Hoosier Ink: God's gifts

Showing posts with label God's gifts. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Writing Light 🌞

Covid was bad enough, but as I watched political events unfold over the past year, and especially in the last three months, I performed the stereotypical turtle move and disappeared into my shell. Writing has been almost nonexistent.

I’ve been afraid to speak what’s on my heart. If I click the “send” button too quickly after writing with passion or fear, will I regret hasty words?

Do I have any understanding of my times at all?

The Lord has been patient with me. He’s allowed me to whine, to mindlessly watch TV game shows for hours on end, and to type away on my keyboard—and delete. The grand entry of 2021 didn’t change my behavior, but a recent, online prayer service has nudged me to the point where I’m peeking out from my shell.

Last Sunday’s prayers were filled with the vision of moving toward our future with God’s help. The youth pastor used an amplified version of Psalm 23:4. “Fear will never conquer me, for You already have.”

Yes! I belong to Jesus! My job is to listen for His guidance and write what He wants me to write—in fiction and in blogging.

Another prayer reminded us of Who God Is. How I needed that assurance! I could move forward in writing and in life with that standard before me.

The prayer for our national leaders pointed us toward praying blessings over them, and for We The People to do what is right in God’s eyes and to teach our children to do the same.

We prayed for healing, looking forward to the time when the pandemic will be behind us and for the Church and its leaders that they may have wisdom for these times. And we finished with the Serenity Prayer.

The prayer service hadn’t shown me anything new, but the reminders encouraged me to:

Listen to God and know when to move, when to speak, or when to wait.
Pray for my leaders, both within the church and in our country, seeking blessing and wisdom for them.
Realize God can see it all—the global pandemic, the political maneuverings, the cry of every person’s heart.

God has always known that I would live in this era, in this nation, and that He would gift me with the skills of writing and teaching. It's time to come out of my shell and move toward new challenges and adventures.

With God’s help I can overcome fear.

With God’s help I can write with a voice of reason and inspiration.

With God’s help I will speak Light and Life to all who can hear.

God has done the same with you. He has known you would live in Indiana in 2021 in the years of pandemic and political upheaval. He has given you the skills to write, and you have other talents as well. If you've had the same problem as I've had this year, read those words again--

With God's help you can overcome fear.

With God's help you can write with a voice of reason and inspiration.

With God's help you will speak Light and Life to all who can hear.

Go write.

Linda Sammaritan writes realistic fiction, mostly for kids ages ten to fourteen. She is currently working on a middle grade trilogy, World Without Sound, based on her own experiences growing up with a deaf sister.

Linda had always figured she’d teach middle-graders until school authorities presented her with a retirement wheelchair at the overripe age of eighty-five. However, God changed those plans when He gave her a growing passion for writing fiction. In May of 2016, she blew goodbye kisses to her students and dedicated her work hours to learning the craft.

A wife, mother of three, and grandmother to seven, Linda regales the youngest grandchildren with “Nona Stories,” tales of her childhood. Maybe one day those stories will be in picture books!

Where Linda can be found on the web:

www.lindasammaritan.com

www.facebook.com/lindasammaritan

www.twitter.com/LindaSammaritan

Thursday, December 20, 2018

God's Gift of Passion

As we prepare for Christmas—the family get-togethers, the baking, the decorating the shopping for everyone on our gift list—the topic of God’s gifts to us is a natural extension of the Reason for the Season. Yes, Jesus is the greatest gift God gave us, but He is generous with a million other tokens of His affection. And for this particular blog site, the most appropriate gift to discuss is the gift of passion, the passion to write, in particular.

God gives every one of his human creations a passion for something. Often more than one something. And over time, He blesses us with additional passions.

As a child, I enjoyed writing stories. I liked to sing. But above all else, at the age of four, I knew I would be a teacher. I taught my own nursery school the summer before I entered junior high. I taught Sunday school to fifth-graders when I was sixteen. My greatest joys in college were the days I could go to schools and teach a lesson plan developed in one of my courses. The idea of grading papers every evening was intoxicating (after forty years of the task, not so much). Although I didn’t teach full time while my children were young, I indulged my passion through subbing, tutoring, and part time teaching.

During my teen years, I assumed music was also a passion, but as I matured I realized there’s a difference between talent and passion. God had gifted me with musical talent. I chose a double major of music education and special education just so I could develop my musical abilities. Professionally, I would have made a mediocre musician, at best. The voice was good, but the passion was missing. No spark, no sense of “If I can’t sing and share music with the whole world, life will be a disappointment.” I was content to sing in church, choirs or solos, but to make a career of it? No. I didn’t even like teaching music to kids who had no love for it, much less a passion.

As I approached retirement years, God renewed my love of writing. He gets total credit since writing a novel would never have occurred to me, considering my focus on teaching. He didn’t send a thunderbolt to ignite my passion. It kind of crept up on me. He used my empty nest, allowing me a little more time to write without sports events to attend spring, summer, winter, and fall.

The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write. My passion to teach had gained a rival. Each year, the passion to write intensified, and the love of teaching dwindled.

Writing qualifies as my main passion now. Unlike singing, it’s not simply an enjoyable pastime. If I can’t write something daily, even a paragraph in my journal, I feel I missed out on an exciting experience. I want to make stories from my imagination come alive to readers, and I want to share insights I’ve gained from a lifetime with the Lord. I only hope my words are inspirational to others and pleasing to Jesus.

I still do a little teaching via small groups in my church. And it dawns on me—writing IS a form of teaching. Instead of a classroom, my students sit with a cup of coffee at home reading my little essays or my inspirational stories.

Rather than asking for comments regarding God's writing pathway for you, I have a question for you instead.

Would you be willing to share your writing passion story in our quarterly newsletter?

I can picture us inspiring one another, each with a unique tale of God’s goodness in our lives. My first thought is to title it “Publish the Passion.” The idea did hit me like a thunderbolt, and since thunderbolts are notoriously unstable, I would want a good deal of feedback before initiating our personal testimonials as a regular feature.

So let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!