I have always loved the days/weeks/months when life flows smoothly and everything fits into everything else and life is good.  Oh! Wait!  Have I EVER lived like that?  Hmmmm…Nope!  But I’ve read BOOKS in which life flows so I at least have an idea of what that would be like!  My life is SO fragmented.  I live here in a lovely home then I live in a van. I have a newsletter with my yahoogroups BooksBloom group, a facebook page (jan goldsmith bloom) as well as booksbloom, I email friends and family but sometimes I don’t have email access,  we have a cell phone but Gary always has it, we don’t have a text plan and I have never even SEEN a twitter, and I feel like I ought to somehow get used to the 21st century.

Back in my last posting in March, Gary had just finished installing a new engine in Mighty Whitey.  We had to rent a truck for 4 conferences while he was working on it, so it was with great relief we set out shortly after my post. We were heading for the Cincinnati conference but we left a few days early in order to  rendezvous with Jenni, our daughter, and her three children, who were in Bloomington, Indiana for Charlie’s one-year post-radiation check up.  Not more than twenty miles up the road from Rolla we heard a very bad sound (yes! Sounds CAN be good or they can be bad!) Gary called Clark, our mechanic, and we turned around to head back home. Clark listened, drew out the oil dip-stick, and announced the engine had blown a rod.  WHAT??!!!  This cannot be! OH NO!!!

Clark suggested buying another vehicle.  RIGHT.  We had just spent any extra money we had on the new engine and renting those silly trucks.  We did not have MONEY to buy another vehicle.  But it was evident Mighty Whitey could not go any further.  418,000 miles was a miracle in itself – we really could not hope for more, could we?  Clark was adamant – we could NOT!  We found a newer van and were able to buy it and set out that evening, thinking all was well.  Sadly, we have spent almost as much on repairs on the NEW Mighty Whitey as we paid for it, which was quite a bit.  OUCH!! Life is sometimes a puzzle, isn’t it?

We’ve been back home in Missouri since mid-September.  Gary tried to find a temporary position but that didn’t happen, so he has been blessed by having friends and acquaintances willing to pay him to do repair and remodeling work.

Two weeks ago I ended up having emergency surgery to remove a nineteen pound cyst attached to my ovary, so THAT has certainly put a crimp in my ideas and plans I was going to implement this Fall! I’m doing well.  I lost 24 pounds in one week but it is not a weight reduction program I can recommend! My daughter, Jenni, created a Caring Bridge site (jan bloom) and I’ve had to add THAT to my list of things to do, too.

Books…I was able to finish Vince Flynn’s new book, AMERICAN ASSASSIN, before my surgery so JJ was able to take it back to Norfolk to read after he visited us the weekend after my surgery. Yesterday I finished a very interesting book by Mark Andrew Olsen, ULTERIOR MOTIVES.  This is the third book I’ve read by Olsen and I must say he is highly original and causes all kinds of questions and responses.  In Olsen’s book a former Army Special Forces guy is sent to convert a top Al-Qaeda Muslim.  Sounds unrealistic, but it is an incredible story of a broken man who has found redemption in Jesus reaching beyond the barriers of religion to find common ground and the image of God in an enemy.  It was both a tear-jerker and a stunning look at the differences between Christianity (TRUE Christianity) and forgiveness vs Islam and revenge.

I truly want to get my blog back going with ideas, thoughts, recommendations, and links. It’s scary to even write that, knowing I need to DO what I have planned and stated. YIKES!  Whoever came up with this accountability stuff?  Do I think a homemaker of 100 years ago worried about blogs, posts, newsletters, emails, cell phones, as well as cooking, baking, mending, cleaning, and being a good wife?  Uh – what does THAT have to do with anything?

We are working on our conference schedule for 2011 and it’s on our website, booksbloom.com.  Oh, yeah!  One MORE thing I have to do.  I am NOT suited for all this technology!  I like BOOKS. Grrrrrrrrr…

Off I go to DO what needs to be done.  Where are my Powdered Milk Biscuits when I need them??!!

