaves on prime-time television.  The videos are hidden online, and we only occasionally hear of the “busts” by law enforcement as they uncover child porn. We joke about Epstein in memes  and get fired up about the “Me Too” movement, but rarely seriously consider the reality of more slaves now than in history.

Harriet Tubman lead slaves to freedom.  “I will be free or die.”  How many could we bring out of modern-day slavery today if we felt the same way?  

Harriet Tubman’s faith led her.  I was reminded, in the midst of the movie, as she was called “Moses,” about the story of Moses...  and the story of Jesus.  Moses led the Israelites our of slavery in Egypt.  Harriet was nic-named aptly.  I was also reminded of Jesus.

Jesus leads all that accept Him out of slavery.  Like the leaders of the Underground Railroad, I think Christians become comfortable.  We forget we were slaves; slaves to sin, slaves to our earthly nature.  Some of us have been redeemed from horrible bondages.  Some of us were addicted.  Some of us were murderers, thieves, adulterers, profane in our very nature.  Some of us were just lost, angry and confused, emotionally bankrupt.  We were slaves.  

“I will be free or die.” 

The quote takes on a new connotation when we remember Jesus freed us from slavery. He freed us from bondage.  He freed us and we are free indeed.  And like Harriet, we need to understand that there are still many living in the scourge of slavery, both physically in modern-day slavery, and spiritually.  

Don’t get too comfortable.  Our freedom has been bought, but we were bought for a high price, and many others still remain in bondage. 

Swimming at Midnight

Taking the first actual vacation we have had in a few years, I found myself late at night in this first night out in the hotel swimming pool, just me and my twelve year old.   We often get some time, just the two of us, but it’s usually full of school or driving in the car, running errands.  Just to have thirty minutes of relaxing, swimming, just us, is rare.  Even when it’s just us, at home, we have distractions.  Screens surround us...  phones, TV, YouTube, so many screens.

I cherish these few times of just us, swimming, talking, laughing.  I will remember them.  I’ll remember that she still wanted me to watch her do a canon ball and a handstand in the water.  I’ll remember her sideways swimming that ran into me.  I’ll remember her chatter as we dried off and made our way up in the elevator.  She still wants to push the elevator button.

These moments don’t last forever, but the memories might live on in my heart...  and the pictures. 

God in the Unexpected

I’m in the last couple weeks of my college classes, except for my internship.  I am working hard.  One of my last classes is Philosophy of Religion.

This is a class I almost dread every week.  It’s very humanistic.  I’ve taken other classes that were quite outspoken. In their anti-Christian sentiments.  It’s a secular college, so I knew it would occur.  Over the last few years I have definitely gotten an education in what secular colleges are putting into the minds of their students.  It makes it easy to understand much of the sentiments and thought processes by many anti-Christian millennials and liberals.  As much as Christians are accused of indoctrination, I am no longer surprised by the shallowness of thought I am exposed to in some of my classes.  And make no mistake, there is little tolerated of a different opinion. 

Philosophy of Religion seems to have more of a mix of thought, however, within the students.  It’s an online class, which may actually be a benefit.  People will share views in discussion boards that, in a classroom of students, might take more courage.  Like on social media, there is a bit of protection being behind a keyboard.  Thoughts are expressed a little more freely, perhaps, because we don’t have to see the faces of those that might be offended. 

I tend to ask God, in the midst of different struggles, “What do You want me to learn from this, Lord?”   Asking that has changed my perspective about many situations because it gives me a positive thing to focus on...  what God wants me to see, or do, or change. 

In this class, I find that I read the textbook, and I get a tad frustrated at the bias shown.  Even though the students are a good mix, the coursework is still quite secular.  And yet, I have found a blessing in disguise.

Every week there is a discussion board or two and a journal entry or two that is graded.  The topics and questions always come from the reading.  I may be presented with one point of view, the secular one; but I have the ability to research.  I’ve found myself digging out books I haven’t read in years and rereading sections that correlate with the text I’ve read.

