The Penny, The Pause, The Purpose by Marnie Pohlmann

The Penny

I like to reconcile my bank accounts. To the penny. Every month. I also like to keep lists. A list of deadlines. A list of articles I have submitted for publication. A list of what was accepted for publication. A list of published pieces.

I realize this talent for counting, checking, and balancing may be unusual for a creative soul, but I believe I am a better writer because I enjoy reports and math almost as much as words.
Balancing to the penny causes me to pay attention to detail, which helps in editing. Lists keep me on track toward a goal. Math itself provides the rhythm and flow of my words. Like music, poetry is based on the counting cadence of smooth transitions. Prose, too, needs tempo to move a story forward.

The base notes of putting words on paper are developing a rhythm in my life. Perhaps it holds a little reggae, or country, or even a soulful tune, which gathers volume as I hum along. While I count the cost of writing, I also list the rewards. Rewards like networking with other writer-souls, and communing with God in special writing times.

I am a writer. I don’t know at what point I need to say writing is my business. My financial balance sheet still shows I spend more on ink, conferences, and contests than I generate as income with my words. But I am making progress.

God has been training me for a long time – perhaps I am a slow learner, or perhaps it has all been for such a time as this. Over the years I have learned to run a home business, do my own taxes, speak in public, and now I am learning to share my writing. Through it all, I write. Because after all, there is no business of writing if there is no writing.

The Pause

Much like in writing, my penchant for math is helpful in my spiritual walk.

Today is the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We remember how the body of Christ is enclosed in the tomb. The cross is empty. Yet the stone has not yet rolled away. So we pause. Today is the day of waiting.

For such a time as this, Jesus had counted the cost, and his life balanced the need for a perfect sacrifice so we could be set free of the consequences of sin. Today, in the waiting and the contemplation, I can count the cost of my belief. I can check the sin in my life to keep short accounts. I can balance my doing and my worship to become Christ-like in my walk.  I pause. Selah.

Christ died so I could be fully reconciled to God. To the penny. Always and forever.

The Purpose

“I’m Evelyn the Goat Lady,” she introduced herself when we came to pastor the small town church she attended. She wore a jaunty fedora-type hat and a big smile. She was a tough old bird, who had lived an adventurous life.

Evelyn showed us pictures of a beautiful younger self in a bathing suit, on a champion jumper horse, and by a bush plane. She had been striking, like a young Katherine Hepburn. In later years, she had unofficially taken in foster kids, teaching them to trust God for their needs. She was an independent, strong-willed, pioneering woman.

When we met her, she was raising goats, living off the land, and dying of cancer.  As we visited her at the farm, we found she was also writing a book, and was working with Trafford Publishing to have it printed. It was important to her to leave a message about how much God loved us, so she wrote a fiction tale, “A Glimpse Into Heaven: creation to the cross from Heaven’s point of view”. I had the privilege of reading her first draft, and perhaps buying the first print-on-demand copy after her death. I checked, and it can be found on Amazon.ca or the Trafford Publishing site.

Why do I tell you of Evelyn Yocum? Because even though she knew her time was limited, she wrote and published a book. Her goal was not to make money or build a business, but to share a message. Evelyn’s life and death reminds me the message is more important than the business. She inspires me to do the math, to remember my purpose.

The penny, the pause, the purpose – do the math.


Photos - teddy bear coins & cross - CCO Licence courtesy of Pixabay.com

Marnie blogs at Phosphorescent