Jan Bloom

As I am writing this, Gary is working on good old Mighty Whitey.  He got the new engine in this afternoon and is now hooking up all that needs to be hooked, and hoping he remembers what those things are. We threw a rod coming home from Indianapolis a few weeks ago, so a new engine was really the only option if we want to keep Mighty Whitey on the road. In van years, she is ancient – 415,000 miles, so she will appreciate a new engine.  We borrowed a friend’s truck to do a BooksBloom seminar in Jeff City the weekend before last, and had to rent a 26 foot Budget truck to drive to Chicago this past weekend.

Our time in Chicago was interesting. I had been asked to speak at a Chicago Non-Sectarian conference. What EXACTLY does THAT mean? It was a challenge to do the talks I do, usually for Christians, in such a way that I was sensitive to the differences of my audience, but didn’t compromise my own beliefs. I was exhausted by the end of the two days! Hopefully I planted some seeds in the loving hearts of parents there and libraries will be started which will inspire and educate these kids. John Taylor Gatto was the featured speaker, and he always stirs the parents to think and plan and nurture their kids.

It was fun to be so close to Chicago since I just finished reading Neta Jackson’s YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP series – all 7 of them. WHAT a challenge they are! They challenge me to be REAL and honest within a group of believers. The examples of praying Scripture are so vibrant – I have been trying to do that more.  They showed me so clearly how a STORY can lead to life changes – attitudes, behaviors, understanding, compassion, and humor.  I LOVE the gals in these stories. In fact, I got SO in to the story that one morning, as I was praying for my friend’s granddaughter, who is pregnant with twins, I thought, “I should pray for Ruth, too,” and then I had to stop and laugh since Ruth is one of the gals in the book!

It is hard to come back to something like this blog.  I was surprised that my last entry was the birth of Tori, back in August.  I didn’t realize it had been that long ago.  We moved to Missouri in September, rented a lovely home that sits high on a ridge, and have been enjoying a Missouri winter which, though cold for Missouri, was NOTHING compared to Minnesota winters! Gary and I are just BooksBloom again, with a full schedule of conferences this Spring and Summer.  Check our website, www. booksbloom.com for the schedule.

So, now you know – I am not a REAL blogger, just someone who occasionally stops to share what’s on my heart!

Jan

Jan's first granddaughter, Tori

Tori was born in a hospital, due to the fact that her mommy is very tired and thought the idea of being taken care of was lovely!

The boys think their sister is beautiful and are especially glad mommy has  a lap again for snuggling.

Jason was a great labor coach and obedient father-to-be; he jumped when Jenni said JUMP and he got out of the pool when Jenni ordered him OUT.  Jenni is a textbook transition lady who threatens, cajoles, yells, and makes her mind up.  It’s quite opposite to her normal sweet self!

The Harris Family and Granny Janny

Here’s Tori by herself:

Victoria Bloom Harris- 4 hours old

For those of you wondering how Charlie is handling his new rold as elder brother, here is a photo of the two of them:

Charlie and Tori on Tori's birthday

Charlie was a stitch at the hospital.  Whenever he encountered a uniformed caregiver he stopped, pulled up his shirt and proudly pointed to his port and then pointed to his head and said “owweee.”  When Jenni’s dinner came he pulled his chair up to the side of the bed and began looking in all the containers.  He loves that hospital food!  His hair is growing back a little bit but it may take a while -the radiation actually burned the skin and the new hair has to poke itself through in new places.  He’s bright-eyed and bushy tailed and almost always cheerful though we did see some jealousy today when Tori began nursing.  WHAT is she doing???!!!!

I’m in MN for the month of August to help Jenni and pack up our belongings.  We are still waiting for our house to sell.  Anyone interested in a LOVELY garage with a pretty great house?  You can google our house: 380 2nd St SE, Cokato, MN and see it for yourself.  I haven’t been in it yet – I’ve been busy with Jenni and the boys.

Gary is in Houston this weekend at the Woodlands Conference with My Father’s World.  I am jealous!  I miss our times with our vendor friends and conference attendees.  But I’m glad I can be here with Jenni and her family.

Okay, Lord, what do You want to teach me?

(And now, Lord, after 2 hours of writing and rewriting my few simple thoughts on forgiveness, grant clarity and cohesiveness to the words I’ve labored so hard to fit together!)

