Recently, I experienced being seriously ill. So far God has used that horror to teach me. He has also used those six scary days to give me something to write about. I might add here, my children and grandchildren were scared. Through the whole experience I was so calm it took my nurse/daughter four days to convince me that I was critical.

I wrote about this in my column, Every Now and Then, in the four weekly newspapers I edit. Hopefully, some reader was blessed by that column.

Every Now and Then

By Pat Radaker

Editor, Indiana Newspaper Group

Every now and then something happens to remind me that God desires to bring good out of the bad things that happen in my life. As his word tells us in Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV)

I had the opportunity this past week to see how that applies to my life. Blacking out at work, going to the hospital by ambulance, and staying on a hospital floor that is one step down from ICU gave me time to think and pray as I waited, trying to avoid emergency surgery.

I have seen so many good things come from the experience already. First, had it happened a day later, Rachel would not have been there to call 911 when she found me, head on folded arms at my desk -- unresponsive. I thank God that he prevented the mail carrier from finding me dead at my desk -- something that could have easily happened.

Secondly, many people prayed for me. I believe had they not prayed I would have been rushed into a life or death situation demanding surgery.

Thirdly, those six days in PCU gave me many opportunities to practice patience. Sometimes I'm a little short in that department.

I still wear several multi-colored bruises on arms and hands where blood was drawn or IVs inserted. This experience had me in the hospital during Holy Week. As I meditated on the events between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, memories focused on the fact that my Lord was bruised for my sin, tortured, crucified to give me new life. My suffering did not compare with his.

After drinking my meals for four days, I really appreciated tasting, chewing, and swallowing food that was surprisingly good for hospital food.

I realized a deeper appreciation for my family -- a daughter who drove back and forth from Lafayette to Muncie to spend a night with me, go home to work the next day and drive back to Muncie the next day. When she took me home, she had done some cleaning in my apartment, allowing me to enjoy coming home all the more.

My 17-year-old granddaughter, who hopes to attend Ball State University in another year to study nursing, stayed with me when her mother had to go to work in Lafayette. She did dirty work while caring for me that most teens wouldn't even consider.

My sister stayed with me at times, relieving the others. Friends from church drove to Muncie to visit and pray with me. My pastor kept in close contact. And now I am home and anticipating a wonderful Easter service on Sunday.

By the time this column's published, Easter weekend will have gone by, but every now and then I'll gladly remember why we have so much to celebrate.

(Used by permission from my employers at Kentucky Publishing, Paducah, Kentucky.)

How has God used trouble in your life to enhance your writing life? Are you learning, as I am, to look for the good in those times of trouble, and to use them in fulfilling your calling to write? We'd like to hear from you.

Writing from the Heart: Hearing God's Voice

So many people ask writers "Where do you get your ideas, your inspiration, the desire to put words on paper -- or into cyberspace?" Often it's from a child. Maybe it begins with the request for a bedtime story. Maybe it stems from something funny a child says or does. Maybe it comes from God's voice -- that still, small voice hidden deeply in the writer's soul.

Way back in the dark ages (or so my grandchildren think). when I was in high school, I took Jr. English Composition from a teacher we referrred to as "Carrot Top." She was quite a character. I may have to put her in one of my books. Anyway, every day, five days a week, when we arrived in her classroom we found a title on the chalkboard. "My Bedroom" or "If an Ancient Greek Came to Anderson." Our job was to produce an outline, then write an essay on the topic of the day, proofread and complete it neatly.

We'd get those essays back with many notes in red -- "watch those passive verbs, where's your outline? write in complete sentences "-- and the notes went on. My friends and fellow students complained on a regular basis (among ourselves, that is). We only had 50 minutes to get the job done. Did she think we were speed writers?

I look back on that class now and consider it one of the best courses I ever took. Was God's quiet voice in this? Absolutely. It helped prepare me for deadlines -- especially daily newspaper deadlines.

Before I could declare English and jorunalism majors at Ball State University, I had to pass the dreaded English Qualifying Test.I'd been warned about how tough it was. I automatically started the essay portion with an outline. Later I learned that anyone who didn't, didn't pass the test and had to take it over and over and over until they got it right.

