My deepest thanks to Southern Distinction Magazine for listing Give My
Love to the Chestnut Trees and me in “Stories of Georgia,” a review of Georgia novelists
in their just released current issue. I’m honored to be included.
A couple of years ago, I wrote here
about the summer our family spent zigzagging this country in a borrowed RV. The
series called Dream Summer is here. One
of our favorite memories from that time is of visiting the Ingalls family homestead
in South Dakota as well as the Mansfield home in Missouri where Laura Ingalls
Wilder wrote the Little House books.
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The house in Mansfield, Missouri where Laura wrote the Little House books |
We face many kinds of wildernesses.
“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who
blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on
with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no
parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished
this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where
he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with
anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in
the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in
your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of
hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”
(Hebrews 12:1-3 The Message).