I’ve never had a clear picture of forgiveness.   I’ve struggled with lack of forgiveness, not really understanding WHAT it was I was battling.  I’ve learned much and have experienced healing in this area in the past few years, but I was eager to hear new insights.

As Matt described it, when we are wronged, something is stolen from us -our innocence, our possessions, a relationship, our time, our sensibilities, our pride,  the list goes on and on… and we are left feeling violated and angry.  (So THAT’S why it’s so hurtful!) We want those who wronged us to pay back what was taken.  (You bet I do!)  Revenge is the feeling we have when we want to “get even” – that is, we want THEM to suffer the way we have suffered.  (And this is WRONG??!)

Matt quoted a writer who stated, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  Unforgiveness can become our security, our identity, and, sometimes, our prison.  (Been there, done that.)

Forgiveness is NOT just pretending the wrong never happened, nor is it making light of any damage that was done.  “Forgive and forget” is NOT the eleventh commandment!

Matt’s definition that spoke so powerfully to me is this:  Forgiveness is saying to God, “I release this person who has wronged me from paying back the debt they owe me, and I trust YOU will make it right.

Sometimes God makes it right quickly by reminding us that we were not totally innocent ourselves, and we bow in humility and acknowledgement.  God also knows that as we mature we understand that our perceptions can be skewed or our memories faulty (this is why we MUST not carry grudges from our childhoods!) or our understanding incomplete.  Sometimes we just need a gentle embrace until we can stand on our own two feet and accept both our own inadequacies as well as the failings of others.

When we are truly wounded, whether it is physically, emotionally, or spiritually, we truly suffer.  Wounds that are not taken care of properly may develop an infection, which can create all kinds of additional problems.  Wounds that don’t heal can be life-threatening.  Forgiveness is intentional.  We acknowledge that we are letting go of a specific something – whether it is a grudge, a resentment, a feeling of being betrayed, or the great emptiness that may accompany the loss of life.  Forgiveness means we look to the LORD to cleanse the wound so the healing can begin.  And He will do it!

Even wounds that heal oftentimes leave a scar.  A song by RIVER that I love has the line in it: “The only scars in heaven are the scars on Jesus’ hands.”  My scars will disappear in heaven, but until then, scars are real.  Scars CAN be reminders of God’s faithfulness and grace.  After all, we are living and can tell the story of how we got the scar and how we learned more of God’s love and faithfulness through the experience.

God IS sovereign.  He DOES know how I’ve been hurt.  He FEELS my pain, for He was misunderstood, betrayed and wounded by others.  Yet He never sinned – that is, He never said to His Heavenly Father: “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!! Your promise to give me all I needed is NOT TRUE and I am going to go get what I need NOW instead of waiting for YOU.  I CANNOT and I WILL NOT trust You.”

Jesus NEVER called God a liar, which is what WE do when we refuse to forgive.  He said, as His life was ending, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”  How many times do we not know what we’re doing when we offend someone?  And is it possible that one who offends us doesn’t know what he is doing?  Even if someone hurts us intentionally, we are not God, and we do not have the authority to call down judgment on that person.

God is the only righteous judge.  He is the ONLY one who knows all the facts and can clearly see.  When I refuse to forgive, I set myself up not only as judge  but jury and executioner too.  Unforgiveness is sin because we will NEVER know all the facts and background nor will we ever be able to judge fairly just because we bring our own preconceptions, biases, and prejudices to every situation.  To say nothing of our affronted pride when we don’t get our own way!

Jesus was VERY specific: if we do NOT forgive our brothers or sisters who have wronged us, God CANNOT forgive us.  What is this all about?  Can’t God do ANYTHING?  Why can’t He forgive?  Is His action TRULY dependent on MY actions?

Language tells us so much.  When I first wrote this next sentence, I was struck by the word picture it brought up: “It’s not that God WILL not forgive us when we harbor grudges and unforgiveness”..WAIT!  Harbor…ships…What happens when the harbor is full of ships – rotting, broken down vessels that are pulled up to slips, taking up all the room?  The big, new ships cannot land and disgorge their cargo or their crew.

