#WednesdayWordswithFriends welcomes Kathy Bailey!

Good Morning Friends!

Well, July is marching right along. The small writing retreat I attended in Nacogdoches, TX last week was a huge success. We had so much fun and, most importantly, every one of us accomplished our writing goals for the time we were there. I'm heading out tomorrow for Ozark, AL to attend the Dixie Youth World Series but never fear, Wednesday Words with Friends and Saturday Spotlight will still go on. Speaking of which, today's guest is not new to our blog, although it has been a while since she shared thoughts and words with us so please welcome Kathy Bailey back to visit with us!

How shall we then give?

When my husband was in Bible college, we operated on a sliver of a budget. At one of our lowest points I made fish chowder with a can of sardines my mom had sent me in a care package.  Needless to say, we did not have weight problems.
In our small town a middle-aged couple ran a small family nursing home. My husband took on the responsibility of giving them a short religious service on Sunday afternoons, and I went along. After he preached to the dozen or so residents, the owners usually invited us to supper. The wife of the pair always apologized for the meal, explaining that she “just put out a few little things.” Her “little things” included three or four varieties of cold cuts, cheese, sandwich rolls, potato salad, macaroni salad, and several varieties of gelatin salads. It was more food, cumulatively, than we had seen all week.
And the blessed woman often packed leftovers with the comment, “Maybe you can use these. I hate to throw them out.” She made us feel like we were doing her a favor for taking, again, more food than we’d seen all week.
This should have been a Christmas post, and maybe some day I’ll recycle it into one. But it’s equally timely now, as we pick up the pieces of the first worldwide pandemic most of us have ever known.
How did we give?
Did we share our toilet paper, or give up our place in line? Did we tuck a gas card into someone’s Bible, or pick up extra take-out for a friend? Did we pay anything forward, knowing that reciprocation probably wouldn’t happen in this life?
There’s an art to giving. While we shouldn’t devalue our gift, we also shouldn’t make the recipient feel devalued. It’s important to help them retain their dignity. It’s important to approach them with respect. “Can you take this off my hands? I’ve outgrown it/my kids have outgrown it/I bought too much/there was a huge sale and I couldn’t resist.” You will know.
It’s also important not to attach strings. If it’s a gift it’s gone. You can comment if you see the recipient wearing or using the gift, but it ends there. Give and move on.
There’s a fine line between “charity” and “justice,” and I’ve spent years working it out, first as a recipient, then as a giver. A friend who was down on her luck got upset one time when our church gave her a gift card. “I don’t want charity,” she snapped.  We had to lead her to the understanding that if it’s from people who know you, and love you, it’s not charity. It’s justice.
Charity is when you drop a buck in the Salvation Army kettle, or write a check to support people you’ll never see. Needed, necessary, but faceless.
Justice is when you see a need in front of you. A family member, a friend, a church associate. You see it and you take care of it, to the best of your ability. Or you get someone else to take care of it. Because it’s in your face. Because it’s the right thing to do.
And, very often, justice knows WHAT to do. If you know the person who needs your help, you can tailor your giving. The young widow whose “Santa gifts” are provided through a Giving Tree, but who still needs help with stocking stuffers. The first-time parents, just home from the hospital, who could use a heat-able meal—and paper plates.  Charity doesn’t know where its dollars go. Justice knows not only where, but why.
At its shining best, justice isn’t “just” about giving. It’s a bridge between people living out God’s plan on this earth, and someone who needs to know that God loves them.

Kathleen Bailey is a journalist and novelist with 40 years’ experience in the nonfiction, newspaper and inspirational fields. Born in 1951, she was a child in the 50s, a teen in the 60s, a young adult in the 70s and a young mom in the 80s. It’s been a turbulent, colorful time to grow up, and she’s enjoyed every minute of it and written about most of it.
Bailey’s work includes both historical and contemporary fiction, with an underlying thread of men and women finding their way home, to Christ and each other. Her first Pelican book, ‘Westward Hope,” was published in September 2019. This was followed by a novella, “The Logger’s Chrsitmas Bride,” in December 2019. Her second full-length novel, “Settler’s Hope,” was released July 17, 2020.
She lives in New Hampshire with her husband David. They have two grown daughters.
For more information, contact her at ampie86@comcast.net; @piechick1 on Twitter; Kathleen D. Bailey on Facebook and LinkedIn; or at www.kathleendbailey.weebly.com.

After years of wandering, Pace Williams expects to find a home in the Oregon Country. He doesn't expect is to fall in love with a fiery Irishwoman bent on returning home to avenge her people.

Oona Moriarty expects one thing: to exact revenge on the English overlords who took her home. She doesn't expect to fall in love with a man who looks like he's been carved from this Western landscape.

Together they vow to trust the unexpected and settle into a life, but when Pace's ancient enemies threaten to destroy the life they're building, Oona must choose between helping the man she loves and seeking the revenge she craves. 

Get your copy of Settler's Hope at Amazon.

Thank you so much, Kathy for sharing your thoughts on giving. I love how God provided for you and your husband! We should all be willing to meet the needs of others as we see and are able.

Friends, Kathy is giving away THREE different prizes to 3 lucky winners! 

An e-book of Settler's Hope (book 2 in the Western Dreams series). 

A paperback of Westward Hope (book 1 in her Western Dreams series), AND

A New England gift pack. 

*Paperback and gift pack, US only.

Leave a comment to enter her giveaway and for a chance to win my monthly gift card!

Hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check back weekly for Wednesday Words with Friends and Saturday Spotlight.

