Finding My Writing Path by Carol Harrison

 

I couldn’t see a path, only a tangle of roots to trip me and overhead branches to whip in my face. Why attempt to push my way through the underbrush trying to discover a writing path. I’d buried the enjoyment of writing so deep for decades that no one knew it had once existed except God.

My husband, Brian, kept asking me to write about our journey with our youngest daughter, Amee, and the amazing things God had been doing. “I can’t. I don’t know how.” became my familiar refrain. I honestly didn’t think I could or should write so why try finding a path in the forest of doubt. He asked periodically. I responded in the negative.

Then Amee began to say, “Mom, you need to write my story so others will understand.”

“What do you want people to understand?” I’d ask her, not expecting her to articulate a response.

“Help people understand more about who I am and what I can and can’t do. Help them understand that God still answers prayer today. I know ‘cause I’m here.”

How could I refuse her request? I began to read notes I’d written through the years as well as various medical and educational reports. Remembering how winding the journey we’d been on and the amazing things that had happened proved to be a healing exercise. But I couldn’t get past writing the first few paragraphs over and over. I’d write and hit delete. Then I’d begin again. No clear path emerged about how to tell the story. I was stuck and wanted to quit.

A friend saw a poster about a one-day Christian writers’ conference in Saskatoon. She urged me to attend. All I could think of were excuses not to go. It’s for experienced writers. I’m not a writer. It’s for published authors. I’ll still be on crutches. The list continued and my friend countered them all with simple words, “Just go and check it out.”

I met some amazing people like Marci Laycock, Janice Dick, Susan Plett, and Bonnie Grove among many others. I learned about Inscribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship that day as well. Some people attended because they wanted to learn more skills or refresh ones they hadn’t used for awhile. Others wanted to write family stories but never publish. Still others planned to publish or had published pieces. This day was for people like me who didn’t think we could write anything.  

Each month some Christian writers from Saskatoon and area gathered and shared writing tips, prompts, and encouraged each other. After attending a few meetings, I chose to read those first few paragraphs of Amee’s story. Maybe someone could help me get unstuck. They did and the writing journey really began.

By the time I published the memoir, Amee’s Story, my desire to write had resurfaced. Encouragement from my family and friends spurred me on to write a few short pieces and then look for places to submit them. I stepped out of my comfort zone and sent away a story to Chicken Soup for the Soul which was accepted. Nothing Under the Tree appeared in their Christmas book of 2010. Holding the payment cheque and copies of the book, seeing my story in print, and hearing the excitement of others over this writing accomplishment acted like a chainsaw to begin clearing away of the underbrush clogging the writing path.

As I thought about other moments that helped define my writing path, I realized the influence Inscribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship has had on my journey. I have learned from others through conversations, workshops, and taking Marcia’s Devotional Writing Course. Challenges and contests have encouraged me to try new things, improve skills I have acquired, and grow as a writer.

A grandson’s challenge enlarged the path from memoir and short non-fiction pieces to writing fiction. A granddaughter’s request to join her at a local poetry writing workshop added yet another dimension to my writing path. Being the FellowScript columns editor meant sharpening my editing skills and learning many things in the process.

My writing path isn’t a tangled mess of branches hiding the way and roots waiting to trip me up. It has grown wider but it still has twists and turns. I can’t see where God will direct me next on this writing path, but I plan to follow and be a good steward of the abilities He has given. 

 

 

 

 

Carol Harrison now spends many hours on her writing, whether editing her works in

progress or writing something new from her home in Saskatoon. She enjoys the encouragement of her husband, adult children, and grandchildren. You can find out more about her at https://www.carolscorner.ca

Knots and New Life by Carol Harrison

Ethical dilemmas. What quandaries have I faced in my writing and my life that I needed to deal with, to listen to God’s leading in dealing with them, and in being a faithful steward to what God was calling me to do and write? I pondered this question and struggled to discern the direction this post needed to take. After all, I reasoned, I don’t write about ethical dilemmas and haven’t been asked to tackle them, or have I?

I thought back a few decades to a time I hadn’t begun writing. I served on the admissions and review board with an organization not many people knew about yet. The Early Childhood Intervention Program in Saskatchewan hadn’t been in existence very long. It had begun to assist parents and caregivers by providing learning through play and information about available services for their children, up to six-years-old, who had special needs.