The other strong word picture is that of NURSING a grudge.  What does a good nurse do?  She (I’m from the era of Cherry Ames!) keeps the patient comfortable and, as much as it is in her power, alive.  Do we WANT our grudges to be nicely taken care of so they will thrive?

Whew!  Uncomfortable thoughts!

Another picture that came to my mind was that of a petrie dish and its culture medium for growing bacteria.  When we forgive others; when we let God be God in all aspects of our lives, THEN we are able to confess OUR sins and then WE are forgiven and cleansed.  (I John 1:7)  The culture medium of unforgiveness is washed away, our petrie dish is sterilized by the awesome holiness of God, and that nasty bacteria (unforgiveness, bitterness, etc.) can no longer grow!

Do I hear a YEE HAW! about right now?!

When I was young we used to sing, ” TRUST and OBEY for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus.”  Granting forgiveness is TRUSTING that our obedience to God’s command to forgive is MORE important than the pain and suffering we’ve experienced.  God makes ALL things new.   Even our pain and our woundedness.  Who would ever think a beautiful butterfly was hiding in that slimy caterpillar?  FORGIVE and let the transformation begin!

Your incomplete, imperfect-but-forgiven friend,

Jan Bloom

Our conference season began with our odometer creeping closer to that 400,000 mark.  We left our temporary home in Rolla, Missouri in March.   On our way to the first conference in Detroit we stopped in to see Charlie and Jenni in Bloomington, Indiana, where Charlie (our 2 year old grandson) had been undergoing proton radiation.  In January Charlie had a grapefruit sized tumor removed from his brain and proton therapy, available at only 5 locations in the U.S., is the only “cure.”   His life expentancy goes from 15% to 85-90% with proton radiation.  Jason’s insurance covered the cost of this, for which we are all grateful.  Charlie’s head was a bit ripe looking for a while,

but so are ALL bald heads!

The second photo is that of Grandpa Gary, Dr. Thornton (the medical director of the Proton Center) and Ed, the all-around manager.   All these baldies have scabs and scars on THEIR heads, too!

We did a one-day conference in a suburb of Detroit, then set up a few days later in a lovely heated garage in Grand Rapids.  We love our Michigan buddies!   We’ve never been able to celebrate birthdays there before, so that was extra special!

Here we are with our Michigan friends, the McDaniels and the Prewitts, who we’ve gotten to know (and love) through the MidWinter Conference.  Doug and Gary have the same birthday week, and Valerie made a scrumptious cake.

From Michigan we drove to Lincoln, Nebraska.  We were judges for the NCFCA regional conference – whew!  THAT was a challenge!  These amazingly well-prepared kids debating topics that I had little knowledge of- and doing it with style, grace, substance, and grit.  We have been SO impressed with the young adults who participate in NCFCA speech and debate.  What an opportunity to develop keen debating and communication skills.  We’d love to be at Bob Jones University in June for the finals.  I’m sure the finals will be amazing.  Go Ian!  Go Hannah!  Go Meagan!  Go Gages!

Lincoln, Nebraska is a smallish show, but very nice.  We love eating in Lincoln!  First it’s Lazlo’s, then it’s Valentino’s.  We love our dinners with vendor friends!  From Lincoln we drove HOME to MN.  Well, we kind of limped home to MN.  When we were 150 miles from home Gary realized we had lost a back trailer tire.  WHAT?  WHEN?  WHERE?  The axle had broken and the tire had spun off in the 15 minutes since we had been driving after a breakfast stop.  Sunday morning.  No shops open.  No tires to be bought.  We prayed, took as much as we could out of the trailer and put it in the van, and drove 35 miles an hour with only 1 full set of trailer tires.  God was merciful AGAIN and allowed us to get home that way.  A new axle had to be ordered and installed.

Home.  We were home in MN only 5 weeks in 2008.  God weaned us from Cokato and He weaned me from my garage-full of books – all neatly organized and alphabetized.   But just because He weaned us doesn’t mean I still don’t LIKE it there!  We worked very hard to get the house ready to put on the market to sell.  We packed, moved furniture, sheetrocked, painted, ripped up carpet, sanded and sealed the wood floors underneath removed carpet, and tried to get a few hours of sleep.  We were home less than 2 weeks and we had LOTS to do in that time.

dining room with newly refinished floor

The bathroom with a new mirror and wallpaper. Love them mooses!

