A Step in the Write Direction--June 9--writer's devotional

A Step in the Write Direction

June 9, 2014

Update: Not much to update. Got home from Oklahoma tonight around 8:00. Had a good week with my daughter and family (son-in-law is pastor in Cushing). Taught 3 classes at a Christian writers’ workshop on May 31 which I really enjoyed, then gave “The Freedom of Letting Go” talk at the end. Sunday night my oldest granddaughter got her district minister’s license; Thursday our youngest granddaughter celebrated her birthday, then graduated from high school on Saturday, so it was a busy week. Now am taking tomorrow to unpack, do laundry, catch up on a proofreading job and 2 editing jobs. It’s good to be home!!

Thought for Today: God can keep you from stumbling, but be sure to tie your shoelaces (unknown).

Song for Today:

Ready to go, ready to stay;

Ready my place to fill;

Ready for service, lowly or great;

Ready to do His will.

            “Ready,” author unknown

Laugh for Today: "I desire no remuneration for this poem," the visitor to the publishing office said.  "I merely submit it as a compliment."  "Then, my dear sir, allow me to return the compliment," said the editor.

Writers’ Tips (week #4 from unpublished Writer’s Devotional Book):

The Mission Field of Writing

I have brought you glory on earth by

completing the work you gave me to do (John 17:4).

One day, while in my senior year of high school, I pulled a verse out of my “Promise Box” which read, “I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.” Aha! At last I knew what I would be—I was called to be a missionary!

I shared my story at missionary rallies, and when I began college and someone asked me my plans after graduation, I proudly announced, “I’m going to be a missionary.” And of course it was to Africa. Wasn’t that where everyone went?

As time went on, however, the desire grew dimmer and I began to question whether it really was a call or just a happenstance that I read that verse that day. After all, it was the next card in the Promise Box.

I was embarrassed, however, to admit to friends and family that I really wasn’t called. And I didn’t want to give up my dream. When the song was sung, “Ready to go…ready to stay,” I was ready to go, but not to stay.

It took years before I realized that writing is a mission field. And although I never went to a foreign field, I did fulfill my dream in a sense. After I began a Christian writers club in my hometown, a friend brought me an article to critique. She ended up selling it to Decision magazine, and later shared with me that two men—in different parts of Africa—wrote and told her that because of her article, they had accepted Christ. So a little piece of me did get to Africa after all!

What is your writing mission field? Is it writing devotionals? I e-mailed a devotional to a friend one Sunday morning. She printed it off just before leaving for church. Dashing to her car, she noticed her neighbor in the yard—a single man she hadn’t become well acquainted with yet. He looked a little discouraged she thought, so on impulse, she handed him the devotional. “Here, you might enjoy this,” she said. When she returned home, her neighbor knocked on her door. “I had planned on committing suicide this morning,” he told my friend. “My wife left me and I decided I didn’t want to live anymore. But this”—holding up the piece of paper—“this gave me hope.”

Is your mission field writing personal experience stories—sharing an experience you’ve gone through and how the Lord helped you. After writing an article about letting go of my mother eleven years after she died, I received a letter from a widower who said, “…now I can go on.”

Whatever field of writing you choose, when you know God has called you to write and when something you write helps change someone’s life, then you can know that you, too, are a missionary.

My mission field today is:

 Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich

dgood648@aol.com

www.thewritersfriend.net

http://donna-goodrich.blogspot.com

 

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