Rebekah Lyn – Page 2 – Rebekah Lyn Books

Personal Correspondence

Over the past few years, I’ve increasingly found myself thinking about the practice of writing letters and cards. Written correspondence has been a part of human communication for centuries; a way to share the news of the day and provide encouragement. After my grandmother passed away, my mom and I spent long hours going through her papers and found letters from her sisters. My grandmother was one of twelve siblings, most of who remained in North Carolina after she moved to Florida.

Often the letter was just a quick note to let my grandmother know they had made it back home after a visit to Florida and some kind words about their stay. Some were longer updates on what was happening with the family in North Carolina and inquires after my grandmother and the family here in Florida.

I have my own box of important letters that I’ll either need to deal with before I leave this world or they’ll provide entertainment for whoever is tasked with my estate. A few years ago I threw away hundreds of letters my high school best friend and I exchanged. We got to a point where we were writing so much we took to just transferring a notebook between us, using code names to talk about the boys we thought were cute. I still have a couple of those notebooks just for kicks and wish I could remember those code names.

I’ve started taking more time to purchase cards to let friends or family know I’m thinking about them. Phone calls are nice and have their appropriate time, but there is something about sending and receiving a card that, to me, resonates sincere consideration and care. A card of encouragement sent during a difficult time can be held onto and pulled out when the crush of despair washes over you, a reminder that there is someone out there thinking about you and loving you.

It’s a shame the US postage stamp keeps rising in cost. I might consider sending letters about the mundanities of life to some of my friends and family to keep in touch in a more personal fashion, without worrying about the prying eyes of hackers or the chance a social media platform is selling my “private” messages to the highest bidder.

Maybe as I get older I am becoming more sentimental, but I did come across an article in Medium a couple weeks ago advocating bringing back handwriting. The article referenced studies that show students who take notes in longhand tend to retain more information that those that typed notes. I can attest that I did better in school when I was handwriting notes, even writing practice essays before tests. I believe there is a connection between the brain, the heart, and the written word. I still journal in longhand and the act of doing so helps to calm me when I’m anxious or bring peace when I feel sorrow.

Working on this blog led me to pull my box of letters from the closet.

I opened it and found at some point I had taken time to bundle some of the letters and cards together. Those bundles were all from individuals with separate items thrown in at later dates. The oldest letter I identified came from my elementary school best friend, most likely over our summer break. I was surprised at how many letters I had exchanged with one of my high school friends who moved out of state during our sophomore year and even more shocked at the number of letters from one of my college friends. We continued paper correspondence even though email had come along (albeit recently). I loved seeing these names and glimpsing at some of the letters. I could sit for hours reading them and remembering the good times we shared.

Do you think hand written notes will make a comeback?

My friend, Mike, is an excellent photographer who recently asked me what I thought about notecards. I, of course, told him I love them (I actually have a stockpile from days of compulsive shopping). When he showed me the prototype of some cards he was thinking about selling, I thrilled with the possibilities. By the time we finished talking, I’d given him ideas for several collections of notecards using his photos.

In recognition of Mike’s talent, and in an effort to bring back personal written correspondence, I’m giving away a set of his notecards. If you’d like to see more of his work or purchase some cards, you can find his shop on Etsy at www.mtigreetingcards.com

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Humbled and Encouraged

I am humbled and encouraged when I see the way God works in my life.

My last book, Destiny’s Call, launched without much fanfare and has limped along at an unsatisfying pace. For a variety of reasons I haven’t put forth much effort to market this new venture, so I’m not complaining about the slow progress, but I had been feeling rather discouraged. Then, a few weeks ago, a friend mentioned a new christian bookstore had opened in town. I immediately went to check it out.

It’s a lovely shop, but I was surprised when I first walked in and didn’t see any books. There were unique children’s games, collectible figurines, and a variety of other gifts. Along a back wall there was a large variety of Bibles and then in one corner was a bookshelf with a dozen or so books.

It was the middle of the day and not very busy so the owner, Nadia, started talking to me, telling me they’d only been open about a week and sharing some of the plans she and her husband, Sam have for the store. Nadia has an infectious energy that draws people in. She mentioned she wants to work with local vendors so the shop will have unique items rather than things that can be found in any box store.

I felt so comfortable talking to her that I, without a single hesitation or gulp of fear, asked if she was interested in working with local authors. She emphatically agreed that she was and I took a few minutes to tell her a bit about myself. When she asked if I would mind leaving her a copy of one of my books for her to look at, I was thrilled to tell her I had some in the car and I would run get one for her.

Of course I gave her Undaunted, since it is a local story. Nadia and her husband, are still relatively new to town, and Jessie Cole’s story is a great way to learn about the history of the community.

Within 48 hours, Nadia had emailed me to say she would be very interested in working with me. We quickly set up a plan and my books now appear on her shelves alongside several other local authors.

As soon as I walked out of the store that first day, before we even had an agreement, I felt God at work. Energy filled my heart and the discouragement that had weighted me down for months lightened.

Having made a connection with a couple who have a bold love of God and a desire to serve our community encourages me that a spirit of service and fellowship will fill our streets, our businesses, our churches, and our homes. I feel like God has big plans in store for Nadia and Sam and I am honored that my books may be a part of that journey for them.

If you live in Titusville or you come to see a launch, be sure to stop in and say hello to Nadia (and Sam if he’s there) at New Beginnings Christian Bookstore in the Titusville Mall on US 1.

