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Dikkon Eberhart During the interlude of my blog posts, much has occurred in Channa’s and my lives. Two broken bones and a squamous cell cancer. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. I write stories about my Christian life and the way I experience and think about it. I write my stories in order to encourage seekers who are searching for God. Many of you who read my posts are Christians but certainly not all of you. In fact, some readers who are not Christians are among my most steady readers and responders. Some readers who are not Christians tell me about times when they feel God is searching for them. As my three-year-old granddaughter would say – “That’s funny!” We all have stories to tell. Consider writing yours. Please! Your family, friends, and lots of other people wait to hear from you about your Christian life. People who are seekers and people who are already Christians love to know how your story occurred. Here’s what they want to know-
Please bless those people by answering their questions! I intend my website and my blog posts to help. There is enormous pleasure (and hard work) in writing the story of your Christian life. I am near completion of my next memoir—which is a story of my wife’s and my Christian life. Some of you read my previous memoir about our Christian lives, which developed out of Judaism a decade ago. Many of those readers asked for more detail particularly related to the theological challenges we faced…and, they all wanted to know, “What happened next?” If you haven’t read my previous memoir, it’s available through Amazon or your favorite bookstore—if you shop in western Virginia, please stop at Book No Further in Roanoke and enjoy its wonderful Indie selection, or order from them online--here. Or you can buy it directly from me, autographed however you like. See details here. So here’s what’s new, for you, with my blog posts. My intent, after Channa’s and my time of broken bones and minor cancer, is to give you, as a reader, Insider access to my process of completing my new memoir. Insider access is for subscribers only. All subscribers may have Insider access, but it must be requested. Insiders will receive sections of the memoir as they are fitted into the overall manuscript. I’ve been using assistant readers. Some Insiders may become assistant readers, if they wish. Once I reach the conceptual editing stage, Insiders’ advice about pace, content, emphasis, structure, etc. will be valuable to me and will be acknowledged in the book itself. At this moment, I have not settled on a title. Insiders may be asked to vote on their choice among several titles. And there’s even more planned for Insiders. I’ll announce more later. Here’s what my new memoir is about. For the longest time, before Channa and I knew we were living God’s Plan, we were living God’s Plan. The Trinity saved us. God spoke to me. Jesus dazzled me. The Holy Spirit emboldened us. We broke away from our urgency to sin. We broke away from our urgency. We did not stop sinning. We are humans. Sinning is what we do--also we praise. We broke away, too, from Jewish substitutionary animal sacrifice and have been saved instead by Christ’s Own Blood. Here’s my plan, for you – Subscribe and, if you wish, be an Insider. You will experience my memoir writing, as it develops-- AND Each subscriber will receive a FREE downloadable pdf copy of my new Christian focus book, which is entitled What Would the World Miss Without Your Christian Story? Please Write It 
In it, I distill my experience and knowledge from years of writing my memoir and of helping others to write their memoirs. They may be writing--
I include bullet-pointed lists of things you must do as you undertake your own writing. Here’s everything you need--
Here’s my plan, for me-- Most of my writing attention is directed at completing my new Christian book. I’m re-launching my blog posts and have re-designed elements of my website to narrow its focus in that direction. Some future posts will be of the former sort and will still be listed under the headings God or Life, as appropriate. Most new posts will be different. They’ll be listed under the heading Writing. They’ll actually be writing, or they’ll be about the process and problems of writing. For example,
Further, I am changing the time of the posts. Instead of posting at 11 am on Fridays, I’ll post at 2 pm on Saturdays, US Eastern Time. Until further notice, although I will usually post weekly, I may not post some weeks at all. If you notice me not posting on some week, you can know that I am writing very hard just then on the new book! …and, as one assistant reader of my new book suggested that I say to you in this announcement post, don’t expect an entire meal with each post. Sometimes you’ll just get an appetizer. (This reader is referencing one of my former writing jobs—almost five years as an anonymous, weekly restaurant critic for the largest newspaper in Maine!) So what have Channa and I been up to? In January, Channa’s foot caught on an irregularity of an external brick staircase, and she fell and broke her left upper arm—her humerus—so that the ball in her shoulder socket was split three ways. This was not so humorous, ha ha! Having never broken a bone before, Channa was both alarmed by and surprised by the intensity of the pain involved. The drug she was given for the pain was baffling, too, since her brain is usually very discerning and the drug’s effect was to dull her brain, though it did also dull her pain. We considered shoulder replacement and at first leaned that way, but in the end we decided to allow the Lord’s design for healing to take its natural course. Channa lived in a sling. Our orthopedist impressed us with one of his comments while we debated surgery versus natural healing. He said he could give Channa a new shoulder, and that he is very good at doing it. It’s his specialty. But, he admitted, with her particular variety of break, statistically there is negligible difference in terms of recovery of former range of motion between surgery and the human body’s natural healing. Then this top surgeon said something that I loved to hear, from a top surgeon. “Yes, I’d love to give you a new shoulder, but also it’s good for us physicians to remain humble.” Our choice of natural healing proved to be a success, and, using physical therapy, Channa has regained most of the former movement of her left shoulder. Now she can work on regaining her former strength, which she has begun to do at the gym. But not so fast. A few days after Channa felt relief that her shoulder had finally healed (and after she had starting to drive again), she tried to stop our youngest grandson from dashing off the edge of our deck. He was then thirteen months old, and we didn’t even know he could dash! She fell and cracked her right patella—her kneecap. But this time it was almost funny. This break didn’t hurt. This time she was given a long straight brace to immobilize her leg so that she walked like a peg-legged woman pirate. (And she was back to no driving.) Over time, her patella healed completely, but, in the meantime, a red spot on my right cheek was finally diagnosed from a biopsy as a malignant squamous cancer, though fortunately in situ (on the surface of the skin and not yet inside). So while Channa was managing her kneecap back to health, I was reacting to the first time a doctor had said to me, “I need to tell you that you have malignant cancer.” The cancer was successfully removed. Channa and I take these incidents as welcome alerts from the Lord. You’re going to die is what we understand that He is saying to us; just not this time. Something’s going to need to kill you—unless I send My Son back first. So pay attention to the work I have set for you now—I and my Son and my Spirit. And encourage others to write their stories, too. Let everyone I am searching for—as I was searching for you—know of the joy that is within you, AND WHY. Pay attention!
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