Marie Sontag's Blog

What country disappeared from world maps for 123 years?

Last week, while we celebrated Veterans’ Day on November 11, the Polish people celebrated their Independence Day. They first commemorated November 11  in 1918, after having existed as a nation since 966, and after 123 years of having their country erased from world maps. They lost their sovereignty again during and after WWII, first to the Nazis, then to the Russian Communists. The Poles didn’t gain their freedom again until 50 years later, in 1989.

To know more about the Poles’ sacrificial legacy of fighting for independence, take time to listen to this podcast. Hear about the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides’ part in this fight during WWII, and read the novel Underground Scouts for a front-row seat to the Poles’ heroic struggle for freedom.

1792                                                        2025

Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 Unported license                                         2025  Map courtesy © Bruce Jones 2024
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Rzeczpospolita_Rozbiory_3.png
– Annexation names added

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Watch the video first.

The other morning as I sat in our backyard, I saw two examples of nature reacting to fearful situations. One creature chose to fight. The other took flight. It made me grateful that I have a third option.

Fear is one of the issues dealt with in the new book I’m working on with my co-author, Veronica Sites. It’s tentatively titled, What’s in Your Suitcase—A Journey From Wounded to Wholeness: How to Heal from Childhood Trauma.

We’re writing this book to help those with childhood wounds find a path toward wholeness. Here are a few paragraphs we’re sharing about fear.

Challenging Our Fears

Having experienced sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, Ginnie had learned to wall herself off from others. When abuse happened, she would emotionally separate herself from her abusers because it seemed to lessen the pain of their violations.

Ginnie winced. “One night during our singles’ group meeting, I mentioned to Marisa that I never seemed to hear about our social events. Marisa said, “I thought you weren’t interested in our get-togethers. To be honest, you always seem to have it all together, and appear like you don’t need friends.”

“I felt like Marisa had punched me in the stomach,” Ginnie said. “I recognized that I regularly wall myself off from others because, as a child, it helped me cope with my trauma. I did it because I didn’t want to relive the pain of being out of control, of not ever knowing when the abuse would come—the fear of not being able to trust anyone.”

Ginnie’s brown eyes smiled. “Now, however, when I catch myself putting up walls, I let myself feel the residual fear, then challenge the emotion with a specific action or thought. For example, if I’m in a group and cross my arms, it signals that I’m still keeping people at a distance. Now, I’m beginning to stand up to those fears by reminding myself that I’m no longer that little girl. God has freed me from needing those coping mechanisms. That lets me drop my arms, take a deep breath, and relax.

 “I’m taking small steps.” Ginnie pulled in a breath. “I wanted to get to know Marisa better, but wasn’t sure how to do it. So, I baked a batch of cookies for her and added a thank you note for her honest remark the previous week. I asked if we could meet for coffee the following Saturday. We did. Learning to trust others and how to be a friend isn’t a one-time event,” Ginnie said. “It’s a process. I’m taking it one step at a time.” 

Like Ginnie, I too have seen that, after recognizing the fears that keep me from opening up to God and others, I can now confront those fears by taking small, specific steps in learning to trust others.

At first, this all seemed overwhelming to me. I needed those further along in their journey to remind me that recovery is a process. We can focus on one area at a time, trusting God to accomplish His good work in us. Philippians 1:6 reminds us that God is the one who does the completing. “…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

With God’s reparenting, we can learn to set healthy boundaries and stay on the path as we follow the trail to its heights. That will allow us to pull fresh air into our lungs and gain new perspectives.

To prompt our continued growth in wholeness, the next chapter will touch on how we can learn to focus on progress not protection, what it means to forgive those responsible for our trauma, and if or when we should confront those who  harmed us.

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          Change. Sometimes comes quickly. At other times it crawls by—but it always comes.
A few weeks ago, a bulb I had buried beneath the dirt three months ago began to sprout green leaves. A slow, but miraculous change.

Soon, it budded into a daffodil. Today, it manifested a faster transition.

In the morning, it looked like this.

By the afternoon, it had turned into a six-petaled star.

More evidence of change. Today, two ducks visited to enjoy breakfast in our backyard. (Click links for video clips.)

