Take a Breath
"If I can pass through whole days without
noticing God, how can I know that He is here at all? Perhaps I am
just a sugar ant, busying myself with tasks that have little significance
beyond the meaning I give them during my own short life." --
It is easy for us to "underlook" God, yet even when we forget to notice Him, He hasn't turned His attention from us. Charissa Fryberger finds wonder in the many ways God taps us on the shoulder, making us catch our breath in sudden remembrance that He is right here with us. She leads us on a journey of rediscovering God:
in slowly plodding steps up the steep Pikes Peak trail;
in the prayer-soaked walls of an old country church;
in a mirthful sky studded with laughing stars;
in the fearful unknown of a cancer diagnosis;
in the soaked discomfort of a sudden downpour;
in the joy of defying gravity at the moment of take-off;
in the labored trail of a tiny sugar ant.
Her vivid word pictures reveal an overwhelmingly grand and yet comfortably intimate God who is with us daily, hourly, minutely. All we have to do is glance over our shoulders to be astonished again as we catch...
... a breath of fresh God.
Charissa Fryberger and her husband, David, live in wonder at the plot twists and surprises God weaves into the story of their lives. Whether they are climbing the mountains near their home in southern Colorado, exploring the forests of South Carolina, dropping in on any of their four adult children, or adventuring in some out-of-the-way corner of the world, they often catch a breath of fresh God in some unexpected place. Charissa wrote her first "book" in a blue-lined school notebook when she was in the fourth grade. She published her first poem in the seventh grade and by age sixteen was working as a stringer for the local daily newspaper. She published articles, poetry, and essays throughout her college years. After they were married, David offered her a tremendous gift: the opportunity to write full-time while he provided the family income. For the next two years, she freelanced for magazines and literary journals. With the birth of their first daughter, followed in rapid succession by three more babies, writing took a twenty-five-year pause while Charissa and David raised, educated, and loved four dynamic young characters through the opening chapters of their own stories. After working herself out of a job as a homeschool mom, Charissa decided to go back to school herself, earning a master's degree in English at Clemson University. She went onto teach English and public speaking as an assistant professor at Southern Wesleyan University in South Carolina. Their adventure in following Christ continues as Charissa and her husband explore far and near from "basecamp" at their family home in Beulah, Colorado. Everywhere they go, Charissa finds new chapters to write about the transcendent, yet intimate God in whose footsteps they follow.
