What God Will Do by Marcia Lee Laycock

When I read the prompt for this month, asking what ministry opportunities God has provided through my writing, I immediately thought of all the blessings I have seen and heard about over the years because of my small column in a local newspaper.

When my husband took on the senior pastor’s position in his first church one of the things he had to do was write a weekly article for the newspaper. It was due the day after we arrived in the community. Already a bit overwhelmed with his other responsibilities, he asked if I could do it. That was the beginning of my faith column, The Spur. The column ran for about eighteen years and is now still running in a coffee news flyer that is distributed all over the province and beyond.

The title seemed fitting since we were now living in the middle of cowboy country and the verse from which it was taken was also appropriate – “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” I had no idea, when I chose that verse and that title, how much God was going to do just that.

Since my photo was usually published with the column, people would often stop me on the streets of that small town and talk about what I had written that week. Sometimes they just said thank you. Sometimes they asked for prayer. Sometimes there were tears. Emails arrived in my inbox from all over the province and beyond. I was often awe-struck by how God had used the words I had written to help, to heal, to draw people closer to Himself.

And then they started asking me to put the column into book form. Hesitant at first, when I finally gave in I was again amazed at how far that little book travelled. I received emails from as far away as India and England and was asked by a man in South America if he could translate it into Spanish and give it away to the believers there. At a speaking event a woman rushed to tell me that she had given The Spur of the Moment to her neighbour, a woman she had witnessed to for years. “She called to tell me she had read the book from cover to cover and gave her life to Jesus!”

My other books, too, have used by God. After reading One Smooth Stone a young woman called her mother to tell her that “I know now that in spite of everything, God really does still love me.”

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

The verse often comes to mind that “God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). And Ephesians 3:20 – “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” 
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Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed in The Word Awards. Marcia also has three devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies, including the Hot Apple Cider books. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded on Smashwords or on Amazon. It is also now available in Journal format on Amazon. 

Her most recent release is A Traveler’s Advisory, Stories of God’s Grace Along the Way.

Visit Marcia’s Website

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