I also watched in wonder as two birds flew back and forth, carrying twigs in their beaks to build a nest in my watering that hung on a post.
More change—and signs of coming births.

My Change
As you may know, I usually write historical fiction for students from ages 9-13, and 13-18. However, my next book project is tentatively titled, What’s in Your Suitcase?—A Journey From Wounded to Wholeness.

Many of us have experienced the truth that we are all broken in some way. Can we change? What’s in Your Suitcase is specifically written for men and women who have experienced childhood trauma, or who wish to help those with childhood wounds find a path toward wholeness.

Critical to this change of moving from woundedness to healing is to “become like a little child.” Here’s a sneak preview into a section of the book about “The Child Within.”

Effects of Childhood Trauma on the Child Within

One effect of childhood trauma can be compared to how to amblyopia, or a “lazy eye,” affects one’s sight. Therapist Randy Carlson shared that when his daughter had a routine eye exam, they discovered she had amblyopia. “Both eyes were not aligned properly,” Carlson said, “and one had started to shut off because her brain could not deal with conflicting [visual] messages.”6

 Suffering the effects of childhood trauma is similar to Dr. Carlson’s daughter getting mixed signals from her brain because one of her eyes wasn’t properly aligned. It caused the misaligned eye to “turn off.”  So too, those of us who have experienced childhood trauma at the hands of caregivers shut down certain  responses or memories because what we experienced is not what we expected or needed to receive.

One of the reasons childhood trauma is so destructive can be found in the fact that, as a child, we usually had little understanding of what happened to us, or any safe adult with whom we could share the event and its impact upon us.

Alice Miller in For Your Own Good contrasts the plight of those who experienced childhood trauma with that of concentration camp survivors. Former camp inmates did not doubt the tragic experiences they had in these prisons because, unlike many of us who experienced childhood trauma, the camp victims did not go through the atrocities of this internment alone.

Miller notes that camp victims “…will never attempt to convince themselves that the cruelty they were subjected to was for their own good or interpret the absurdity of the camp as a necessary pedagogical measure; they will usually not attempt to empathize with the motives of their persecutors. They will find people who have had similar experiences and share with them their feelings of outrage, hatred, and despair over the cruelty they have suffered.”8

That’s why we need God’s reparenting. He didn’t cause or desire the trauma we experienced. He hates what happened. However, because He has given people the gift of free choice, people do bad things. God is not a Creator who, like a clockmaker, wound up the world, then stepped away as He watched it work. Throughout the centuries, those who have entered into a relationship with the God of the universe have seen and written about how He partners with us in our pain and desires to heal and bring wholeness into our lives. When we reach the heights of this new perspective about God’s work in our lives, we can come to Him as a child and get in touch with our child within.

What kind of change do you currently see, or experience right now in your life? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can email we at mesontag@gmail.com. For more information on my writing, see www.mariesontag.com.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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Family-Friendly Fiction Writers will attend the Great Homeschool Convention at the Kahalari Resort July 11-13, 2024. There is a reason homeschooling families travel from all over the United States and Canada to attend a Great Homeschool Convention. They not only take advantage of the hotel discounts offered to attendees, but it truly is the Homeschooling Event of the Year!

Locate our booth in the Exhibit Hall and meet published authors, talk about the writing process, see the award-winning authors’ published books, and join Marie Sontag in her session, “Who to Write Stories Editors Will Publish.”

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Five years ago doctors told my husband to call friends in CA in case they wanted to fly out to TX and see me one more time. He did.

They came.

I recently re-read comments collected five years ago that were made during my recovery from three months of grueling back surgeries that finally resulted in opening me up six different times, including a final time of cutting through the front to remove infected bone. Life-threatening clots had formed in many areas of my body after the first back surgery to fuse three discs. I continually fought painful infections from hardware that fell out. I developed pneumonia, my kidneys began to fail, and I finally grew unresponsive – I couldn’t talk, eat, or move.

Re-reading the notes from five years ago reminded me of the frailty of life – and of the good and gracious God I love and serve. The night before my first back surgery, fearing the worst but praying for the best, a Scripture popped into my mind: “…entrust your soul to a faithful creator…” (1 Peter 4:9). It was God’s way of reminding me that He, as my faithful creator, could be trusted, no matter what happened during the surgery. My soul – my mind, emotions, and will – could continue to love and serve Him, no matter what.

