Writing. How Do I Love Thee? by Glynis M. Belec

           

Let me count the ways. I have always loved words. I remember fancying myself a writer as a child and creating some peculiar poems – they always had to be funny . Then there were those (according to me at the time) pretty hip songs.

An example of a poetry beginning that I remember:

How to Get Rid of Aunt Martha

by Glynis Latham Belec

Her kisses are squashy

Her lipstick is red

Her perfume is strong

Her hugs I do dread.

She pinches my cheeks

And says that I’m cute

And she always reminds me

To eat all my fruit. . .

(There’s more. I can’t remember it. Poor Aunt Martha was scared by Frederick the mouse and such, if I remember correctly!)

Sometimes I like being a pack-rat. Here is an
old report card of mine from (yikes!) 1967

In school I always did well in English. The words on my report card when I was ten years old encouraged me aplenty to do something with composition.  So I did. I wrote little things in my own diaries and in my jotters.  I wrote short stories and plays in my mind. No one would know about them or see them except me and God.  I was pretty shy about who I would show my writing to and at the time I sure didn’t have much confidence in my efforts.

I would absorb the classics, especially Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, Little Women and more. Mom and Dad had bought us (my two sisters, my brother and I) subscriptions to a weekly comic. Mine was called DIANA. Every Christmas our parents would buy us the Annuals for the magazines. They were all prettily packaged under the Christmas tree. I could hardly wait to open and read my annual. It was like a very thick DIANA magazine with a hard cover. I loved that yearly gift and I am wishing now that I never got rid of my collection.

I always did a decent job in school with my writing and when I went into nursing school years later, I had to write an essay on safety. I got an A and the prof told me that I had a knack for the written word. No one had quite said it in those terms. I remembered that and when I had an opportunity to enter a writing contest many years, a husband and two children later and won first prize, something started to stir in my soul.

In 1986 I met Jesus face to face.  Shortly after that, I

realized that my passion was not something to hide. My passion was actually a gift. And how quickly I realized that if I didn’t accept and use that gift from God, I was surely missing out. Plus I was not being obedient to the Father.

By no means have I hit the big times in my writing 

career.  Although I still feel like success is a state of mind and not the thickness of the wallet. (Mind you a trial run of a thick wallet because of my writing would be something worth considering. I digress).

Just like so many of my beautiful writer friends, though, I keep slogging and praying and giving thanks for the open doors (and sometimes the closed ones). I long to write full time, but, the time isn’t quite right for that.

Jesus continues to open my eyes and continues to be the motivation for my passion.  For that I am so very grateful.

My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. NIV Psalm 45:1