I just can’t seem to get the hang of putting pictures in the best places!

The house looks great.  We bought a house that wasn’t  for sale in a town we never intended on living in and it’s been 13 years!  Though we’ve traveled much of the past 9 years, it has been home for a long time.  And we are sad to leave.  God used our church in Cokato and many of the people there to bring us through some tough days and to pray for us these past years of travel.  We will miss it.  We are praying that God brings a homeschooling family to buy our house and garage.  We have the BEST garage in Cokato – it is 32 x 44 feet with a second story.  It’s been a magnificent book building!  We had a book sale during the time we were home and so now we have only about 28,000 books instead of 30,000 books.  Anyone want any GREAT books for a GREAT price??!!!  We know that we cannot pack them all and bring them to Missouri since we don’t know WHERE we’ll be living here and books in boxes deteriorate rapidly.  We had lots of happy readers leaving with boxes and boxes of great books.  I think I will do another sale in June when I go back to finish packing.

Since MN we have done conferences in Kansas City, Missouri and Springfield, Missouri.  We get lots of questions about the impact of the CPSIA on our business.  We tell people that we are selling collectible books and if parents who buy them want to share them with their young readers, that’s fine with us!  The idea of anything printed before 1985 being a hazard is a very ominous cloud hanging over all educators everywhere.  What better way to change the future than to remove any truth about the past??!

We leave Rolla tomorrow to head to Oklahoma City and then Arlington, Texas.  Between Arlington and Nashville we are being blessed with a few days at a cabin in Oklahoma (riversEdgeCottages.com)  and then we’ll head to Winston-Salem where JJ will meet us for a few days.  We got to be together at Christmas, so it’s been a while.  We are bringing (well, actually Gus Solis from Lifetime Books is doing most of the hauling!) JJ his boxes from home.  I’m sure his son, Blaizen, will LOVE all the toys from JJ’s childhood.  JJ is finishing his first year at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.  He is in Naval ROTC as part of his Officer Candidacy – it is a challenge and he has been pushing hard to meet all the requirements.  Whew!  He’ll have summer school classes too.

After Winston-Salem we head to Wichita, always one of our most fun conferences due to the friendships we’ve established there.  (You know who you are out there in Newton!!!)  Then it’s back to Rolla for a few days, off to a new conference near Chicago, then Denver and we’re DONE for the 2009 conference season.  We’ll be back in Rolla at the end of June.

My!  That was a lengthy update!  All I REALLY wanted to say was that Mighty Whitey is aging gracefully!

I started reading the first one last week when I visited Jenni and Charlie in Bloomington, Indiana.  In the midst of meals, laundry, cleaning, emailing, biking, shopping, and book editing I finished the last one, Dead Heat, this morning.   The books kept my interest, challenged my thinking, brought tears to my eyes more than once, and left me feeling drained yet hopeful.  I HAD to put a book down occasionally but I COULD have read and read and read.  They are very exciting, interesting, and challenging.

The books were fun reads.   I recognized ideas other authors like C. S. Lewis (Lord, lunatic or liar) and Angela Hunt (The Immortal) had explored.  The gospel explanations were clear and realistic.  The main characters of all 5 stories, Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy, were a tad bit unbelievable but then I live in a van sometimes and wealthy Wall Street whiz kids and beautiful, intelligent CIA operatives are not people I meet in Walmart parking lots!!!  $800 dinners at the top of the restaurant in Gilbralter are also WAY out of my experience!

The auxiliary characters were quite well crafted and I would have liked to know more than a few of them in real life. I especially liked Eli Mordechai, the former head of Mossad.  There were many sinister characters whose motivations were explored and judged fairly.  There were many situations that were frightening in their realism.  I don’t “like” prophecy and I usually shy away from it but these novels did a great job of exploring Biblical texts and creating fascinating scenarios.