I am thankful that, when I was a new Christian, God led me to books that answered questions.  He led me to Lee Strobel, for example, and showed me the research that was begun by an atheist that wanted to prove his Christian wife was wrong about her beliefs.  

I find myself digging through these books, seeking answers to questions I haven’t researched in many, many years.  Despite the secular thought presented in the text, I find my faith being strengthened.  I remember my beginnings with God; back when I was a mom searching for truth, searching to fill the void. 

As a Christian of many years now, I absorb the knowledge differently.  The questions I had then are not the same questions I have now.  Now, I have different ones.  Or perhaps it is safer to say that I stumble across stuff I never thought about, but when faced with it, it still lights up my heart and mind. 

I read once that study is a form of worship.  God often speaks to me when I study.  Many times it isn’t necessarily in a Bible study when something is revealed.  It can be a fictional story, a tv show, or, like now, a college class.  

God can and will be found in many unexpected places.  He won’t stay in the boxes where we often place Him. He will speak, if we seek Him, even in the midst of a secular college class.

Candid

I am learning more and more.  One of the things I always did when I was younger, from the time I was fifteen, was to take my camera with me nearly everywhere.  Today, we do that with our smartphones.  Everyone always has a camera with them, and the cameras in smartphones have improved immensely over the last several years.  There are a few fun videos on YouTube that show shoot-outs of a professional, expensive camera versus an iPhone camera.  The results vary, depending on the video, but the truth is that even the best iPhone camera is limited in its specs.   I can take some awesome pics on my iPhone that look marvelous when uploaded to Instagram, but if I were to enlarge the photo to an 8 x 10 or larger, the photo might not look so sharp.

iPhone photo

But... I still want to have my camera with me.  When the opportunities arrive, when the image is there that might never come again, I want to be able to take a quality shot.  Yes, I will have my camera at holidays and major events.  The best pictures sometimes happen when I'm not at an event or planning a shot.

A picture while walking.

 
I go walking a lot.  Some of my best pictures happen when I am walking.  I encounter so many awesome images on these walks:  the river with wildflowers around it, the reflections in the pavement of the trees overhead on a rainy day, the light as it streams through the trees.  With a young daughter still at home and grandchildren, I don't want to miss those moments, those little moments that make up a life. 

Got to capture those candid moments.

I am not a professional.  I am a hobbyist.  I have helped in the professional realm a few times and it has been scary and fun at the same time.  I never felt that my photography was very good.  I never invested a lot of money into it because, with five children, the money just wasn't there.  I stuck with my point-and-shoot cameras and simply recorded our lives.  I got some nice pictures over the years.  I loved shooting with film, but realized how wonderful it was to not have to measure every shot and debate whether I could afford to get all the rolls developed if I took all the pictures I wanted.

A picture I took when I got my Nikon eight years ago.

I was given a DSLR eight years ago for my birthday.  I have used it often.  I would use it a lot for awhile, then set it aside and use my smartphone camera.  More and more my smartphone camera was used because it was with me.  In all honesty, Nikon that was a gift is bulky and difficult to have with me all the time.  There's a photography quote that says, "The best camera is the one you have with you."

Some moments are too important to miss.

There is a documentary on Netflix that I have watched over and over.  Finding Vivian Maier is a beautifully done documentary about a street photographer that was undiscovered during her life.  Her work was discovered, but by the time she was tracked down, she had passed away.  She has gained attention because of the substantial amount of work she left behind and the amazing quality of the art.  When the filmmaker interviewed those that knew her, they all said that she always had her camera on her.  She would go walking and take photos all over Chicago, recording the people on the street and a substantial amount of history along the way.  She purposely looked for the shots.  But she also took a ton of shots that were taken of the kids she took care of as a nanny, of the moments in her life, simply because she always had her camera on her. 

Having a camera on me means I can capture my loved ones.

