Writing Something God Can Use {an interview with Annie Downs}

Annie Downs

Elisabeth: A very warm welcome to Kindred Grace! We have reviewed your book From Head to Foot in the past, and are excited for you now that it has been picked up by a traditional publisher and found a new life as Perfectly Unique. But before you ever wrote a book, you were a blogger [...]

Mended: Review & Giveaway

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Angie Smith didn’t set out to become a writer. Her blog, Bring the Rain, was begun as a way to keep family and friends up-to-date with the arrival of her fourth daughter, who was diagnosed as “incompatible with life.” Audrey Caroline lived a lifetime of just a few hours, but her mama kept right on [...]

The Silence of God

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Does God speak to us in modern times? Some Christians say yes; some say no. Some feel that He guides us indirectly through the Bible, counsel from wise people, a feeling of peace in our hearts, plus our circumstances and our God-given common sense. Since I graduated from homeschool, my life verse has been Proverbs [...]

A Lifelong Love of Learning

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Recently, I was chatting with an Armenian-American friend about the foods I enjoy in Israel. When she heard I’m a fan of tabouleh salad, she invited me to her home to eat some. And there I learned the lesson any down-home American cook knows. Just as every woman’s potato salad or apple pie is just [...]

Loving Every Age

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As a child, I looked ahead to certain ages. Ten was special: double digits at last! Thirteen would make me a teenager. Sixteen would be sweet, seventeen even more delightful, and eighteen: downright grown-up. Remember Susan in the Narnia books? “She was always a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.” “Grown-up indeed,” said the [...]

learning to be real

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While you’re learning to be real, it’s essential to fix your eyes fully on Jesus.

Cure for the Common Crush (part 2)

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I’ve learned that as a follower of Jesus, telling myself the truth is my full-time responsibility. And very often that truth-telling means confronting my own thinking about a guy.

Cure for the Common Crush (part 1)

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How many different emotions do you have every day? Dozens, scores, maybe even hundreds? Let’s just say that if the average woman was an air-traffic controller and her emotions were incoming planes, she’d have a full-time job telling them where (and where not) to land. Some of the most persistent and challenging of all my [...]

Oh, Jerusalem

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Oh Jerusalem, you’ve given me so much this weekend: adventure, good fellowship, a sun-burned nose, and a heart-full for pondering.

From Head to Foot

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Annie Downs loves Scotland, ice cream, and unexpected shades of nail polish. Even more, she loves Jesus — and talking about Jesus to girls like you…and me. I’m older than Annie’s intended audience. In fact, I’m even a little older than Annie herself. But she had me from the very beginning: from the snow day [...]