Welcome to charlottesnead.com
Sacred Passion is God's Idea,
Romance is vital in marriage. I married in 1962. I began to mentor Mothers of Preschoolers in 1994. Every year since, my team insists I do my "sex talk," but it’s so much more. Being in right relationship with God, attending a vibrant and growing community of believers, choosing to forgive, to respect, and understanding submission is not surrender of self--all goes into the package that makes up a healthy marriage. I want to share it with you.
I write Romance to promote the marital relationship. God wrote the Song of Solomon, and he tells us the marriage bed is undefiled. Together we celebrate his sacred gift! For a good read, check out my books, my short stories, my devotions and my blog posts.
The blogs, devotions, and mentor’s moments from those years are free. Use them, share them, but they are copyrighted. Please cite charlottesnead.com and invite others to the site.
Blessings!
Choosing your Identity in God
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Charlotte S. Snead
Back to the hospital
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Charlotte Snead
Joe was back in the hospital again, admitted for recurring diverticulitis, but he was discovered to have a bad gall bladder. The surgeon told me it took him about a half an hour to do gall bladder surgery; he does 140 a year, all out-patient. But Joe does things in a big way. The walls of the gallbladder were thick and it was terribly swollen. I waited for an hour and a half. One stone was headed out of the bladder. We consider him quite fortunate. The final report indicated he had gangrene in his gall bladder. We are confident this has been his trouble for a while, but he is sill going to watch what he eats.
Joe is well loved by all the nurses and PAs, and he got the best of care. He told me they were all like family, and that’s why he doesn’t retire. It’s a good hospital, employing almost as many folks as the school system. He went back to work before he was released, so he had to go across the hall to get a release from another doctor in order to get paid!
He’s not only back to work at the hospital, he is now rebuildig our deck.
I'm not Dead
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Charlotte Snead
I’m sorry I disappeared off the radar. First, Joe ended up in the hospital with diverticulitis again. He was on IV antibiotics and pain medication. I slept in a chair for three nights. (We had a shower in our room and our daughter brought me some shampoo. (Fortunately, she didn’t have court that week.) Then we went on vacation with his golf buddies from college. We returned home to Labor Day weekend. It’s been a steady, demanding time. Beth and her boyfriend came up for Labor Day. We ate at Dave and Shannons’s) Today, Joe went to work. He is feeling well, thank God.
After Van Rye published Winslow Farm, set in Lost Creek where we live, they published two new books about my favorite character, Nick Costas Nick’s Choice and Nick’s Heart. Nick was abused in foster care. He never knew a father, but he married a war widow with three children and God made him a wonderful father. I have yet to get these books on my blog, but they are available at Amazon. Jan Carol published Gracie Goodbye, the fourth of the Hope House Girls. (So, I have been busy.)
I am scheduled for two total knees, the first one in October. (Stairs are a challenge.) After those are done, I’ll be a new woman, but now I sit in my recliner most of the time!
Family Reunion
Monday, July 22, 2019
Charlotte Snead
We bought a tent.
We usually fly out to Washington State every year to see Tom’s family, but this year I told him we couldn’t fly because Joe has an appointment with a gastric specialist in late August to determine if he needs surgery for his diverticulitis. The changes in his diet have made a real difference, but we can’t fly with the risk of an attack on a five hour flight, so, Tom is bringing his family to see us on the east coast! We are so excited. Steve and Mary Katherine are coming over from Nashville, and we plan to camp out in Dave’s yard. Of course we’ll bring them all over to our house to see the train room, but camping out and fishing in the pond at Dave’s will be so much fun.
This will be the first time we have gotten all the kids together. In fact we haven’t been together since Joe’s 70th birthday. Tom and Pam have never met Holt, Hunt, and Jack, Steve’s boys, and the east coast family hasn’t met Jackson, and Myles, Tom’s boys, and our Lilly. Wow, what a reunion. This grandmother is about to pop.
I have completed a second children’s book, “Three’s a Crew,” about Steve’s boys. I’ll let you know when it comes out, and maybe I can get Pam to co-author an account of their family. Life is full when blessings overflow!