I have to be honest, that is hard to do with the bulky Nikon that I have.   The ones that I have looked at or borrowed are just as bulky or too expensive for me to purchase.  And so, I find myself considering options I hadn't considered previously.  Mirrorless?  Do I need less features?  How important are megapixels?  Can I get by with less?  Do I need to use a less "professional" camera to have the ability to keep a camera with me at all times?

Self-expression and art are important to me.

 These are the things I am thinking about as I research and pray about the next step in my photography.  For me, it is going to be more about capturing the journey and creating art more than being a professional.  I am going to work in a library.  That is the career path I chose.  I am excited to do so.  Photography fulfills me in a different way than research and books.  It is a different way to express myself.  I am learning all I can because I want to create awesome images. I want to capture the candid moments that I might miss if I don't have my camera on me because carrying it was inconvenient.

The Storyteller

"We are all storytellers, photojournalists of lives that are rich with tears, bruises, tenderness, strangeness, and humor."  George Lange in The Unforgettable Photograph

When I was fifteen I received my first point and shoot camera.  Even before that moment, I loved to take pictures.  I remember using someone’s camera (probably my mom’s) to take photos of my Barbie dolls.

Through the years I must have taken hundreds of rolls of film.  (Yes, film.  That probably makes me old.) I would take photos of daily life.  I wasn’t ever super great at the posed stuff, but I captured candid moments often.  They were my favorite, perhaps because they tell a story and reflect people.

I was often teased for my photo obsession, especially in the moment when I always had a camera in my hand.  My husband would groan at the boxes of photos, albums, and negatives.  But the few times someone thanked me for taking the photos, for capturing the moments that were fleeting and then gone, it was worth all the groans and jokes.  When I had pictures of my nephew after my sister lost her home and most of their things in a house fire, I felt as if taking those photos had been a gift.  When my brother-in-law thanked me for all the photos I took of his girls while I babysat them, because he never took many as a single dad, I was touched.  The best moment was probably taking a photo of my girls and their cousins, aunts, and uncles with their great-grandfather during a summer cookout.  The great-grandfather passed away soon after and that photo was the last one taken.  It was special.  He was surrounded by family in the photo, the moment captured as a testament to his enduring legacy. 

I think in images.  I read stories and a movie plays in my head.  Stories intrigue me and a picture tells a story.  The idea of stopping time, capturing it, being able to relive it through an image has always held a power over me.

I never seriously considered photography as a profession.  I played.  I took pics of my kids.  I would take them to the professionals for the Christmas shots.  I would buy the school photos.  But I would still take several rolls of film a month.  It was pricey, and I would burn through the point and shoot cameras every couple of years.

I got my first digital camera in 2008 as a gift.  Since then, storage has been much easier.  And I can snap to my heart’s content because the pictures don’t require developing unless I choose.  Point and shoots have given way to smart phone technology and everyone now has a camera always with them.  Social media encourages everyone to snap away.  The storyteller in me thrills that the other storytellers in the world can fulfill that desire.

Eight years ago I received a DSLR as a present.  It was used, but it has been an awesome teacher.  I played.  I learned.  I’m still learning.  I am just now really diving into the more technical aspects of digital photography.  I want to take better photos, which means learning and growing and investing in my hobby more.

Will I ever become a professional?  Does it matter?

Honestly, I don’t take pictures for that reason.  I take pictures because it fills a part of me.  Perhaps the photos will never be more than mostly snapshots.  Perhaps family holidays, daily moments, and the things that catch my eye will be the extent.  Maybe helping the professionals shoot weddings and  family sessions will be as far as I go.  Or perhaps I will decide that I want more.

The last couple of years have been transformational.  I have been through some very hard times.  There have been changes.  My children have mostly all grown, leaving me with one daughter at home.  I went back to college.  I began to pursue things that I had set aside or didn’t have time for in having a large family.  I began to rediscover the me that is more than the wife, the mom, the daughter, and the sister.  I began to remember what makes me feel alive:  Reading, writing, taking photos, and researching wherever my curiosity takes me.  It’s been a journey of learning to follow my passions without comparing myself to others, of feeling good about the unique me instead of feeling like I don’t measure up.  In the last few months God has shown me that the woman He created has a right to not always feel as if she is in a competition she didn’t enter, judged on talents and gifts that aren’t hers and coming up short.  He has shown me that He created me to be enough, and if others can’t see it or put me down to build up themselves, the problem is with them.

