Author: Carrie Sue Barnes

Carrie Sue Barnes is a fiction author and blogger who fell in love with creative writing as a grade schooler in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She resides now in Wisconsin with her family, often pulling her love for the Midwest into her writing. Carrie Sue's debut novel, The Hidden Legacy, was released in 2018 by Bold Vision Books to strong reviews. Since then, she has published several short stories and continues to write short fiction and faith-inspired reflections on this site. Carrie Sue loves reading, kayaking, hugging her children and friends, rewatching The Office, and connecting with readers in person and on social media.
Writing

Slacking Off

Carrie Sue Barnes

This weekend a friend asked what was the deal with my lack of blogging. It’s been a few weeks since my last post and the previous posts have been spread out much more than usual. My sister, who heard my friend’s comment, immediately suggested that I’ve been too well occupied with other things to be blogging. It’s true I’ve been happily occupied elsewhere but I don’t think it’d be right to place the blame on my new and wonderful boyfriend. At least, not all the blame. Even before things got started with him my blogging pace had flagged. That’s just a symptom of something more, I think, because all my writing has flagged.

Each time I try to sit down to work on The Mercy Hour I am unable to do so. Distraction, discouragment, uncertainty… I’m not in best writing form right now. I’m hoping and praying I’ll be able to shake it – whatever ‘it’ is. The thorough and harsh critique I received recently from an editor on my submission of Full of Days might have something to do with it… or a lot to do with it. Rejection after rejection has come and it’s been easy to keep up my determined and positive spirit. This was the first one though that included a critique instead of the prewritten rejection response that is sent by most publishers. Criticism can be a really good thing and it’s a necessary thing for a writer, at least, for any writer who wants to continually improve. This criticism amounted to (and no, I’m not imagining this implication, it’s there in the email) the editor being of the opinion that Full of Days is unpublishable. I’m not going to pretend that I’m having an easy time dealing with that. So far my dealing has been in the form of avoidance. Eventually I will switch to perservance and put in the work necessary to improve the novel to point of being publishable in the eyes of the right publishing company. Just give me some time to get there, friends.

Holiness, Jesus, Scripture

Put On

Carrie Sue Barnes

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:12-17)

It’s tough to settle on just one or two pieces of this favorite passage to focus on in this post. Even the very first phrase brings me into deep contemplation. “Put on then…” Living a holy life, a beautiful life, a pure life, a good life – it’s a choice of your free will. It is not put on you by someone else; it is not lived by default. Consciously, willfully, purposefully… that is how we are to daily put on the new life in God that we receive by Baptism. Whether I put it on yesterday or the day before or ever before, today I can put it on. Everything that follows (or has the potential to follow with God’s grace and our efforts) hinges on us first choosing to live that life. Each day… each situation… each relationship; in all circumstances we can choose to live according to the truth of who we are as children of God, made in His image, redeemed by Him, possessing dignity beyond measure and a purpose beyond this world. We make that choice to cloak ourselves in the love, grace and discipline of Christ and we open the gates to all that God wishes to make of our lives.

Faith, Hope, Scripture

Not Go Empty

Carrie Sue Barnes

The brook near where Elijah was hiding ran dry, because no rain had fallen in the land. So the LORD said to Elijah: “Move on to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have designated a widow there to provide for you.” He left and went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the entrance of the city, a widow was gathering sticks there; he called out to her, “Please bring me a small cupful of water to drink.” She left to get it, and he called out after her, “Please bring along a bit of bread.”
She answered, “As the LORD, your God, lives, I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do as you propose. But first make me a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son. For the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’” She left and did as Elijah had said. She was able to eat for a year, and Elijah and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry,as the LORD had foretold through Elijah.
1 Kings 17:7-16

This is the first reading for Mass today. I was reading it this morning while I ate waffles and put off thoughts of the workday for a few more minutes. It is one of my favorite Old Testament passages because of its portrayal of the providence of God. A prophet traveling through the land, dependent upon others to support him but meeting persecution in many places; a widowed mother enduring the famine and fully aware of the direness of her conditions; a command from God to count on Him… Like weights on a scale, the risk of trusting God will come through sits heavily in the heart of the woman. She cannot see what, if anything, will be set on the opposite end of the scale. Will her need be met? Will the risk be balanced?

It wouldn’t be risk and it wouldn’t be trust if she could forsee exactly how God might provide for her.

She risks and she trusts and God does not merely balance things out but truly overwhelms the need and anxiety by His generosity and faithfulness.