Two More books
Monday, July 8, 2019
Charlotte Snead
Van Rye has published two more books this June. These are books about my favorite character, Nick Jo Costas, which were dropped from publication when Oak Tara went out of business. I submitted them to my new publisher, Van Rye, and they offered me a contract, publishing them as “Nick’s Choice” and “Nick’s Heart.”
Nick was abused in foster homes—being intelligent and independent, he was a rebellious kid. As a young man, he divorced twice because he made poor choices and resolved never to have children because he felt he would mess them up. After he came to Christ working for Christian musicians, he fell in love with a cradle-Christian and wrought havoc with her well-ordered life. But he helped her older son overcome his bitterness over loss of his father in Iraq, and brought his shy younger brother laughter. He fell in love with his wife’s youngest, a little girl he called Cinderella and his wife gave him rwo more children, a beautiful latina he called Rosa and a sturdy boy, Michael. A mentor urges him to share his story with other abused men, so he becomes a speaker, dedicating his earnings to build a Christian foster care home and school attached to the convent where his mother worked after doing time for abuse and negect.
He brings his wife and younger children to the home to give ther boys their first Christmas, and his family grows to include the boys. Every vacation they spend at Mother Theresa’s Home.
PS: I hope you had as wonderful Fourth of July as I did. We watched our son’s fabulous fireworks display in his front yard with several friends. God bless America!
Home from writing conference
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Charlotte SneadJoe and I returned Saturday from Saint David’s Christian Writers, my favorite conference—so much laughter, as well as serious study. M
Joe and I returned Saturday from Saint David’s Christian Writers, my favorite conference on Saturday—so much laughter, as well as serious study. My amazing class on soul care for the writer was terrific. Joe not only drove me, he also attended classes with me. How fun. He even wrote a mission statement. I have finally convinced him he has a platform on Facebook. Be sure to friend him. We are contemplating going to the Greater Philadelphia conference, but it may conflict with our Tom’s visit. When I wrote Tom that Joe needed to have an appointment with the gastric folks about the possibility of surgery for his diverticulitis, he agreed to fly his family here. They will finally meet their east coast cousins. (We usually go out to the west coast, but if Joe had an attack on a five hour flight, it wouldn’t be good.)
Tom and Pam are thriving in North Bend. The school there has met their needs so much better than their former school. Caleb plays football, and Lilly is in the choir. (We pray Caleb won’t break any bones.)
Poor Steve and family visited here recently. (Steve is concerned to visit Alan, Dave’s boy, regularly, because he is an only child.) Dave has been back and forth to Johns Hopkins but we believe they are discovering his problem. Anyway, as per Toms’s request, Steve and Mary Katherine will load up their three sons to come back to see the west coast contingent.
How grateful Joe and I are that our adult children are close. We must have done something right— but God dealt us a good hand.
His and hers Hospitalizations
Monday, June 17, 2019
Charlotte Snead
Here I am. I couldn’t let Joe get all the sympathy, so I entered the hospital as well, being admitted to WVU’s neurology service as a transfer from Stonewall hospital ER when I was unable to walk. I was rolled into the hospital on a gurney but PT got me up and walking in a couple of days. I was diagnosed with cervical stenosis, compromising two disks in my upper neck. Joe slept in a chair beside me for the two nights I was there, God love him. The prognosis for me is close follow up and possible surgery down the road.
Meanwhile the changes in Joe’s diet are working wonders, and he is doing well. I guess I must reluctantly admit we are growing old. Fortunately, we live in the USA and are not denied care! Our daughter, Candace, had the surgery, and she is doing well and back to work. After home health therapy, which I have now dismissed, I am doing well.
I spent the time re-reading BJ Hoff’s classic Emerald Ballad five-book series about the famine and emigrations to America. Joe is glad I have completed it, saying he can have a conversation with me now that my head is out of a book. Later this week, he is accompanying me to the writers’ conference in Grove City where I broke my shoulder last year.
Identity is defined as the condition of being oneself and not another. Who I am comes from several factors: our childhood, to include our gender and genetic inheritance, our present condition, to include our marital status and family, and our future goals. Certain things about our identity can never be changed: our chromosomes, our fingerprints, but the Good News is the Real You, the inner man, can be changed—we do not have to be the same person tomorrow that we were yesterday.
