In Luke 4:18, Jesus tells the people of His synagogue what His mission is. Jesus’ mission is our mission, too. As writers, we have been called to:
Preach the Gospel to the poor Heal the brokenhearted Preach deliverance to the captives And the recovering of sight to the blind Set at liberty them that are bruised. Is this what our writing is doing? How will that change in the coming month? Let’s accept the mission.
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No, this is not an official list. I made it up myself. Just so you are warned.
One: Autocorrect, Spell Check, and all their other cousins. Including White-Out and pencil erasers. Two: That particular kind of pen that doesn’t skip or smear or . . . Three: Friends and relatives who don’t roll their eyes when I ask for MORE notebooks for Christmas or when I sit there on Christmas morning thumbing through the clean white pages . . . Four: Rainy days so I can curl up inside and write, write, write, write . . . Five: All those crazy little things I call inspiration. Six: Imagination. Seven: Encouraging reviews from friends and family. Eight: Other writers who dared to write their books so I can enjoy them and learn from them. Nine: Writing friends to share the journey with. (Like you!) Ten: God chose to speak to us in a book. Eleven: The Author of the universe. Oops, guess that was eleven. And now for a bit of winter word-loving humor. As most of you probably know, this newsletter has been a little scary for me. I have had a lot of insecurities and worries about starting something like this up. One day, I was struggling with a lot of this. Was I moving too fast? Should I just dream smaller? I had prayed about it, but what if I had misread God’s answer? Maybe I should just stop.
I do a lot of my thinking during my piano practice. Which is probably why some of my practice pieces are in . . . interesting . . . shape. So, there I was, practicing on the outside, but thinking on the inside. What song would my teacher have assigned me this week? “Tell me the Stories of Jesus.” To help me keep the melody line of a song straight, I think of the words in my mind, so I turned newsletter off for a second to work on this song. “Tell me the stories of Jesus, write on my heart every word. Tell me the stories most precious, sweetest that ever was heard. Tell how the angels in chorus, sang as they welcomed His birth, glory to God in the highest, peace and good tidings to earth. Tell me the stories of Jesus, write on my heart every word. Tell me the stories most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.” And what He said was, “Just tell My story. No more, no less. Just use everything you write to point back to Me, for My glory in the highest, and you’ll be fine. Use your words to spread peace to earth—and you’ll be fine. Just tell My story.” We don’t have to have everything perfect. We don’t have to be politically correct. We don’t have to be liked by everybody. As the movie God’s Not Dead 2 states, “Someone is always going to be offended. Two thousand years of human history proves that.” And while we’re certainly not out to offend, the truth is, all we really need is to tell His story. Just tell His story. You’ll be fine. A couple months ago, I began the discussion of what it would be like if I began a newsletter. A newsletter to encourage readers and writers in the word craft. A newsletter to help other word-lovers.
The only problem is, I had heard about all these different tools to use on newsletters, and things you should do, and things you shouldn’t do, and things you should NEVER do, and I got a little overwhelmed. But you were supposed to have these tools, or these skills. So I waited. And, I must admit, I was comfortable with that. A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege to see Priscilla Shirer, one of my favorite authors, live. She spoke about “treasure that you never knew you had,” more specifically, the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus told the disciples to go look and see what they had to give the crowds. They said, “Only five loaves and two fish.” They were negative about what Jesus had given to them as “treasure.” Treasure to fulfill their calling. They just thought there wasn’t enough. But, Priscilla pointed out, He had already made sure there were five smooth stones for David. And when the five thousand were fed, there were twelve baskets of leftovers—one for each disciple. There was not just enough. There was plenty. She encouraged us to look at our treasure. To speak and think positively about it. To view it not as it is but as it will be. Because there would be plenty. And I thought of this newsletter. So. This may not be perfect. Hopefully, it will get better as I go along. ;) Here are my five loaves and two fish. Buckle up and get ready to enjoy ProseWorthy. |
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Hi, I'm Rachel! I'm the author of the posts here at ProseWorthy. Thanks for stopping by! Archives
April 2024
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