Photography

Chasing

Carrie Sue Barnes

Last night I chased down a sunset. From my front step I am only allowed a teasing glimpse of the end of day, closed in as we are by trees and houses and low elevation. Yet last night’s glimpse was everything necessary to know this sunset needed to be chased. It was not one of the many that can warrant a glance and nothing more. It deserved to be seen. So I drove. I turned up the music in my little sedan, lowered the window to let my elbow meet the wind, and I drove. Farm field after farm field was passed as I moved further from town and nearer to the middle of nowhere. Barn peaks and silos inserted themselves on the glowing orange canvas of the quickly fading sunset. It was magnificent. I got absolutely no photos that do it justice and I didn’t care a bit. Turning around, heading home, restricting the colors to only my rearview mirror… I really didn’t want to go. The music was turned up a little more, my whole arm hung outside the open window and I drove back into the valley, chasing nothing.

Friendship, Personal Reflection

Missing

Carrie Sue Barnes

What is it about today that has me missing a particular friend so terribly? I can’t put my finger on it. All I know is that it’s hitting me hard today. He has been the definition of “a good friend” for the last few years – good for a laugh, good for a hug, good for counsel, good for conversation. Due to some particularly trying circumstances, we’ve had to go our separate ways other than an occasional email. I miss him… and today I miss him more than usual.

My priest often comments on how we all have to learn the difficult lesson of letting go of certain relationships at the proper time. When clinging to it or remaining in it would undermine what was good in the relationship in the first place, or when the other person is keeping you from continuing on the road the Lord is taking you down, the question arises of whether that person is supposed to be in your life any longer (or you in theirs). His remarks had yet to hit home for me, not because I’ve never seen someone leave my life or experienced an end to a relationship but because all those endings have happened quite naturally. For one to end when nothing in me wants it to end… to have to make that choice because I know it must be made but nothing thereafter makes me glad it has ended… that’s a new experience for me and not one that I am enjoying.

Intentionality

Early Rising

Carrie Sue Barnes

We’ve now come upon the time of year when the morning sunlight is already filling my bedroom by a little after 5 a.m. My friends think I’m crazy for only keeping a white curtain over my window, nothing to keep the room dark while I sleep in the morning hours. But that’s just me. This time of year, I start getting up 30 or 45 minutes earlier than necessary a few times a week just because the sunlight is all it takes to get me out of bed. I wake with a small smile on my face as I realize I don’t have to hear my alarm clock sound because I’ve woken before the time for which it’s set. When I do sleep until that time, I have fewer grumbling words for the chipper radio DJ rousing me to consciousness. Not every day, of course, but plenty of days.

This particular morning was one of those days. Daylight (not sunlight for the clouds had come in during the night) illuminated that white curtain and I was awake and eager to be upright. My legs held a bit of stiffness from the tennis games played the night before but I stretched them out and dressed for a walk. I scrolled through my iPod and let Switchfoot’s “Beautiful Letdown” take me out the door. The rain, only a sprinkle at first, began almost as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk but the temperature held some lovely warmth and the rain did too. 30 minutes of me and God and the music. 30 minutes of footfalls on empty roads. I stopped for five of those minutes at a neighborhood park as the swingset proved to be irresistible. That first hour or so of daylight holds an aspect of peace belonging exclusively to it. There is a sort of authority in the sun’s light compelling me to awaken and acknowledge it. And I don’t mind at all.
Faith, Jesus, Love, Scripture

Gift

Carrie Sue Barnes

Although the Church at large celebrated the great feast of the Ascension of the Lord this past Sunday, I found myself that morning reading the Mass readings for the 7th Sunday of Easter. Those details don’t mean much to you unless you’re familiar with the Catholic liturgical calendar. My point is that before anyone else in the house woke up on Sunday, I tucked myself into the corner of the couch and read through a selection from the Gospel of John, chapter 17. How many times have I read or listened to that chapter? How many times have I contemplated or studied that marvelous prayer of Christ in the hours before His arrest? Dozens, at least. Yet never has my attention been caught by what snatched it up this past Sunday morning.

“Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)

I didn’t skip over this verse in all the other instances. Even so, I felt like I was reading the initial statement of the verse for the very first time. “Father, they are your gift to me.” At this point in the prayer, Jesus is praying for all the believers in Him who would come down the road of time. The ones who would come to faith through the evangelization of the Church, who would be brought into the fold for however many generations will come and go until the end of the age. He was praying for you and me.

It’s possible that I was especially in need of this message in that particular hour of that particular day and that’s why it stood out to me. The words continue to ring in my ears since then though. “They are your gift to me.” The Lord, Most High considers me a gift to Him. He desires that I be with Him, in His presence, enjoying His everlasting glory. Me. You. A gift to Him. The notion soaks into me like the warmest sunshine.

Pride shooed away for a moment, we can all admit in our hearts that we long to be treasured… to be loved so exquisitely and unconditionally that the lover desires that we always be with them, near them, sharing in their lives. The lover’s own joy is multiplied because we are theirs. Their glory, so to speak, is magnified by our presence.

Turns out, we are loved exactly so.