I’m reading a book titled The Broken Way, by Ann Voskamp. In discussing the concept of time, Voskamp writes, “The hands of the clock on the wall, they keep following the invisible, trying to track it…   but you can’t see time. Time can only be represented by change, by the way things move and change.”

Have you tried to track the invisible? Voskamp also writes, “For Jesus, time was not something you seize as much as something you sacrifice. … It’s not something to grab; it’s something to give.”

I want to give, not grab the time I have left  here on Earth. I’m learning that the way to break time’s hold on me is to be broken and given with my time. As I mentioned last month, I want to focus on being a human “being”, not a human “doing.”

One of the most startling events from my near-death experience five years ago happened when I sensed my ability to speak slipping away. My son Daniel was with me, and I whispered that I knew I was about to stop talking. That was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. I slipped into somewhat of a coma. I could hear snippets of conversations, but everything seemed as though I experienced it as a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake up. I had been in constant pain for about two months and felt ready to give up. I wanted to let what life I had left in me drain out. Then, as clear as day,  this Scripture came to mind: “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” I sensed I had a choice to make. I could give in to my body, allowing the infections and pain steal life from me – or, I could choose life. I chose life. Soon after that, I woke from the semi-conscious state, and, eventually recovered.

If you’d like to read the events and see a few video clips from this anniversary, you can find them here.

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You’ve probably heard the phrase that we are human BEINGS, not human DOINGS. In 2024, one of my goals is to separate the good from the best. I can get so busy as I involve myself in GOOD things, that I don’t have time to do the BEST things. The only way I can choose the BEST activities is to focus more on “Being” and less on “Doing.”

We had a difficult year as my son went through a divorce he did not want or expect. It stunned all of us. My 5- and 8-year-old grandkids are still reeling with their emotions, trying to figure out what’s going on as they spend one week at Dad’s new house and the next at Mom’s new place.

I had plenty of “good” things I needed to get done the weeks the grandkids were here. (Daniel just now found a house because he waited until the divorce was final. He kept working toward reconciliation, but it didn’t happen, so he lived with us from January-Dec., and we also had the kids here every other week.) But, rather than filling my time with “good” activities, I quickly saw the “best” way to spend my time was playing and interacting with Noah and Claire, making the most of the opportunities I had with them while they were living with us. I learned that the “good” can be the enemy of the “best.”

I hope to continue distinguishing between the good and the best  in 2024. It’s the only way I know to be a human being who loves others fully, the way I desire to.

– Some of the best activities will be time with my hubby, Mark – not just the occasional times we’re together, but also to have some “planned” time – date nights!

-Time with the grandkids when I can is also high on my BEST list, loving on them with all the nurturing I can provide.

-Of course, I believe my writing is one of the best ways to spend the remaining time I have. A new book 3 of the Ancient Elements series should come out by the end of January. Watch for its announcement on my Facebook or Instagram. After that, I will revise the final book of the series, and have my illustrator create a new cover for The Silver Coin. Stay tuned! I also began a new endeavor – writing an Aeneid Jr. book. More on that later (you can also get a glimpse of what’s coming on my webpage.)

-A best activity I’ve committed to is leading our Family-Friendly Fiction Writers group. We are scheduled to attend several homeschool conferences this year, including one in Ohio, and one in Missouri.

-A good commitment I made is to provide leadership for the SCBWI North Texas writing group (Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators). I enjoy encouraging other writers, and this is a good way to do it. I’m continuing to pray I get good volunteers to help with the workload!

Have you prioritized any goals for 2024? I’d love to hear about them!

Marie

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Good news! California Trail Discovered and Underground Scouts both recently won Five-Star Readers Review Awards. Underground Scouts also won honorable mention in the YA historical novel Angel Award’s category. Last year, Yosemite Trail Discovered won 1st place in the YA historical novel Angel Award’s category.

