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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shining a Light on Scared

by Jean Kavich Bloom

Along with other contributors, I write short, monthly essays for a Christian community blog for women called The Glorious Table. If you or the women in your life don’t know it, check it out.

While encouraging women in all walks and aspects of life, the blog's multiple writers often bare their own souls. I’ve done that, too, although I don’t think my soul is as consistently bared as some of the others’. It’s too easy for me to “preach it” without exposing the ways I should be preaching to myself. I’ve had to work on that over the years, to shine a light on both that tendency and what I might be hiding. I'm still working on it.

You see, I’m a scared writer. Not in my basic ability to get the words down and make sense of them, but in what I’m willing to share. This may be in part born out of growing up a pastor’s kid (an excuse I love to make!), but before I know it, I’m thinking, What will people think if I confess that? What will people think when my opinion/conviction is less than traditional/conventional? What will people think of me?

I’ve also thought about any tendency to be a scared writer when it comes to writing fiction. Sure, we can make our characters as nontraditional and unconventional as we like, but how far are we willing to go to make them as vulnerable as real people? Like we are as real people? Even baring their souls?

I’m not talking how some writers would gladly portray everything as R-rated as possible; I think even beginning writers have the skill to avoid that. And I know protagonists are best loved when they’re likeable, at least eventually. But I don’t want to be afraid to infuse characters with real, reflecting a lot of me that might elicit a raised brow or two.

As primarily an editor, I’d also like to encourage authors with whom I work to not be afraid of real. The beauty of Christian fiction, or fiction not so labeled but that still accurately portrays the Christian walk, is that it can also portray the eye-opening, heart-opening redemption and transformation only God can provide.

Maybe a scared writer can be a good writer who's just decided to write what’s real anyway, unafraid to shine a light. 



Jean Kavich Bloom is a freelance editor and writer for Christian publishers and ministries (Bloom in Words Editorial Services), with more than thirty years of experience in the book publishing world. Her personal blog is Bloom in Words too, where she has posted articles about the writing life. She is also a regular contributor to The Glorious Table, a blog for women of all ages. Her published books are Bible Promises for God's Precious Princess and Bible Promises for God's Treasured Boy. She and her husband, Cal, live in central Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren.


Photo credit: https://publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=216102&picture=desk-lamp