Encouragement
Proof It
Raise your hand if you’d rather proofread someone else’s work than your own. Count my hand raised. When it comes to others’ work, grammatical mistakes leap out, waving their arms and begging for a red-pen rescue. For all the delicate etiquette of criticism, it’s easy and oddly satisfying to search out and correct someone else’s…
Why We Should Listen
In July, I wrote about how fear keeps us from writing. To illustrate my point, I shared how in 2006 I prayed for more time to write. I told you how God promptly answered my prayer, as I was laid off the next day and given nine months’ severance pay. Rather than trusting God and…
Team Hope
“God doesn’t miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you’ve shown him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it. And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don’t drag your feet. Be like those who…
My ACFW Conference Journey
Since I started writing fiction seriously and pursuing publication in 2005, I never missed an ACFW conference…except last year. Each year my motivation to attend ACFW was different. Each year I had new goals and dreams. Each year I grew as a writer and took home something specific I would need on my journey ahead.…
Coffee Cup Ministry
“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples–when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34-35 – The Message) I remember a number of years ago when I…
Motivation to Keep Going
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 What gets you out of bed on a lazy, rainy morning to brave a day of errands? What keeps you going when nothing you’ve planned is working? When your kids are defiant and your spouse just…
The Teacher Becomes The Student
It’s much easier to assign writing than to teach writing. That epiphany in my profession as a high school English teacher was a blessing and a curse. . .for me and for my students. It meant I stopped bombarding them with the alphabet soup of essays (analysis, biography, comparison, definition, exemplification, etc.), and started devoting…
What Really Keeps Me From Writing
Life must be lived at one speed. But Sheri and I have noticed many try to speed it up. Maybe they simply don’t realize they’re doing it and the result is they push out peace and make those around them play at their speed. Others want it to slow down. And some people wish they…
When God Leads you to the Edge of a Cliff
“When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, trust Him fully and let go, only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He’ll catch you when you fall, or He’ll teach you how to fly!” I read this in an email devotion and it got me thinking… What do I have to lose…
Poured Out Love
ShoShone Falls located in Idaho towers thirty-six feet higher than Niagara Falls, and the sight is amazing. The water flows around a bend in the river, rushes and cascades over several layers of huge, jagged rocks, and drops 212 feet. A spray rises into the sky and at the bottom is a beautiful rainbow. Standing…