Finding Spring

In Florida we tend to take spring for granted. We don’t experience the dull, brown days of winter those further north endure for months on end. Bulb based flowers, such as tulips and daffodils, which are such hallmarks of spring, don’t flourish here. Most years, the only signs of spring are a handful of trees that shed their leaves for a few weeks in late January and start budding out new growth in late February. While we have experienced more winter and spring-like weather this year, I decided I wanted to experience a taste of real spring, so I spent a week in March at my family’s home in North Carolina.

The white blossoms of the Dogwood and Bradford Pear trees drew my attention right away, a blaze of color in a landscape that still had a lot of brown waiting to awaken. I didn’t have many plans for this trip, other than enjoy the scenery and work on some editing. I spent nearly an hour my first full day, just walking around the yard, enjoying the daffodils, hyacinths, mini-grape hyacinths, and sacred heart blooms, and marveling at the various stages of growth the ofnumerous peonies. Did you know that the older the peonies plant is, the faster it grows? Some were already close to a foot tall while others were just inches out of the ground.

I arrived late on Friday, and my mom was excited to tell me about a new place where we could go pick our own tulips. We stopped by on Sunday but couldn’t tell if they were open. On Monday went back and this time saw the sign saying that they are closed on Sunday and Monday. Finally, on Tuesday, after a failed attempt to check out a new restaurant, we made it to the tulip farm.

The land was terraced with rows of tulips as well as beds of hyacinths. Some of the rows were marked off for a local resort, but there were still plenty for me to choose from. There were a couple of variations I’ve never seen before and I probably spent more time taking pictures than actually cutting flowers.

The woman who owns the place was lovely and we had a nice chat while we wrapped up my purchase. Turns out she is from Florida, too. I found myself feeling a bit envious of her second home’s bountiful beauty. With threatening clouds on the horizon, mom and I took my cheerful bouquet home and I set about editing a few chapters in my “work in progress” waiting for the storm to move in.

Yes, the Dream is Alive

This past weekend SpaceX launched their Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule filled with supplies for the International Space Station. Supply missions are pretty routine, but there were two things that made this one special. It was the first SpaceX launch in Florida after one of their rockets exploded during a fueling test last fall. and, this is the really important item, it was their first launch from pad 39A. For those who aren’t space geeks, pad 39A was the launch site for all the Apollo missions as well as many of the Space Shuttle missions. This is also the site from which SpaceX will launch their missions to Mars.

While I wasn’t able to be on the coast for the launch, thankfully, technology allowed me to be a part of the action through Twitter and live streaming. The launch was scheduled for 10:01 a.m. eastern time Saturday, February 18. I went on Twitter and watched #SpaceX. There were updates on the countdown and comments from people around the world excited for the launch. About thirty minutes before launch I found a live stream and listened to that right up to the hold called at T-minus13 seconds, which ended up aborting the mission for the day. I think the second attempt on Sunday, February 19 at 9:39 a.m. had even more Twitter engagement with new tweets coming in twenty to thirty at a time as I refreshed the screen every few seconds. I also have sources who informed me that there was an impressive crowd in the Port Canaveral/Cocoa Beach area both days. I had expected the spectators to drop off a little for Sunday’s attempt as the weather was less than inviting with rain early and heavy clouds until mid-afternoon.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve been working on a new book, a follow-up to Jessie, which is set on the Space Coast. I’ve spent so much time with the main character, Jessie Cole, that some of his personality traits have woven their way into my own life. I saw this launch through his eyes, all of the future potential it represents and the history it builds upon. SpaceX had planned to send their first robotic mission to Mars in 2018, but has pushed that back to 2020 after some challenges they experienced last year.

I admit, I’ve been skeptical about our chances of getting to Mars in my lifetime. My dad retired from the Space Center in 2010, and for years prior to that we knew about plans NASA was working on for a vehicle that could make the trip into deep space. Those plans have been in the works for over a decade with little to show for it. During my research for Jessie and this current book (title still pending), I read Deke Slayton’s memoir He said something in it that captured the feelings I had as the Shuttle program was winding down. I don’t have the book on hand to quote it directly so I will use the paraphrase from my notes. In March of 1972 NASA announced the Space Shuttle model. What had been planned as a three pronged program with farther reaching goals including the Space Shuttle, a space station and a space tug had been stripped down to just the Shuttle. Essentially the Shuttle was turned into a truck with nowhere to go.

I believe the Shuttle accomplished many things and brought us new scientific data we couldn’t have found any other way, but I also feel like some of the momentum the country had gained upon reaching the moon was lost when we attached ourselves to low earth orbit for so many years. Here’s where some of Jessie’s personality comes out in me. I believe, if he were here now (instead of back in 1989 where I left him), he would question if we could have established a colony on Mars already if we had kept pushing back in the 1980s and 1990s. We developed an entire industry out of nothing, made it from the first manned launch to the moon is a little over eight years. Now we stand on the precipice of fifty years since that first moon landing and man hasn’t stepped foot on another planet.

I had feared that the country no longer cared about space exploration, but my experience over the weekend, watching people post pictures of themselves either in Florida awaiting the launch or at their desks and living rooms streaming the coverage from the internet renews my hope that we are still enthusiastic about going beyond our earthly borders. I plan to keep a close eye on the developments at SpaceX as well as the other private companies vying for contracts to transport astronauts. I have confidence one of these will be the leader that takes us to another planet in my lifetime.

If you would like to learn more about Jessie Cole and his passion for space, you may purchase Jessie in eBook and paperback on most online book stores, Or you can check your local library’s Overdrive dashboard.