 

Photography can be expensive, and hobbyists sometimes must decide how much to invest.  I haven’t been able to invest much while homeschooling and having a large family.    I have no regrets.  My point and shoot cameras, cell phone cameras, and the DSLR that I worked inadequately still recorded a life that I loved.  I didn’t have perfect composition.  My lighting was often too dark.  Many photos are full of red eyes and blurred by constant movement of children.  But I have the look in my children’s faces when they opened their Christmas presents.  I have the wonder of childhood as one daughter saw it snow the first time one season.  I got the costumes in the plays.  I took pictures of the firsts.  I recorded the memories of daily living, the moments we easily forget.  I have the great-grandparents meeting their great-grandchildren for the first time.  I have pictures of the blizzards and storms, the blackout where we played cards in candlelight, the cookouts, the gardens, and even clothes flapping in the breeze on the clothesline.

We may have lacked finances often.  We may have struggled in so many ways.  But we had something special. Having two people reach out in the last couple months to tell me that we meant so much to them in the crazy years of five children in one home with friends and busyness and chaos; I see that my investment wasn’t in stuff, but in people.  I recorded on cheap equipment, but I loved the journey.

And I will keep recording the journey, seeing life through lenses and viewfinders.  I have passed down my love of recording the journey and it thrills my heart.  I get to see the little moments in the lives of my grandsons because my daughter is also a storyteller.  There is nothing more beautiful than a good story.

Sharing My Christian Walk with the Baxters

 The Baxter Series

I still remember the day I checked out the first book in the Baxter series, Redemption, from the local public library.  I had read One Tuesday Morning as my first Karen Kingsbury book.  I had been a Christian for only a short amount of time.  Bookworm that I am, I had felt the conviction of God to change my reading choices.  He wanted me to make some choices in my reading that would encourage and educate me about Him.

I wasn't sure what to expect as I delved into the series.  I knew it was a series, but at the time (2005), there were only five on the shelves.  I devoured them, one after another, and entered the lives of the Baxter family.

They were so different from any family I had ever known.  They were Christians.   They were imperfect.  The parents, Dr. John Baxter and his wife, Elizabeth, were wonderful.  I so wanted to know them.  Their children were young and flawed and I related to them so well.  Brooke, Kari, Ashley, Luke, and Erin.  I felt an affinity for this large family, despite our differences.  Like them my family was a group of seven.  Like the Baxters, we live in Indiana.  Those snowy winters and hot, humid summers weren't a stretch to the imagination for me.  I can see the corn fields out my window.   Reading about a large, Christian family living in Indiana while trying to find my way as a new Christian with a large family living in Indiana... it was inspirational for me.  In so many ways, the Baxters began to walk with me.

As I read the books, lived with these characters through the years, I grew with them.  I grew in my faith and learned so many lessons, both in real life and in reading about their lives.  I grew to feel like I knew the characters.  The lessons from their lives felt so real to me, and often were as new to me as they were to the characters that learned them the hard way in the story-lines.  I remember John Baxter praying for his kids as he looked at their senior pictures.  At the time, I had two daughters in high school, and I remember thinking what an amazing idea that was, to pray for my kids when I saw their pictures.

The cast of characters grew over the years.  It was occasionally reduced also, and those moments were heartbreaking in ways I can't describe.  And yet, even in the goodbyes there was hope and love and even, somehow, joy.  I was shocked the first time that there wasn't a happy ending.  We get so used to happy endings, and in Christianity, we tend to believe that God will fix everything the way we think He should.  Life isn't always so neat and formulaic.  In fact, many times, life is messy and very hard.  God is not a predictable God that works on our timetable.  His plans can be tough to understand.  And, Karen Kingsbury doesn't shy away from tough topics.  She tackles the hard things, from terrorist attacks to the loss of a loved one.