Thank you "Miss Carrot Top." No problem. My outline finished for the essay part of the test, I could write the essay. Sailed right through it. Thanks, "Miss Carrot Top."

When I took the grammar section of the test I needed to diagram some sentences. Since I was an older student, I outlined the sentences quickly using the "old fashioned" method of diagramming. The students who learned a more modern method in high school failed the test.
"Thank You Lord for seeing to it I got the education I needed." I believe I heard a "Well done" from that still, small voice.

I had a hard time coming up with a topic this time, and it probably shows. But I believe that my inspiration comes from God, so I prayed before I started writing. I want to write for His glory, because He has called me to write. Because He has given the desire and the ability to do so.

I wonder, where do you find inspiration? Great ideas? I'd like to read your answers to those questions. Please take a minute to reply.

Pat Radaker

Writing from the Heart with Creativity

I have followed the discussion on the loop for the past several days as we have looked at "four-letter-words" from about every angle imaginable. Then as I was reading one day I found a creative way to say a sliched four-letter-word. Frederick Ramsay wrote the following in a book entitled: Judas: The Gospel of Betrayal. I quote from page 124. The words coming from his lips would make the roughest seaman blush."

The same author wrote such an innovative description using very few words. I quote from page 139. "The moment moved . . .like honey in winter."

On page 147 Ramsay wrote the following. "The howling stopped (coming from the demoniac), replaced by low mutterings and words, so blasphemous and vile that even I, who'd spent more years than I care to enumerate in the streets and brothels of the empire, blushed."

Diane Noble, author of The Veil, wrote on page 324, ". . . arrows as thick as horizontal rain, flooded the circle." On page 358 she wrote about a gun. "This thing's as empty as a church on Monday morning."

In The Scent of Water, Linda Nichols wrote, "Miss Harrison was on her way to gone," page 205.

Dorothy Francis wrote, in Eden Palms Murder, page215, "My anger simmered like a kettle of chowder." And on page 242, "Quinn sat silent as a chunk or coral. . ."

As you may have noticed, not all these quotations replaced less desirable words, but all exemplified good, creative writing. Let's all aspire to that high goal.

And then there's my favorite line from a favorite movie, Friendly Pursuasion. The character was a member of the Friends church -- gentle, quiet, soft-spoken -- usually. However, a Rebel soldier was chasing the family's pet goose. She picked up her broom, chased him off, and said, "When thee gets back to thy mother's house, I hope she bites thee."

We'd like to hear from readers about the remarkable writing you've come across. Please drop by and share favorite examples of great writing you've come across.

Pat Radaker

Writing from the Heart: Deadlines

Finding that illusive story while on deadline can be a challenge, but there's nearly always a story waiting to be written. I was a rookie news reporter when sent to a near-by town to cover the meeting of a small town council. For the first time in nine years the council conducted no business. They lacked a quorum.

While waiting for one more council member to arrive, people chatted about a number of things. Then the council got a call. The absent member was at the hospital with his mother who had a possible heart attack. The board president dismissed the meeting.

Back at the newsroom I turned on the computer and stared at it for what seemed an eternity. Then I found my lead. The lack of a quorum halted the conducting of business. This was a first for this particular council.

I filed a very short story and waited for the managing editor to read it.

She said it was a first for the newspaper too, at least in her time. Never had a college student and rookie reporter ever come up with a story when nothing happened.

Even a crazy day, a full dumpster, and hunting a parking place can be the ingredients for cooking up a column -- super fast. Try this one on for size. The headline read "Legs Stop Traffic."
I first wrote it for The Twin City Journal-Reporter in Gas City, IN.

I should have known what kind of crazy day it would be when I spent half an hour waiting for my daughter to meet me for breakfast before I left for work. I was in the wrong restaurant. I finally realized it and remembered where we were to meet.

We enjoyed breakfast and headed our separate ways. My arrival in Gas City was uneventful -- until I tried to park. The lot by the office was full, so I drove down the alley intending to go to the front of the newspaper office and park.

As I looked to my left to check out traffic before turning right, I did a double take when I saw a pair of legs sticking out of a dumpster. I parked and went in to grab a camera. Before I could get out of the office we'd received two calls. People were curious about those legs.

