An Unprecedented Year {and a Giveaway!}

This has been quite the year for this little corner. 



Photo Credit

Some of the events have been beautiful, and some of them difficult.  Some of the rockings have been gentle, some traumatic.  But the little corner is still here, and I've just spread a crisp new rose-flecked tablecloth on the tiny table, lit the candles, and put the pot of tea on.  Stay for a moment more, pretty please? 

 

 

In this, our fourth year, Mikaela and I have shared things we have never shared before.  I tackled subjects like the "Myth of the No Man's Land Between Childhood and Marriage" (here and here) that I had never been prepared to tackle before.  Mikaela took on the "Waiting Room"--when God leaves us waiting, and, so we think, hanging (here and here). We invited you to laugh with us at our adventures, and have fun with us when we took you on a "ride" too.  We took risks and opened our hearts to you in a new way. 

 

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And it has been awesome. 

 

Because God has blessed like never before. 

Because I have a place in which to share my burning scribbles. 

And because you readers--you friends, have been more dear and sweet than ever.  Hailing from Alaska and New England, the UK and the Philippines, you have made this fourth year of blogging the best one yet! 

 

We had our most difficult year of learning to respond with grace to the foes and learning to ignore the ugly words, but it was your bright smiles in our comment section that made this corner that much brighter this year. 

 

So, because of you, and what God has done here this year, we launch our festival week: our fourth blogoversary. 

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Posts from authors you are very familiar with and some whose story you have yet to hear...every day.

• Two giveaways!  (More on that in a bit!)
• Polls and fun and celebration! 
• A blog redesign (we need some new paint on these walls!) that will be revealed towards the end of this week. 
• We would even have confetti and Red Velvet cake and party favors for all if we could, but what with the confetti and crumbs, that makes for an awful lot of vacuuming afterwards. 

Giveaways

Giveaway 1:

Our first giveaway is of these cupcake-pink cabochon chrysanthemum earrings that I made especially for one of you! 

I'm so excited to see who wins this one! 

Here are the rules for this giveaway:

• You must be a follower.
• You gain one entry per comment on each blog post during this our festival week. 
• Only one comment per blog post per person.
• Winner will be determined via random drawing. 
• Giveaway ends Friday, February 1st at 11:59, PST after which the winner will be posted and have 48 hours to comment back on this blog with their email address, which will not be posted. 
• May be shipped worldwide!

Giveaway 2:

Our second giveaway is of this phenomenally encouraging book by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin. 

It's Not That Complicated: How to Relate to Guys in a Healthy, Sane, and Biblical Way.  Mikaela is in the middle of reading it right now and is loving it so much that she insisted this is what we had to give you guys! 

I just had to give you a full glimpse of Mikaela's terrific floor to ceiling bookshelf. 
Spot some favorites in there?

 

To enter for this book, use the Rafflecopter below. 
But first, I'll leave you with a verse that seems to have been the theme verse for the year for One Bright Corner:

 

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You." ~Psalm 139:11-12

 

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

Photo Credit:

First Photo: Lauren Treece

Second Photo: caryn74

Third Photo: Darwin Bell

Fourth Photo: Uwe Hermann

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.