I am a Vince Flynn fan.  I actually PAID real dollars to buy the last book when it came out in December.  Flynn’s characters are vividly drawn and exciting but usually do not ponder questions of eternal significance.  I think Rosenberg’s action scenes and insights into government and international conflict compare favorably to Flynn’s writing.  Suprising to me, I actually enjoyed Rosenberg more because he deals with the reality of eternity and truth.  For example, one of Rosenberg’s characters refuses to bend his knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ even though he intellectually believes that the claims of Jesus are true.  He says he is not ready yet to give in.  The very next moment a bullet pierces his body and he dies.  He was THAT close to salvation and he missed it.  It was a sobering scene.

I highly recommend all 5 of these novels.  They are (in order):

The Last Jihad

The Last Days

The Ezekiel Option

The Copper Scroll

Dead Heat

All 5 are published in coordinating covers by Tyndale.

The author has a website at: www.joelrosenberg.com

Happy Reading!

Jan BLoom

We have been enjoying the milder weather present in Missouri, 7 degrees south of our home in Cokato.  This is MAY weather and it’s only February!  No snow.  Sunny skies.  Why DID our ancestors choose Minnesota and WHATEVER kept them there??!!

Gary and I are looking forward to our conference season.  Got a small taste of it the past few weeks in Florida speaking at two smaller conferences.  I do love the privilege of impacting the lives of people with the message of good books and successful parenting.  Our conference schedule is on our website: www.booksbloom.com

For any of you who are checking this blog for information and updates about our grandson, Charlie, you can check his page on caringbridge.com under CharlesHarris.

Jenni, Jason, Mikee, Charlee Christmas 2008

He continues to amaze us all with his astonishing recovery following the removal of a grapefruit sized tumor in his head on his second birthday, January 13.  God has been gracious and merciful and we will keep trusting Him through the radiation that is scheduled.

Volume 2 is done and the first printing almost gone.

We’ll be printing again to have books for the conference season.

We have received many positive comments on the cover and the contents.  Yee Haw!

Jan Bloom

You can order via email:  booksbloom @yahoo.com, or, if you are really smart with cyber stuff, go directly to paypal and use the “send money” button to order.

Jan Bloom

by:  David Larsen

Published by Kregel Publications c.1999

I recently found this book on the shelf at a friend’s house.  I sat down with it, intrigued that David Larsen, a pastor from my childhood, wrote about books.  I had known him to be a great Bible expositor – could he possibly write intelligently about books other than the Bible?

Dumb question!!!

This is an amazing book!  It was fun hearing Larsen’s voice speaking the words on the page in my head – he has such a distinctive style.  Even if I didn’t know what his voice sounded like, the words…ah!  the words!  He is a superb communicator.  He uses language well.  He speaks with passion and persuasion.  I don’t know if I have ever read a book or article in which a pastor begs fellow pastors to read across the spectrum of literature. His many reasons for pastoral literacy are clearly argued and convincing.

His words are not only to pastors – they are written to encourage all believers to read, understand, and enjoy books that many of us would probably never have the interest to pick up for our pleasure.  Larsen highlights authors I would expect (C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Dostoyevsky) and quite a few I’ve dismissed as being “worldly” or way too ancient like SInclair Lewis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Pliny the elder, Socrates, and Augustine.

Larsen presents a compelling case for the importance of reading well.

The movie uses Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol as the base for its story.  Kelsey Grammer, as George Patton, is the angel who takes the Scrooge character, one Micheal Malone, to the past, the present, and the future.  Micheal Malone, a greedy, sloppy, fat, self-centered America-hating film producer, is in the midst of a campaign to eliminate Fourth of July celebrations when he is interrupted by General Patton.  (The Fourth of July must be done away with since WHY should anyone celebrate the birth of a horrible country like the United States of America?)

The movie speeds through its polically incorrect humor at a rapid pace.  In the 93 minutes we are sent to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, 1968, a current college classroom, the plotting sessions of an inept group of Muslim terrorists, and a country western concert in Madison Square Gardens.  Though it is funny it is also disturbing as it points out the liberal views of those who would have us hate our own country.

It’s up to us as movie ticket buyers to tell those who made this movie, “THANK YOU” and “We support you!”  Don’t let this opportunity slip by – go see the movie, laugh, and tell others to give up a few dollars to back the efforts of these daring actors and actresses who have taken such a bold step as this – making a CONSERVATIVE movie.