It seems that Scott Wright, of the Wright Cut, bought a box of mannequins at an auction to use in an art project. Parts he couldn't use he put in the dumpster.

"Usually dealers buy them for hundreds of dollars," he said. "I got the whole box of bones for only $10."

As I stood on the sidewalk talking with Wright, camera hanging around my neck, I watched people go by. One woman pulled into the bank drive through, took her glasses off and cleaned them, looked again then drove off looking slightly bewildered.

Someone else drove by slowly and pulled into the alley for a second look. If they noticed me out on the sidewalk with a camera they probably wondered if they were participating in a local version of Candid Camera.

If only I had had the time to wait for trash pickup. The expressions on the faces of the trash collectors might have been well worth snapping. Wright said maybe he should put more bones out each Friday for a while just to see the reaction.

Where have you found unexpected stories? Enquiring minds want to know. So do I.

Pat Radaker

Writing from the Heart:So Dear to my Heart

Many years ago I read a book by Edith Schaeffer called Hidden Art. Schaeffer talked about creating memories for our children.

Now my grandchildren provide memories for me that find their way into my journals and into my heart. Many make me laugh. Some bring tears. All touch my heart.

For example, I got to church one Sunday and sat with my daughter's family. I asked Stephen where his daddy was. "He's being a mushroom" was his answer. I thought I had misunderstood him and asked what he said. "Grandma Pat, I said he's being a mushroom."

I finally received an explation from his mom. He was trying to tell me that his dad was ushering.

Another funny one from my journal was one Thomas misunderstood. When it's raining you need an under brella.

Then there was the time Bethani, just a toddler, couldn't stay away from the phone. I would take her away, tell her "That's a no-no," and try to divert her attention in another direction. When I this routine grew old, I started smacking her hand. One day while I cleaned up after lunch before putting her down for a nap, I heard the recorder. "You have two new messages."

She was at it again. I went to the living room. She faced away from me. Not wanting to scare her, I very quietly said, "Bethani." She jumped, threw the phone across the room and smacked her own hand. I hurried out of the room to laugh.

Then there was Joey, the five-year-old preacher. His mom overheard him talking with my dad, his great grandfather. Dad was dying and Joey wanted to be sure to see his beloved grandpa in heaven. He went through the plan of salvation like a pro.

Dad responded by saying, "Joey, I know you believe what you just said. But I'm not sure I do. You could be wrong, you know."

Joey's wise words -- "But Grandpa, what if you're wrong?"

That's one of those tear jerkers.

Praise God, that's not the end of the story. Two days before Dad died, my youngest daughter was alone with him in his hospital room. He was in the last stage of Alzheimer's disease and had not respoonded to anything. Nana took his hand and said, "Grandpa, I don't want to tell you goodbye. I want to be able to say, 'I'll see you in heaven.'"

He squeezed her hand and gave her a wonderful smile that gave us hope.

So, keep those journals. Put those moments in writing. Don't forget them. They can make you smile and give you hope. In addition, as you share them in your writings, perhaps they will encourage others.

Writing from the Heart: The Next Generation

As I mentioned in my first post, I am a third-generation writer. It excites me to pass that interest on to my grandchildren. When my oldest daughter homescho0led Joey, he hated writing assignments, but he loved getting e-mail. He was still young enough to need mom's help at the computer.

One day I sent him an e-mail. "Joey, I have an idea. Let's write a story. I'm going to start a story and send it to you. I want you to figure out what happens next and send me an e-mail."

One day, when I went to visit his family, he met me at the door. "Grandma Pat, I know what's happening next, I just haven't sent it yet. " Then he filled me in on the next exciting installment.

In one of my many moves, I lost that story, but I do have one he and a buddy wrote for a high school assignment. And now, he is interested in writing sci-fi/fantasy.

Then there's Caylin. I went to her hometown to see her Little League game and take her home with me for the weekend. Slow traffic caused us to take a detour to get there. The reason -- a bad accident on the interstate highway. At the time I was a newspaper reporter/photographer and though off-duty, I had a camera and my curiosity with me. I didn't try to take a hike through a cornfield to get to the site of the accident -- not with a ten-year-old. It's a good thing I didn't. The driver of a semi was under the semi, his broken body severed in two.