I had heard about ECIP through a friend who fostered a child in need of these services. But I never equated it with being available for us with our almost three-year-old daughter, Amee because we weren’t fostering or involved with Social Services. It took her a few months to convince me to apply for the help. Others struggled on their own, trying to find help, and never knew about this program. Even doctors and nurses didn’t understand what the program was all about, how it could be accessed, and why the help and encouragement was desperately needed.

Now as a parent in the program, I had the opportunity to share with others. Yet we faced a dilemma of helping people understand but not being able to share personal stories about clients. A reporter from our local newspaper offered to do a series of columns detailing ECIP. She wrote informative pieces about the beginning of the program, who it was designed to help, what types of things were available through the program, and how to access the services. She had the facts correct, presented them in a very easy to understand manner, and became an ardent supporter for ECIP’s ability to help families and their child with special needs.

But people, including medical professionals, didn’t seem to get it. Misconceptions abounded. She needed a personal story to go with the facts. But confidentiality stood like a wall, blocking that possibility. Or did it?

Confidentially should not be broken but I felt God’s peace. We, as a family, needed to be willing to be the solution so we waived our own confidentiality and shared our experience in the program. The reporter visited our home, met Amee, and listened to us tell her story. We shared how we heard about the program, the help and encouragement we had already received, and plans for further assistance and access to more help. We even invited her to take a photo of Amee, her dad, and myself. It appeared in the newspaper along with the article.

The personal story offered a face to a theoretical description of a new organization and what they did. Years later I began to write Amee’s Story after saying no for years. I had great excuses that sounded like reasons to me. I didn’t have the ability needed to tell the story. It was an ongoing story. But bit by bit, God worked on me using family and friends to get me to realize I needed to obey. The reasons to share her story still existed just like they had years before. Amee wanted it written to help people understand more about a person with special needs, especially one who had relatively invisible disabilities. To do that I face the ethical dilemma of how much of the story to tell. Should I give the bare necessity of facts or delve deeper? God directions came through Amee. She was willing for me to share the good, the bad, and the extremely difficult portions of her life.

Personal experience and story sheds more light and gives valuable perspective, but also sticks with people long after a litany of facts. The result of my obedience to God’s nudge to write the story and share it in a variety of ways has given me peace. But it has also encouraged others and Brian and I have been able to share the book with those God leads us to do so, even when we aren’t sure why. The book tells more of the story than we have time to share in a few minutes.

Only we could choose to listen to God’s leading and break our own confidentiality. Obedience meant being vulnerable but trusting God to use it however He saw fit. Sharing the story in the newspaper decades ago to writing the book has allowed me to tell others that the God of the Bible is still God toady. He answers prayer but the answers might not look like what we expect and He has received the glory. 

The pruning leaves behind a knot yet new life grows and the tree flourishes. So our obedience pruned away fear. God has used the process and the story to help me grow and also encourage others. 

  

Carol Harrison is passionate about mentoring others to help them find their voice and reach their fullest potential as she shares God's amazing love with them from her home in Saskatoon. Sometimes it means being vulnerable and allowing God to work through the dilemmas.

God's Invitation for the New Year by Steph Beth Nickel

Scripture Verse of the Year

“Whatever you do, work at it from the soul, as for the Lord and not for people” (Colossians 3:23 TLV).[i]

While this is a command, it is also an invitation. Can you imagine what it would be like to actually do everything—every single thing—as if doing it for the Lord? 

Of course, this side of heaven, we’re not able to do this perfectly, but it doesn’t mean we’re not supposed to pray that God would enable us to do so with increasing frequency.

Do we have a regular “quiet time”? Do we attend church, in person or virtually, most Sundays? Do we read books by Christian authors?

We can see these things as being done “as for the Lord.”

But whatever we do?

I made the decision ages ago to commit each task to the Lord before I began.

Impressed? Don’t be.

I said, “I made the decision …”

I did not, however, say I succeeded. <sigh>

This is one discipline I intend to implement in the New Year. (Feel free to check in with me from time to time to see how I’m doing.)

Here are 13 additional ways I intend to accept God’s invitation in Colossians 3:23. Hopefully, they will spark some of your own ideas.

