Blog Issues & NaNoWriMo Updates

Hello all! 🙂

Firstly, I’d like to cover the blog issues. It looks like for the past few months, every time I’ve attempted to follow a blog, it was rejected. I thought this was a problem with my dial-up Internet and Windows XP system, and since I upgraded, all problems should be fixed. But I realized yesterday that I still could not follow blogs. I contacted support (they were so nice and helpful over there) and they told me that my account had been mistakenly flagged as an anti-spam measure for bulk following, and they fixed it. Therefore, if I made a mention that I was following you and then I disappeared, it was because I thought I was following you but I wasn’t.   I’m so glad this is fixed now!

 

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And now for the NaNoWriMo update:

I’m a bit behind still, but I’m planning to catch up. 🙂 And I just added an excerpt from my novel. I know that not all of you have NaNoWriMo accounts to view it, so I’m including it in this post so you all can read it if you wish. 

“He gives and He takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. That was Job’s way of dealing with loss.”

She knew now that she had been horribly wrong about Him. Maybe this was not about whether she believed, it was about whether she accepted Him. She was angry with Him; why could He not save the ones near to her?

Her sister’s words returned to her – she had said the same thing years ago, but she brushed them off because she did not want to hear.

It all started to make sense to her. She did not think that He did not exist; she only kidded herself to make Him feel the same pain that she had felt, and in the process, bit off her nose to spite her face.

She would not reject Him any longer. She fell to her knees. Holy is the Lamb. Good is her God. Loving was her Father. All her anger melted away into a puddle and was never remembered again.

Forgiveness was a powerful thing. Her burdens dropped from her shoulders and she felt lightweight, though that could be possible that she also lost weight by now.

But could her parents and sister forgive her? She knew that God was a loving God, and that He forgave because He died so that He could forgive. And defeat sin and death.

But—

She had to believe that they did. She just had to.

She opened her journal to write and realized what day this was.

Her sixteenth birthday.

She almost cried, thinking of what kind of sweet sixteen she was missing out on. And then she did cry when she realized that even if she was home having a party, her family was dead and would not be there.

It would not be a fun party.

She was half glad that she was alone and in survival mode because if she was not, she was sure she would fall to pieces.

She went to the beach and carefully built herself a cake made out of the sand, and found some sticks and stuck them in the top, pretending that they were candles with flames dancing around the wick. She pretended that her family was there with her, and blew out the fake flames.

There would be presents, and she made sandboxes with sand bows on the top and imagined what could be in there. A new purse? New jewels? An espresso maker? Items that she may have taken for granted before, but would be luxurious to have now.

She knew that soon, the high tide would wipe away her cake and presents – any trace that she had even made them. All she would have left were the memories and the memories that could have been if her parents had still been alive.

She walked the island aimlessly. It was hard to get lost; she knew the majority of it and it was so small that if she did lose her way, she could walk until she hit the beach and keep going until she stumbled upon the rocky cove or until she saw the tips of the orange tree.

Happy birthday. Sure. Not anymore. No birthday would ever be the same. It would just denote another year gone by without her family. Another reminder of how much time had passed since the tragedy that changed her life forever.