After almost a year of silence, partly due to taking on a new job that has been an amazing source of blessing, I think I am long over due to bring my readers up to date on my life!

In addition to seeing a number of my devotionals appear in "The Secret Place" magazine, in January I was invited to be one of four writers coordinating a project for a devotional book on the Beatitudes.  That book, Blessed are You: Meditations on the Beatitudes, was released in March.  It contains about twenty of my devotionals.  I wrote most of the sections on mourning and peacemaking.  Of course, when I was writing on peacemaking, the Lord gave me three clear opportunities to apply these lessons in the lives of people in my church and at work, a special blessing for me as I saw relationships restored.

Four more Chicken Soup for the Soul volumes have come out with my stories in them.  They include Chicken Soup for the Soul's Food and Love,   Inspiration for the Young at Heart,   Family Caregivers,    and  Say Goodbye to Back Pain! I especially like the stories in Food and Love which are stories close to my heart.  And the one in the Family Caregivers is a tribute to Tom, a dear family friend who helped me care for my husband Gene when he was incapacitated by a staph infection inside his spine.  I didn't tell Tom that the story was about him, but just handed him the book and let him discover it for himself.  We both cried as we remembered that difficult time.

Then, just this week, a book review I wrote for the Brethren in Christ journal called History and Life appeared.  I reviewed a book by Elrena Evans called This Crowded Night and Other Stories.  It is a wonderful fictional account of lesser known female figures in the background of Jesus' life.  For example, it includes a story from the perspective of the Bethlehem inn-keeper's wife and the bride at the wedding of Cana.  A strong recommendation for women who enjoy fiction.

And the future?  In August I will be speaking at the Greater Philadelphia  Christian Writers Conference again.  And over Labor Day I will be attending the Christian Communicators Writers Conference at the Billy Graham Center in  North Carolina.  This conference is a special gift to me made possible by a scholarship from Cecil Murphy who is the author of dozens of books and who has generously encouraged new writers all across the world.

Breaking news:  On the spur of the moment I joined a group called the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (www.AWSA.com).  This provides an opportunity for me to interface with other Christian writers and speakers on a regular basis.

On August 6, you can find me filling the role of keynote speaker at the annual Youth Explosion conference in Harrisburg, talking to the teens about sexual purity.  Then in the afternoon I'll be leading two additional workshops on the topic of homosexuality.  I'll focus on the question, How can we extend love to gays without compromising the integrity of scripture?

Next? On August I'm off to the Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference.  There I'll be offering a workshop called "Confidentially Yours: Ethics in non-fiction writing."  This talk will delve into the issues of changing details and using pseudonyms to protect the identity of clients but also ask the question, How much can we change without compromising the truth?

While at the conference, I will also have a chance to meet other AWSA members and to encourage new writers as well.  To find out more about the conference go to www.writehisanswer.com/Philadelphia.

As for my job with Bethany Christian Services, the adoption agency where I began working in March, I have been assigned the responsibility of revising the entire training manual that we use in our post-adoption family groups.

Big news for the new year is that I have signed a contract with Wingspread Publishers for the latest in my series of books on healing human relationships.

Where Help! My Family's Messed Up! focuses on the person who has been the recipient of abuse or anger within his or her family, this new book focuses on the flip side of the coin.

The newest volume is tentatively titled Standing Tall After Falling Short and offers hope to the person who may have made choices in the past, choices that they now regret.  In the process they may have destroyed important trust relationships.  How do they get back up on their feet and move ahead in life without letting the past drag them down?

In the meantime, I'm busy working on my novel, my first full length all-fiction piece.  And tune in as I offer a workshop at the Lancaster Christian Writers Super Saturday Conference on March 19,2011.  You can find details at

http://lancasterchristianwriterstoday.blogspot.com/2010/12/lancaster-christian-writers-december.html

If you don't like waiting, remember you can always go out to the web and visit TheChristianPulse.com where I write a monthly humor column.  Leave a comment and bolster my ratings!

And one more bit of news: I'll be at the Kensington Book Festival to be held in Kensington, MD on April 17th.  For more information, contact the   Stop by and see me!