real . risk . love . hurt . worth it?

vulnerable & authentic -
yes or no?
love - are you open to it?
gentle - welcome the quiet moments?
risk - play it safe or open your heart?
pain - can you endure?
alive - do you feel it?
real - are you real?

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time.

That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

- Margery Williams, from The Velveteen Rabbit

IT GOES ON - appreciating life today

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - actually said by Abe Lincoln


In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on. - Robert Frost


There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved.
- George Sand, French Romantic Writer

Mom's Little Angel

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Gregory E. Lang (of Daddy's Little Girl and Why a Daughter Needs a Dad fame) hits big this month with his very marketable new release titled: Mom's Little Angel: Stories of the Special Bond Between Mothers and Daughters (HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollins).

Doesn't the book title, like the cover, conjure up happy angelic times between a Mom and a daughter? Well, this Mom (of daughters) opens her mail today to find a copy of Lang's new book for review in an envelope. It then gets thrown in a royal blue J. Crew leather bag, stuffed under backpacks and lunches, and later found again on the kitchen counter making a nice stand for the leaky Children's Tylenol fever reducer. Lucky me, my angel Tess is home from preschool (again) after a very long weekend. Did I mention this weekend was long?

Now, as Skye (9) works on her homework reluctantly, screaming "Mom do you have a calculator" from rooms away, and Tess is complaining about her eyelids burning (fever reducer is just kicking in again), and this Mom-doctor-writer is wondering how to carve out the quiet space to give the book the attention it deserves - I finally breathe. The liquid medicine does get wiped off at some point and I grab snippets here and there.

Lang's book does deserve the attention it will get because it accurately highlights this special bond between a mother and daughter, whether in angelic moments or in chaos and insanity, the underlying emotion is love. Love! You will feel this love as you rip through the pages. Most stories (and I've perused most today stealing opportunities as they revealed themselves) give those mommy-heartstrings a tug. But more often than not, my reaction is more like a chill or shiver followed by a welled-up-tear. The selected stories bring forth pure emotion.

Lang says whereas Dad's are the heroic figures for daughters, Mom's are more like the constants in their daughters' lives (as I write this I am of course mindful of the exceptions & sad losses). This book celebrates the constants with applause. The author, being a parent himself, cheers for the daily moments rather than the superhero events. Mom's are the everyday life of the family. This resonates to the core with me since my Simple Grace Book Series is all about celebrating the daily moments in life and feeling the simple grace when it comes.

What comes to mind? Everything you would think - the obvious - heartwarming tales, teary times, warm embraces, skinned knees and Band aids. But Lang delivers more, which readers will welcome, with quotes like: "Too many times I've saved the good stuff for tomorrow, only to find out it was yesterday" and "I never thought I would be good at being a mother, but the moment I looked at my newborn daughter's face, I knew I would do anything and everything for my beautiful baby."

No doubt Mom's Little Angel will become the staple for the Mother's Day and new baby gift market, but it is more than that.

It is a tribute to the struggles mothers and daughters face that are often not mentioned in our sweep-it-under-the-carpet-sunshine-and-roses-world. No, not all the good stuff is spoon fed here. What I like most is the realness of his writing and the stories showing the difficulties in all our lives. We learn that angels aren't pretty and pink with lace and wings but they do come in the form of our little girls - muddy and sloppy and funny and silly and, like mine, with aches and pains and fevers.

Swallow this: "Any woman who survives raising a daughter like me deserves an award!" Well, here you go Mom. Thank you! You are the angel! Would I be a bad Mom if I went and told my daughters that one day they might be grateful too?

No? They'll find out on their own one day? OK, I'll file the blog and go start cooking dinner.

Book Bonus:
- gorgeous black and white imagery
- two dozen intimate stories only 1-3 pages long that will touch your soul
- a couple blank "share your memory" pages
- and my personal copy is signed - "To Beth and her Angels: Peace and joy be with you always!" Gregory E. Lang

Simple Grace - Miracle Moments

C.S. Lewis wrote about amazing miracles. This topic, miracles, never gets old for me. I could devour miracle stories. This is why I'm writing my next book about miraculous moments that happen to all of us. Miracles!

Submit your miracle moments now! My next book (2010 release) is Simple Grace Miracle Moments. Every person has one. You have one. These are simple moments of grace that happen to you, often without even realizing it.

You might brush a miracle moment off as "a coincidence." Or you may assume that miracles only happen to saints. But look around you, share your story. What miracle has happened in your life.

There could be a miracle unfolding right now.

Simple Grace Miracle Moments is to be a collection of miracle stories and moments that happen to all of us - everyday "folk" who live "ordinary lives." Watch for the extraordinary in your life.

Send it in. 50 words to 5 pages. It's up to you. If it fits in nicely with this book it may be used in print. Only send if you are okay with seeing your miracle in a book. Names can be changed - and this can be a miracle moment you "heard" happened to someone else. The best kinds of stories are the ones that are passed on through friends and family.

The only rule here: It should give the reader goosebumps! Or, as a friend of mine calls them, Godbumps. You can email me directly: bethjannery@gmail.com

allowing love to come into your life

When you are present in this moment,
you break the continuity of your story, of past and future.
Then true intelligence arises,
and also love.
The only way love can come into your life
is not through form, but through that inner spaciousness that is Presence.
Love has no form. - Eckert Tolle