The first time a main character didn't get a miracle, where there wasn't a happy ending, I was deeply grieved.  It was like losing a member of my family. Little did I know that there would be other times of loss in the series that would take my breath and leave me wrung out emotionally, grieving as if I had really lost a member of my family.  Of course, being a bookworm, I tend to get overly engrossed in the books, but I soon discovered that I wasn't the only one that felt an attachment to these characters.  I introduced the books to so many others, and would gladly do so again.  I even had two of my daughters read the first ones.  Seeing those I introduce to the books get hooked, get emotional about the lives of the characters, proves to me that these books are powerful.

The Baxter family, the Flanigan Family, and so many others in the book series have walked with me through my journey as a Christian.  Every year or so a new book would come out, and the Baxters would come alive to me again.  I felt as if I could drive to the Baxter home, have a cup of coffee with Ashley, see her paintings, and talk with her about marriage, raising children, and following Jesus.  I even wanted to talk with her about being the black sheep of the family, as she was at first.

I wish I could tell about all the coincidences that occurred while I read.  My oldest left for college while I was reading Leaving.  My family endured such a trying time for so long, and becoming Christians didn't take away the problems.  I love that the Baxter family had real problems too.  I like that they struggled with their faith, had deep doubts, and great sorrows.  I like that they messed up.  I like that they occasionally still struggle with the same issues that have come up in the past, but keep pushing forward in Christ.  I like that they sometimes disagree, get on each other's nerves, and even have to overcome hurts and wounds.  I like that it sometimes doesn't happen in a single book, that the happy endings glorify God, but so do the ones that aren't so happy.

The first book, Redemption, was published in 2002, but it was late 2005 or early 2006 before I read it.  (I became a Christian in November 2005.)  Now, sixteen years after they were first published, and twelve or thirteen years after I first met them, the Baxters still continue to touch lives.  Karen Kingsbury still writes about them, though I am certain the plan was never to have thirty books in a series!  I have read all except the newest one, and I will read it soon.  Some made my heart soar with joy and hope.  Others made me cry, heartbroken and devastated.  Some were romantic.  Some showed God's plans in ways we wouldn't have expected to see.  Some were bittersweet.  And yet, in each one, was a focus on Jesus.  In each one was the theme of a grander story, the ultimate redemption of all our souls.

The Baxters are a legacy.  The characters and their lives live on in millions of readers and Christians all over the world.  We all will think a bit of the Prodigal son when we read of Luke's struggles in Return.  We will all yearn for John to find the son he never got to meet, and rejoice when he does.  We will all feel the glory of salvation when Dane finds Jesus.  And happily ever after is not supposed to mean betrayal or birth defects or a drowning accident or cancer or life-altering tragedies.  Through the years, millions of us have clung to this family, grieved with them, prayed with them, laughed with them, gotten angry with and at them, and learned with them.  Most of all, we have grown closer to Jesus as we shared their lives.

The Baxters series is being developed for television.  I look forward to that, but also carry the apprehension that every reader holds when the books he or she loves is adapted to film or television.  We carry the images in our minds and hearts and fear that the portrayal won't be the same, no matter how talented the actors and actresses.  However, letting the example and love of the Baxter family, which is full of the love of Jesus, reach out to those that haven't read the books makes the endeavor worthwhile.

One day the last Baxter book will be published and written.  The fans will have a difficult time letting them go.  I know I will.  I can only thank Karen Kingsbury for writing the series, because she has given me so many wonderful examples of faith.  She has written stories that have taught me much, put me through an emotional roller coaster (and I loved it), and helped me draw closer to Jesus.  She has given me encouragement in some tough times, and showed me that the story isn't over, even when the last chapter of the book is read, because Jesus isn't done.