Make a Difference!

* Summer is coming to a close, and so will "Friday's Summer Fruits" series! It has been good to share random "fruit" during this season of random routines. Thanks for doing some planting and growing this season. Hope your summer has been fruitful; now the harvest time is calling! - dho

My last summer fruit is a book that I just finished by Deidra Riggs called Every Little Thing, with a foreward by Ann Voskamp Last fall I had the lovely experience of sharing a table (and dinner) with Deidra and her delightful mother when I attended a Christian Women's Writers' Conference called Allume. Deidra, an author and speaker, brings the truth as she reminds that God chooses us to do His work. Our excuses are many. Her language convicts us:

We are "just" the car pool lane sitters, the diaper changers, the dish washers, the cubicle workers, the second-job holders, the lawn mowers, the pancake flippers, the rule followers, the occasional Sunday morning churchgoers, the Saturday night Netflixers, the Facebook status updaters, the one-mile joggers, the regular everyday ordinary us. -Deidra Riggs 

Not only does God choose us, He loves us, forgives us, and equips us for the tasks. Riggs tells personal stories that take you from her experience to her revelation about God. She tells it like it is: We either want significance or we want God. We must surrender to God's plan by laying down our personal agendas, the choices we think will look best, the options that others pick for us. 

As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God's interests. Oswald Chambers 

Deidra, a pastor's wife, writes about being authentic, about being who we are, about living in the present moment, about living "the gospel of Christ". "Christ invites us...to be exactly who we are, in the places we find ourselves, and to be infused with the salty goodness that comes when we surrender our lives and our agendas and our hopes and dreams to the power and the control of the Holy Spirit." Words that encourage and empower fill the pages. Check out Deidra's website which gives you glimpses into her speaking and a new book coming soon! -dho

Deidra Riggs is a blogger, author, speaker. She and her husband live in Nebraska and have two adult children. http://www.deidrariggs.com/