Simply the Savior

It surprises me to realize that the first book I wrote under contract (not as a work-for-hire assignment) turns twenty this month! I wrote Simply the Savior during a time when there was a lot of emphasis on simplifying life. Magazines carried headlines like, “10 Easy Steps to a Simpler Life” or “You Too Can Embrace Simple Living.” Book clubs were reading Sara Ban Breathnach’s best-selling book, Simple Abundance, and her publisher soon took advantage of its success to spin off sequels, journals, etc.

All these things caught my attention because I had a strong desire to simplify my own life, and so had left a full-time job to work at home. But everything I read seemed to have a “new age” feel that didn’t quite satisfy me. “Wait a minute,” I thought. “I’m pretty sure Jesus had a lot to say about what really matters—about living a simple, uncluttered life.” I opened the Word, and Simply the Savior was born.

When writers read a nonfiction book they wrote twenty years ago, it’s like reading a tattered 20-year-old journal. I smiled when I read illustrations featuring small granddaughters who have since gone to college, gotten married, and traveled the world! And then there’s the surreal feeling you have as a writer reading something you wrote so long ago as you think, “Not only do I not remember writing that, I don’t even remember knowing it!”

Yet I just read Simply the Savior again and I wouldn’t change a word. Yes, my spiritual journey has deepened my faith and my understanding of Scripture, my marriage is twenty years stronger, and I’ve had to accept that being 50 wasn’t old enough to write about gray hair and wrinkles. But the 15 chapters such as “Simply Believe,” “Simply Listen,” “Simply Forgive,” and “Simply Love” are full of Holy Spirit inspired truths.

Back cover photo of the author who thought she was old!

Because it’s a book about Jesus, and we are promised in Hebrews 13:8 that He is “the same yesterday and today and forever,” everything I was inspired to write back then still holds true—even if I don’t remember writing it. In fact, my not remembering is a strong reminder that the book came through me, not from me.

Sara Ban Breathnach’s book Simple Abundance sold five million copies and is translated into 28 languages. Simply the Savior sold 10,000 or so and was translated into German. Yet I received a note from a reader who said she kept a copy of my book in the glove compartment of her car so she could pull it out and read it when she felt a panic attack coming on. “Lord,” I said, “that’s enough for me.”

And I’ve accumulated twenty years of gratitude for having this little book in my life. My publisher, David C. Cook, also owned Best to You at that time, a Christian social expression catalog for which I wrote product and catalog copy. So they did their own version of spin-offs: a promotional paperback and both a lovely framed print and a mug designed with the chapter titles from the book.

This first book opened up my life as a speaker. I went where I was invited, and there were many and varied opportunities. I remember a small gathering in a little church basement where the rhythmic hissing of oxygen tanks permeated the room as I spoke to a circle of older church ladies—perhaps stirring in me a heart for the books I’ve written for the elderly recently.

In contrast, I also remember speaking to the women’s ministry of the much larger First Presbyterian Church in downtown Colorado Springs. Twenty years later my son, Tim, is the lead pastor of that church. I mentioned him in the book as a young seminary student with his first baby in his arms. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

I’m not one to force my books on anyone (thus I haven’t sold five million copies of any of the six books I’ve written!), but there may be a few copies available from used booksellers online, or you can download the Kindle version here if you’d like to read Simply the Savior again, or for the first time. Simplifying once is seldom enough. Material, emotional, and spiritual clutter happens. And as the book says, “It is simply the Savior who gives us all we need to live a life of simple joy.”

Happy 20th Anniversary, little book. You have blessed me so.

Some time ago, after the release of my first book Simply the Savior, I was invited to give a message to a fellowship of ladies in a small local congregation. I arrived before the appointed time and found my way down to the basement of the little church where they had their meetings.

You haven’t been there, but you’ve been there. Cinder block walls, linoleum floor, tiny windows letting in just a bit of natural light to supplement the fluorescent lighting, and brown folding chairs set up around collapsible banquet tables. Immediately my attention was drawn to the one feature of the room with the most promise: the big open window between the main room and the church kitchen. Coffee pots were already perking away on that spacious window counter when I arrived, the sound and the aroma taking me back to so many other church basements I’ve visited over the years.

At the church in East Tennessee where I grew up, the church basement was called the Fellowship Hall, but it was still the church basement. I remember everything from youth group meetings to Girl Scout fly-up ceremonies and talent shows being held in that basement—a center of community life for sure.

Many brides on a budget even opted to have their receptions there. As kids we’d stand on the stairs leading down to the basement in our finest clothes waiting our turn to go through the receiving line to see the beautiful bride and her handsome groom up close. Then we’d work our way through the crowd to the same folding tables used for every event—but now draped with lace tablecloths and festooned with ribbon garlands. There we’d find such delights as bowls of pastel-colored mints, nuts, wedding cake with sugary icing, and punch sweet enough to knock us right out of our patent leather shoes! On the counter under the big window, those coffee pots would be perking away.

As the ladies filtered in to that gathering where I was to speak, I noticed several of them were pulling portable oxygen tanks along behind them. Others had canes or walkers. A wave of sadness passed over me then as I thought, when these ladies are gone, no one will be gathering in church basements anymore. No one will be hosting potluck dinners and swapping recipes for tuna casserole or pineapple upside-down cake. It will be the end of an era.

But sometime after that I found out my “doom and gloom” prediction just wasn’t true! Due to a scheduling mix-up at our church, our women’s Bible study group had to move our closing potluck luncheon from the room we had planned on using to, you guessed it, the church basement. In keeping with our luau theme, my co-leader and I were taping grass skirts along the counter under the big window (where some wonderful potluck dishes would soon be arrayed) when I realized that, praise God, women’s fellowships and church basements are both still thriving! And oh, yes—there was coffee, too.

Just recently I learned that the church basement culture I cherish inspired a musical comedy! “Church Basement Ladies” premiered in 2005 and has six sequels to date. Long live the church basement!

SIMPLY THE SAVIOR Turns Twenty

Revisiting Church Basements