A Letter to My Younger Self by Steph Beth Nickel

Dear 20-Something Self,

Some things we can’t learn without experiencing them. So, while there is lots I’d love to encourage you to change, lessons I’d love for you to learn sooner, we likely wouldn’t be here, just a couple of months before our 65^th birthday.

And just where is here?

After 40+ years in the same city, Dave and I are packing and prepping the house to put on the market. Joshua, Son #2, and his wife, Ericka, (yep, we’re a mother-in-law twice over) live two provinces over. Sarah, Kiddo #3, moved in with them last fall. She hopes to buy a place of her own when she has saved up enough for a downpayment. And our plan, Lord willing, is for Dave and I to move west after the house sells.

That will be a huge adventure, considering we’ve never lived out of the province. While we’re excited, the thought of leaving behind family and friends will become more emotionally charged as the date approaches. Several people have said how much they don’t want us to go, some who have known us for years and others we’ve befriended more recently.

Last year, Dave finally retired from his “temporary” job at the Housing Corporation, where he worked for over 40 years. (The Lord never opened the doors to full-time music ministry as we’d anticipated.) Nathanial came home from Scotland to celebrate his dad’s retirement and his 70^th b-day. (Sadly, N’s wife, Laura, couldn’t take the time off work.) Joshua and Ericka also joined us. And Sarah was still living at home at this point.

While all this happened just last year, it seems like it was much longer ago. What doesn’t seem that long ago is the adventure Dave and I shared with Nathanial and Laura in 2024. We travelled to Iceland with them and toured Scotland, where they live. Nathanial also took Dave and I to Ireland for five days toward the end of our time across the Pond.

So, all that to say…

Our life has been a sequence of adventures. And hopefully, there are several more yet to come.

You, my 20-something self, have challenging days ahead. You’ll make mistakes you’d love to erase. Words—lots of words—you’d love not to have said. Accusations you’ll wish you’d never made. Lessons you’d love to have learned much earlier. Opportunities you’ll grab hold of and others that will slip through your fingers. And a battle with anger that only the Lord could deliver you from.

But know this…

Romans 8:28 is true. God truly works all things together for good.

His mercy and grace are unfathomable.

And His blessings… Innumerable.

Trust the Lord. Grow in your love for Him. And grow in your love for those whose paths cross yours.

Embrace the adventure that is your life!

Steph Beth Nickel is the former Editor of FellowScript and the current InScribe Contest Coordinator. Steph is an editor and author and plans to relocate to Saskatchewan from Ontario to be close to family in 2027. (Headshot Photo Credit: Jaime Mellor Photography)

Q is for Qualified by Susan Barclay

 Qualified

 

Right now, I don’t feel qualified

Qualified to write, yes

But unqualified for the place

You seem to be leading me

Out of my comfort zone

 

I sense a calling on my life

A calling out of solitary ways

A possibly public calling

One I’m not equipped for

Where You need to show up

 

It’s been said: God doesn’t call the qualified

He qualifies the called

He uses ordinary people, broken people

People just like me

And people just like you

 

I have to remind myself - you, too?

Moses felt inadequate

Gideon felt inadequate

Peter – brash as he was – felt inadequate

And God still used them, mightily

 

God invites us into His work

We can say no, resist, run away like Jonah

But I’d rather not find myself in the sea

Or in the belly of the whale

Better to say yes and trust

 

Trust God to show up

Trust God to equip

Trust God to qualify

To lead by a cloud or pillar of fire

To give me a voice and courage

 

Trust that God has a plan

That God has a purpose

That He is sovereign and good

That He will make me useful

And use me

 

Thank You, God, for Your wisdom

For Your Word and Your words

Thank You for ability as I yield myself to You

And that You qualify

Those whom You call

 

Where You lead, let me follow

 

c. Susan Barclay, 2024

 

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.

Breaking the Cycle With Prayer By Marcia Lee Laycock

photo by author

I often heard Iya before I saw him. He was usually singing on his way to work in our gardens in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea. But one morning when he arrived at our door, he was quiet and I could tell there was something wrong. He had come to tell me he couldn’t work that day. He had to go to the hospital, to take food to his wife’s “Papa” (her maternal uncle), who had been attacked. He’d been beaten, slashed with a machete, and left with twenty arrows in his back. Iya looked me in the eye (a rare thing in his culture), and asked me to pray for their village.  

 

I knew what he meant. In P.N.G., there is a system called pay-back. It works well in a positive sense - if someone is in need, he asks for and receives help. When the one who has supplied that need finds himself in a similar situation, he can demand that his needs be met. It’s a system of caring for one another. But in the negative sense, pay-back creates a cycle of violence. Because Mifao’s Papa was attacked, it was expected his family and friends would retaliate by attacking the neighbouring village. Then, of course, that village would strike back. In the best scenario, several men, women and children would die. In the worst, the whole village would be wiped out. 

 

Iya asked me to pray because the men in his village were making arrows. 

   

My first instinct was to try and fix the problem - send in the police to keep them from killing one another, send someone to talk sense into them. But Iya said no. “Just pray.” 

 

The next day, he told me Mifao’s Papa was still alive and he and the other Christian men in the village were having opportunities to talk to the people about loving one another, the way Jesus taught. When they brought Mifao’s uncle home, he was unable to walk, but asked them to put him down on the edge of the village. He crawled his way to the place where the men were making arrows and begged them not to fight.

 

They put their arrows away.

 

Those who had expected to be attacked were so amazed they came to ask why. God was glorified, because a handful of faithful people stood still before Him and asked for His help.  

 

In Exodus 14:10-14, the Israelites had a chance to do the same. Pharaoh had finally let them go. They were camped at the Red Sea, when the Egyptians, suddenly enraged, surrounded them. With their backs to the sea, the Hebrews accused Moses of leading them to their deaths.

 

Moses replies – “So not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today… The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  (Exodus 14;13,14, NKJV).

 

Stand still?! I don’t know about you, but that’s a hard thing for me to do - I want to do something! When I see injustice, I want to fix it. When I see someone in pain, I want to fix them and their lives.

But we must learn to let God be God. Let Him fight the battle, let Him work the miracle, let Him display His awesome love.

 

Only then will our cycles of pain and violence be broken. 

 

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To learn more about my writing/speaking/teaching ministry please visit my website. 

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