Author: Connie Shoemaker

I’ve been writing and speaking for more than 20 years. I’ve always enjoyed pondering about and crafting a talk. I love weaving imagery into whatever I am trying to communicate to the audience.

Pondering is the bud of my writing. I love to ponder things I see, hear, smell and read. Quotes like “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson can roll around for days in my mind. Images of nature seem to stick with me.

St. Patrick of Ireland used a shamrock to explain the Trinity. He knew that we could see something and learn something about God by reflection on His creation.

I believe, like St. Patrick, that nature—created by God—reflects His glory.

Through this blog and my book series “Kissed by the Creator” I convey to readers the awesomeness of God through his magnificent creations.

When speaking to people about the sea, heads nod – not to sleep! – they nod in kinship. The sea seems to universally speak to us. In my book, “Beside the Sea with Thee” I take the reader on a vacation for their soul. It is a reflective book that offers hope, encouragement and a respite from the noisy world. (book is in editing currently)

From the book… “

Before you can see it, you can smell it. The aroma of life-giving water combined with the aroma of the gifts of the sea – the shells, fish, plants and creatures that combine to form one of the most fascinating ecosystems on the planet.


With reckless abandon you grab those who love you best and run to the sea as if called by some strange force of nature. You mount the top of the dune or boardwalk and drink it in – the smells, the sight of water that stretches beyond your imagination and you feel the rhythm of the sea. That life-giving sea …

Speaking topics and retreats spawned from the book include: “Buried Treasure”, “Surviving the Sea of ….”, and “Rx 4 H2O”. For more information please contact me, Connie Pilston Shoemaker at [email protected]

I welcome your comments and hope you will participate in the pondering here when you have time or when the spirit moves you to contribute.

Today’s point to ponder, please feel free to comment below.

“What aspect of nature stirs your soul?

Is it a sunrise? A flower? A majestic 10 point buck with symmetrical rack? A hummingbird nest? What causes you to stop in your tracks, breathe deeply and just Know…’this is something special’ ?

Your turn to write!

Ok, so this is blogging?  I just returned from a writer’s conference and was told that blogging is crucial to build your platform as an author…so here goes.

This is my introduction to blogging and my introduction to you.

I have always been profoundly impacted by the world around me.  Sights, smells and sounds of nature have always resonated deep within me.  Hiking in the woods with leaves and sticks crunching at my feet has always brought me a sense of peace.  Digging toes into cold wet sand and listening to the symphony of the sea has given me a center or a calmness I was seeking.  Working on my knees in the cool dirt in the morning as the dew glistens like starlight on my plants has made me feel closer to the Creator.

Personally I think standing on the top of a mountain, at the edge of the sea or in a forest with trees so tall they kiss the sky, makes both me and my problems seem small.  Like a God who created all this big and beautiful stuff, can surely tend to my small needs.  He is a Creator of beauty of big things and small things.  Surely he has created my heart so he knows how to fix it.  This gives me hope.

It is that closeness to the Creator that inspires me to write and to create.  And so a book was conceived about the sea, but not yet born.  It is still in the fetus stages of development and is being shaped and formed as ideas and possibilities are nurtured.

Thus the beginning of the blog.  Hopefully you will enjoy what you read here, tell your friends and comeback and visit soon.