We inch-wormed our way to a county road that took us into town. Pulling into a root bear stand, I ordered drinks and told Caylin she could stay in the car and enjoy her root bear. Her response -- "Can't I go with you Grandma? Do you have paper I can use to take notes?"

I found her a spare reporter's pad and a pen. We went up to a police officer who was standing on the sidelines. Traffic had been re-routed through our town. It was hectic. I asked whether I could get some information from the officer.

He answered, "Yes, Ma'am, but let me take over for the officer who's directing traffic. He was the first one at the scene."

I got a good story on my day off and had a good time showing my granddaughter what my job entailed. She took the newspaper I sent her to school and told all about being a reporter for a day.

Have any of you been able to share with children or grandchildren an enthusiasm for writing? Please comment and tell us about that experience.

Pat Radaker

The Vulnerability of Writing from the Heart

Sometimes it is so difficult to make myself vulnerable by writing for and from the heart. However, I am learning as I read Mary DeMuth's Thin Places that it can be done. This book has been such an inspiration to me. For writers, or for readers who want to be encouraged even as your heart breaks, Thin Places is a must read. Have plenty of tissues at the ready. You'll need them. I'd read a while, cry a while, then put it away for a while -- and repeat until the end.

Reading Thin Places has been a real encouragement for me both as a writer and as one who has experienced some difficult life experiences. Writing from the heart requires a willingness to bare one's soul for the benefit of the reader. The writer who embraces the opportunity to serve God by permitting herself to be vulnerable can participate with her Lord in the life-changing process.

It's easier for a reader to believe a writer's attempts to teach, to support, or to encourage if that writer's ben there -- has had a similar experience and with God's help, has come through it in victory.

For example, I can empathize with the Christian woman who did not have divorce in her vocabulary, and who thought he believed in the sanctity of marriage, only to find herself divorced after twenty-plus years into a life together. I've been there. And, by God's grace, I have spent two more decades recovering and getting used to living alone -- yet never really alone. I've seen God bring good into my life through the circimstances. And now, I have time to do the writing I only had time to dream about while raising a family. At long last, I'm fulfilling the writing urge God has given me.

I can also encourage the distraught writer hopeful whose professor or managing editor has torn her heart to shreds by a harsh grade or critique. I've been there. Later, the publisher and the managing editor at the newspaper where I worked both praised my writing ability. I can say to the writer, "keep on keepin' on. You'll make it."

Why? I've been there.

It has taken a good number of years both to become content with my singleness and to improve my writing skills -- especially in switching from newswriting to fiction writing. My next challenge, to have my first novel ready for the ACFW 2010 Conference.

We Hoosier bloggers would love to hear what our readers have learned the hard way of writing, and re-writing, and re-writing again. How can you now encourage the writing endeavors of others? What are you doing to grow as a writer? Would you drop us a note and let us know what's happening with your writing?"

Pat Radaker

Writing from the Heart

According to my mother, I have an incurable disease called printer's ink in my veins instead of blood. I am a third- generation writer. My grandfather, William Edward Cope wrote for some of the Hearst publications in the 1920s, even working as a correspondent in Ireland during the Irish Rebellion. Mother proofread for the Anderson Herald (Indiana) and wrote an occasional column. So I guess I came by it naturally.

I finished college at Ball State University when my children were teens, graduating with a double departmental major in English and journalism. Since then, I have written for a number of central Indiana newspapers.

I believe my desire to write Christian fiction didn't come naturally, but supernaturally with a calling from the Lord to write books that will show readers the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is my hope that my edgy fiction will reach individuals and churches with the message of redemption.

Because of some serious problems in my own life and in the life of my children, I want to emphasize the need for the church to remember that no one's sin is any greater than that of anyone else and no one's sin is beyond redemption. It's ours for the asking.

After saying all of that, I would share that my WIP is entitled SECRETS. It deals with the problem of child molestation/incest. It is the book that I must write. It is also the book that is terribly difficult to write. The same emotions that I have had to deal with in the past tend to paralyze me at times, but those emotions, I hope, will be strong in my characters. Writing from the heart. Pat Radaker, Lafayette IN