Until next time, take care, God bless and remember....you can't out-give God!

PamT

#WednesdayWordswithFriends guest Kathy Bailey

Good Morning and Welcome to the first Wednesday in October!

I'm still reeling with disbelief. Where has the time gone? The old adage, 'time flies when you're having fun' keeps running through my head and I have to admit, I did have some fun this year but seriously? It's OCTOBER already?!

Whew! I sure hope we can look back at this year and say we had lots of fun and did lots of good things. Look back and count blessings not trials or disappointments.

Anyway, speaking of time, my friend and fellow Pelican Book Group author, Kathy Baily returns and is sharing some tips on Time Management....

Time Management, I loved you. I loved being efficient, making more than one thing happen at once, and the elusive “being productive.” I LOVED balancing my checkbook in the doctor’s waiting room and folding laundry during a phone call. I relished using every bit of time, like my ancestors used every bit of scrap fabric in a quilt. Well, actually, my people knitted afghans, but I feel a kinship with quilters anyway. Nothing went to waste.

And that’s how it was with you, Time Management. We were a good fit. But now it’s time to break up.

The most I ever remember doing was four things at once: nursing my baby, supervising my toddler in the tub, drying laundry (the dryer was located in the bathroom) and reading my Bible for devotions. I prided myself on being able to do, well, a lot of things. I had two children under 3, no money, and my husband was a full-time church pastor. If I didn’t “do,” it resulted in disaster.

I carried this into the rest of my adult life. Why not sew on Girl Scout badges during the district convention, or read a magazine during the movie previews? Didn’t everybody?

Hey, why NOT do paperwork while my mother lay dying in a hospital room? I was there if she needed me.

I was brought up short – but only barely – when a friend from my old neighborhood came to visit me in my new house. I welcomed her, we made tea in the teapot she brought me for a housewarming gift, and then we settled down for a talk. But I couldn’t just “talk.” I brought out some mending, and stitched merrily away until she asked, “Am I keeping you from something?”

That one changed me, at least as far as multitasking with other people went. I realized how rude that must have seemed, and now, when I have company, I have company. But I continued to juggle projects in private, and to justify it. I read everything I could get my hands (um, my one free hand) on regarding time management, even when, technically, I didn’t have to do it anymore.

I wish my wake-up call had been something less mundane and more spiritual. But I didn’t come to my time-management senses until I hung a purple Nine West bag too near the stove and then proceeded to turn on the WRONG burner, thus scorching a pan beyond use and setting fire to the purse. I don’t remember how many things I was doing that day or what they were. I just knew I had to change.

I’m well out of the active-parenting stage, and I don’t have the time demands pulling on me that I had as a young mother. I do a lot, I have a lot done to me, but it can all be done in sequence. I have no little ones or medium-ones tugging on me, nobody’s bleeding, nobody needs me to feed them or wash their faces or hold them till they sleep.

But I’m thinking even young mothers, or dads, don’t need to time-manage as aggressively as I once did. Children need our attention, and I’m prouder now of the time I did spend with my children than the time I spent “accomplishing” things. Especially since I can’t remember what those “important” things were.

Will I still fold laundry while on a long phone call, or address Christmas cards in front of the television? Most likely. And I’ll probably still haul around a “project bag” for waiting rooms. It is as heavy as the weights at the gym, and I don’t have to pay for it.

But more and more, it’s impressed on me that some things are too precious, or fragile, for double-duty. They deserve my full attention. Friends, my great-nieces and first great-nephew, my husband. Church. (I once made out a Christmas list during a sermon.) And for safety’s sake, anything with an open flame.

And if I had my parents back, I would just sit and look at them for one last time. Without “managing” my own time, because there will never be enough of it.

Time management, we had a good run, but it’s over. I don’t, well, have time for you any more.

                

What’s YOUR worst multitasking blunder, and when did you realize you were doing too much?

                

And what’s your best time management tip?

Great post Kathy! I still get asked how I do everything I do. Being organized is the key to time management for me. I have a monthly planner on my desk and EVERYTHING gets written down in it!

Kathleen Bailey is a journalist and novelist with 40 years’ experience in the nonfiction, newspaper and inspirational fields. Born in 1951, she was a child in the 50s, a teen in the 60s, a young adult in the 70s and a young mom in the 80s. It’s been a turbulent, colorful time to grow up, and she’s enjoyed every minute of it and written about most of it.

She attended a mixture of public and parochial schools, graduating from the University of New Hampshire in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. She married the Rev. David W. Bailey in 1977, and they lived in Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan before returning to their home state of New Hampshire. They are the parents of two adult daughters.

She has worked as both a staff and freelance journalist. She semi-retired in 2017, in order to devote herself to a growing interest in Christian fiction. She has won or finaled in several contests, including the 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis contest. Her debut novel, “Westward Hope,” will be published Sept. 20, 2019 by Pelican/White Rose Publishers.

Bailey’s work includes both historical and contemporary fiction, with an underlying thread of men and women finding their way home, to Christ and each other.

For more information, contact her at ampie86@comcast.net; @piechick1 on Twitter; Kathleen D. Bailey on Facebook and LinkedIn; or at www.kathleendbailey.weebly.com.

Kathy's new book, Westward Hope can be purchased at Amazon for Kindle, and Pelican Book Group in Ebook and Print!

Hope you enjoyed today's post friends and that you'll stop by weekly for Wednesday Words with Friends and Saturday Spotlight.

Until next time take care and God bless.
PamT