Even more fun than winning awards, is meeting young people who enjoy reading. Honestly! I had several opportunities to meet with students in California this year, as well as in Texas. I will have more visits next spring as I meet with parents and students during homeschool conventions in Texas, Missouri, and Ohio. I’m really looking forward to those. If you live in any of these areas, let’s try to get together! My husband and I may also try to drive up as far as Wisconsin to visit with my aunt and cousins. I haven’t seen them in quite a while!

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Another exciting event was the publication of The Alabaster Jar & the Hidden Tomb. You can view a trailer for this middle-grade historical novel here. It was previously published by Sunbury Press, but has an updated cover and text published by WordCrafts Press.  Don’t miss this exciting follow-up to The Bronze Dagger & the Stolen Jewels.

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The new, revised version of The Bronze Dagger has arrived! Get this adventurous story of Samsuluna (Sam) as he and his teen friends travel throughout Ancient Mesopotamia during the time of King Hammurabi. Teaching resources are available, including Accelerator Reader questions. Great for ages 9-13.  Available in paperback and hardback.

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Noah, tonight you and Claire were at our house playing your Switch games. Dad has been staying at our house for the past two weeks because he and your mom aren’t getting along right now. It’s like when you and Claire get upset with each other and can’t be together for a bit because you are both so upset.

Your dad misses being with you all so much right now, but Mom needs some space to work things out in her heart. Your dad has seen areas where he needs to change, and he is working to do that.

When it was time for you and Claire to go home tonight, you wailed and asked if you could stay here with dad. Mom and Dad explained you had school tomorrow, needed things from home, needed a bath, and needed to sleep in your own bed so you couldn’t stay here.

I was sick with a bad cold and cough, and I didn’t want you and Claire to get it, so I stayed in my room. Grandpa was at church helping with the youth group. I could hear your broken soul as you wailed about going home without Dad. He told me that  you ran into the room where he was staying. You put a weight in front of the door (it was 20 pounds, but you hoped it would work) and ran to the corner. Dad explained that that, although he can’t be at home with you right now, he will ALWAYS be nearby. Here is a copy of the audio of what I heard. In the background I added part of a song I wrote when I first came to know the Lord (1971). I had your mom sing the words and we recorded it awhile back. You can hear the whole thing on YouTube, if you’d like, but it’s soothing, so I put part of it here in the background.

The Lord is kind of that way. He is near, always with us in spirit, but not physically right now. When we go through hard things, we wish we were with Jesus physically, but that’s not possible right now. It takes faith to believe that. He loves us and lives within us when we are hurting so bad inside that we either want to throw up or lash out and kick and throw things. We know the Lord is with us in those moments because he promised it. In Matthew 28:10 Jesus promised those who follow him, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We pray that you and Claire will be pressed closer to the Lord through this hard time. That’s what your dad is learning to do right now too. I don’t know about your mom, because it seems she’s put up a wall and it is impossible to talk or be with her right now. I will try to reach out to her as soon as it seems she might be receptive.

What ever comes of this, know your dad, and Grandpa and I want to be close with all four of you. We will do what we can to see that happens. But know that, even when you don’t feel us near or your dad or mom, we promise, as Jesus did, “I will be with you always.”

Love you forever, Grandma

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I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. I never want these days of family, food, and fun to end, but they always do as I post a new calendar on the kitchen wall. Here’s our family Christmas pic. Jon and Rachel are in CA, but we included them in the family photo. Didn’t want to leave them out!

Thanks for sharing life with me and taking time to peek inside my writing room through these small chats. Today I’m working on the publisher’s final edits for Underground Scouts, a WWII Novel. You can see more info about the upcoming novel such as part of chapter one, and a book trailer.
https://www.mariesontag.com/books/underground-scouts/

You can also hear our “adopted” thirteen-year-old son Henry from Warsaw read part of chapter one. He did this when he visited us in TX this past August.

In 2023 I’m looking forward to my continued work with our junior youth group at church, playing with my grandkids, and publishing a new book for the Ancient Elements series. Mark and I hope to take a short getaway trip to Comfort, TX for his birthday.

Drop me a line and let me know how you’re doing. What’s one thing you’re looking forward to in 2023? You can email me at: mesontag@gmail.com.

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