I heard Dr. Laura discuss her book: Bad Childhood, Good Life. The pattern for those who have had a bad childhood is to repeat the cycle that we learned—though we may hate our parents for what they did, the natural tendency is to repeat it, because it is the pattern we know. We tend to parent like our parents did. However, the good news is we can have hope. If we had a bad childhood, we can choose to relate to our spouse and children differently. She added that success is especially possible if we choose a faith and experience a personal relationship with God, Who enables us to change.
My mother had an alcoholiproblem. My personal faith journey began because my roommate in college took me to a church that welcomed students into their homes. I saw for the first time families that truly enjoyed one each other, loving and affirming one another. I decided I wanted a family like those families! When Joe and I came together spiritually, we prayed: “God, put the axe to the root of our family patterns. We do not want to parent like our families of origin. Help us to relate to one another and to our children in a way that pleases You.” It was kind of cool, because we deliberately threw away our patterns, and searched the Scriptures and prayed to do it the right way. Sometimes he had to tell me I sounded like my mother and sometimes I had to tell him he was acting like his dad. We made mistakes and didn’t do it perfectly, but we managed to do a lot better than we had been taught.
This personal glimpse should encourage you not to recreate bad patterns. Despite your childhood, you can choose to have a good life. Dr. Laura says you can check those automatic responses that come bubbling out of your past and “manually over-ride” them.
To some extent your identity springs from your past. You cannot change that you were poor, or you may have some genetic givens that you will learn to use in a more positive manner, channeling high energy into sports or another positive behavior, taking medication to balance chemical disorders, or controlling a bad temper. My father used to say to me: some peoples excuses are other people’s reasons—don’t use your past as an excuse for having a good life. You can overcome a bad beginning, choosing to make it a reason to do better for your kids, or you can make excuses for the rest of your life and be a victim.
Gender we cannot do much about. Despite the fact that today some people choose to mutilate themselves to change their physical appearance, they will always have (or not have) the Y chromosome. Studies indicate no matter how the genders plan equal parenting, the mother inevitably ends up doing the vast majority of the nurturing and childcare; she likes it better and she is better at it. Once again, you can choose how you adapt to what you were given. You can grumble and can wallow in resentment, or you can learn how to do this mother-wife thing well.
Much of our identity stems from how we choose to use the time we have been given by modern labor-saving devices. The Scripture says “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he,” and guarding our heart is something that challenges us in the age of R-rated movies and sex-saturated women’s magazines—the magazines on our grocery store shelves would make our grandmothers cringe. What do you meditate on—sexy soap operas, trashy books, or excellent literature, historical fiction, or autobiographies that challenge you to a better life. Another Scripture cautions us about our associations—who do you hang out with: gossips who are super critical of their friends and families and speak critically of their husbands, or those who speak positively about others and believe the best of their friends. Are you associating with those who make you better?
If you are in the season of babies and your children are consuming, but that time goes quickly. (Although it seems endless now!) Think about your future choices: will you go back to school? Will you work? Will you be a leader in a charitable organization or community group? Too many mothers make their children their whole identity, and then they don’t adjust well when their children move into independence. The time will come when you are not changing diapers, wiping noses and settling squabbles all day. This is the future aspect of our identity, our plans and goals.
You are your parents’ child, your kids’ mom, your husband’s wife, but you also are who you choose. I did not choose to have an alcoholic mother, but I could understand with compassion and forgive, instead of being angry and bitter. You can complain and whine about your dirty rotten start in life and be stuck in that life, or you can choose another life: apply yourself to what you enjoy, and set goals. You develop and shape your life, choosing your friends, what you learn, and how you will respond to life’s givens. Life does not end with babies, and if you grasp that, you will enjoy them much more. Knowing this is a time-limited season of life relaxes you. One day the house will be clean—and empty. You can go to work or school and develop your talents and skills. The One Who has endowed you with them wants to walk with you throughout your life, maximizing your potential and guiding you for this life and for eternity. You will never know who you are fully meant to be until you walk with the One Who made you for particular purposes in life. I hope each one of you comes to know the love, the self-awareness, the unique purpose that only comes from knowing God.