Stone Crossings Winner

A winner has been randomly selected from the list of 40 comments below… theroses3

To redeem your prize, theroses3, simply send an email to dmelleby(at)cpyu.org with your mailing address, how you would like your book signed, and we will get it in the mail ASAP.

And here’s a note from L.L. Barkat:

"I thought about what I might say to the winner (and anyone else who decides to read Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places after learning about it here). Nothing seemed quite right. Then I remembered a story. Well actually two stories. Or maybe it really is one story (forgive my vacillation!) that began long ago and found a new chapter this past year.

In Stone Crossings, I tell a small tale of loss; when I was a child, my stepfather threw a rock-tumbling project out the window. I'd been trying to polish some stones to amber, jade and purple perfection. That project ended abruptly with his hostile action. Funny how we carry things like this with us into adulthood, but I remembered the incident well enough to poignantly pen it into Stone Crossings.

When the book was published, I sent a copy to my third stepmother, as a thank you for letting me tell her part of our family history. To my great surprise, she wrote me a five-paged, single-spaced letter about her regrets and her love. And, with the letter, she sent a velvet green bag of polished stones. They looked much like the stones I'd been hoping to produce in that childhood project long ago. Okay, do you blame me? I held those stones, touched their smoothness and cried for a long time.

Which is to say that sometimes our grace stories take years to unfold. And we are startled to find, after all, grace in hard and hidden places."

(THANK YOU, L.L. Barkat, for your courage to share you powerful story of grace and for your participation in the CPYU Bookshelf giveaway. We all have been blessed because of it!)