1. Study the entire book of Colossians, especially chapter 3.
2. Focus on each command independently.
3. Prayerfully ask God to enable me to obey each command with increasing frequency.
4. Memorize several verses from Colossians.
5. Regularly review these verses.
6. Keep short accounts with God, asking Him to forgive me when I stumble, which I will—often.
7. Thank Him for the forgiveness that is already mine because of what Christ did so long ago.
8. Seek to set a good example for others and come alongside them on their own journey of obedience.
9. Pray about which tasks to take on and which to set aside. If I try to keep too many plates spinning, several of them are sure to fall and shatter. Plus, it makes it hard to do a task as if doing it for the Lord if I’m preoccupied with the dozen others on my To-Do List.
10. Dream big. This keeps me motivated and inspired.
11. Be realistic about what I can accomplish each day. (Refer back to #9.)
12. Seek wise counsel from those who understand that I have to both dream big and be realistic.
13. Begin and end each day focused on the Lord.

I’d love to hear how you intend to accept the Lord’s invitation in Colossians 3:23 in the coming year.

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[i] Scripture taken from the Holy Scriptures, Tree of Life Version*. Copyright © 2014,2016 by the Tree of Life Bible Society. Used by permission of the Tree of Life Bible Society.

A Prayer of Relinquishment ~ Valerie Ronald

 

My husband and I held each other in the dark as we prayed through our tears. We were married only a short time when I discovered the cancer I was being treated for was still growing. We had known this possibility was real, yet we clung to the hope the treatments would work. God had brought us together in a miraculous way, so why would He allow this awful disease to separate us?

As mature Christians, our faith was strong in our sovereign God and His perfect will. This was a second marriage for both of us. We saw ourselves as a couple of seasoned war horses, having survived the battles of our betrayed first marriages with our faith still intact. These trials taught us that when God asks us to surrender our will to His, we must trust He will show us the way. He clearly showed us the way to each other. We knew without doubt our marriage was a gift from Him. Only now our faith was being put to the ultimate test in a life-and-death situation. Could we trust Him with this?

On tear-soaked pillows we relinquished our own dreams and desires to the One who holds all things in His hands. It was a desperate prayer, a laying down of this precious gift of love we had in each other.We surrendered all, but not without a sense of rending, of tearing, of grief at the possibility of losing what we had only just found in our mutual love. It felt risky to lay bare before God our deepest longing. What if He chose not to spare me? What if our life together was cut short?

“Remember what God said?”, whispered my husband. “ 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.' 1  We need to trust Him, no matter what.”

Not only were we called to trust, we were called to obey. Giving over to God what we held dearest to our hearts needed to be done as an act of obedience, not of emotion. Pleading to have our own way, no matter how right it seemed, would be placing our own will above His. If we truly trusted Him, then we must truly trust that His ways are best, whatever the outcome. Our desire for God to be foremost in our hearts must take precedence over our desire for me to be cured. Like Abraham, we placed the “Isaac” of our life together on the altar, giving it to God to do with as He thought best.

My oncologist intensified my treatment regimen. For six more months I endured chemotherapy infusions which made me sicker than the disease itself. When I was at my lowest I sometimes wondered if our prayer of relinquishment was turning into one of resignation. But resignation signifies defeat, giving up to expect the worst. Our prayer meant we accepted the reality of our situation, yet with open hands to receive willingly whatever our loving Father sent. Relinquishment did not close the door on hope.

That night of prayer and tears happened over 19 years ago. Doctors credited the treatments for halting the cancer, but we know God gave me the gift of this long remission. We have come to believe that relinquishing our desires to God, the hardest thing we’ve ever done, positioned us to receive what He wanted to give us and to accomplish what He had in mind for our lives.

What if God had chosen not to prolong my life? Would our prayer have failed? There can be no failure in relinquishing our will to God, because doing so tells God of our complete trust in Him, and that is what He desires most from us. I reached a point when I could say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” 2

My husband and I take every day we have together as a blessing from our loving God. We continue to yield our dreams and hopes to Him, not knowing what the outcome will be, yet trusting the One who knows the end from the beginning. Whatever He deems best is fine with us.

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1  Isaiah 55:8 NIV              2  Job 13:15 NIV

Valerie Ronald lives in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. She is a graduate of Vancouver's Langara College journalism program, and has worked as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, public speaker and bookstore employee. She writes devotionals for her home church bulletins and her online blog. Her current book project chronicles how God's faithfulness saw her through the dark valleys of divorce and cancer. Along with her husband, Valerie enjoys spending time with their blended family and six grandchildren. She is a nature photographer, water colorist, cat lover and Scrabble addict.

More of her devotionals can be read on her blog https://scriptordeus.wordpress.com