Orchids and Prayer - Lyn Kublick

This beautiful cattleya orchid came into bloom yesterday. Its blossom is the climax of a very long story.

Twenty-four years ago my daughter was given several varieties of orchids for a school project. They were all in bloom when they came into our home and several of the others have continued to blossom over the years. This one was quite stubborn, and refused to produce another flower, until this fall.

My daughter grew up and moved away from home, but I continued to nurture her plants. No matter how carefully I cared for his one there was no reward. I assumed that it was my fault. I must have been doing something wrong. I was just not good at caring for cattleya orchids! After ten or twelve years, it would have been easy to become discouraged and consign this one to the compost bin. If that had been my choice, I never would have been blessed to see this wonder of God's creation.

Sometimes it seems that the practice of prayer can be rather like watching over an obstinate plant. There are several things that I have brought to my Father, over the years, with no visible result. I could become discouraged and conclude that I'm praying wrong, or that God isn't interested in my requests. One of the things I have prayed about, for years, is my writing and the difficulty of publication. It would be easy to give up and stop praying. Still, the ways of God are as hard to understand as the puzzles in horticulture. My task is to continue to work, pray and trust in the Lord of the eventual result. His schedule is obscure, but it is faultless. His answers come in His time, and are perfect.

Give Your Prose More Punch with Active Words - Bruce Atchison

One way to add confidence to your writing is by eliminating weak sentences. I've been doing this with my upcoming memoir, How I Was Razed and the technique has dramatically strengthened it.

You can easily change most weak sentences by searching for key word with your word processors "Replace Word" function. For example, type "was" into your search box, without the quotes, and it will take you to every sentence containing that word. If you find a sentence such as, "I was driven to church by Jay," you can rephrase it to read, "Jay drove me to church." That makes it sound more sure of itself. You can leave sentences such as, "I was there last night," alone because it's an emphatic statement.

Verbs such as, "went," "get," "left," "entered," and "moved" don't describe the action in your prose accurately. Those words leave readers wondering how somebody travelled somewhere, how a character obtained something, or how somebody departed. Another vague word is "walked." Did the character saunter, shuffle trudge, stroll, or stride? These words that describe walking speeds and attitudes add much more meaning to the sentences. You can use the same technique with "ran." People jog, dash, sprint, or pelt, depending on the situation.

Words such as "stuff" or "thing" are not only ambiguous but they sound amateurish. Telling the reader what the stuff is or what the things are helps explain their significance to the story. For example, is the stuff furniture or odd-shaped metallic objects from a bachelor's junk drawer? Naming things, or the type of things, also helps add clarity to the story. For example, are the things washing up on the beach human bodies or chunks of driftwood?

I've found that "feel" and "felt" are words that don't describe the full extent of my meaning. They could refer to somebody's opinion or sense of touch. Similarly, "felt" is used by people today to express desire. For example, "I felt like staying home this morning." Using the search function on that over-used word helps me find the sentences it appears in and correct those instances where those words make the meaning vague.

Unfortunately, I've used the word "unfortunately" too many times in my writing. From now on, I will explain why whatever I'm referring to was unfortunate. The same rule works for "regrettably," a word I regrettably use too often.

Yet another verb I've had trouble with is "rose." To say that somebody rose when that person stood gives the reader a mental impression of somebody ascending like a helium balloon.

I hope that these tips will be of help in your writing. If you're curious about what I've written, please click here. I list my two books and my writing history on that page.

Small Gestures - Karen Toews

Saturday afternoon I often listen to DNTO (Definitely Not the Opera) on CBC Radio One. October 23rd's program highlighted stories about the small gestures people send each other: their significance, intimacy, peculiarity. Typical of these kind of programs that focus on the regular stuff of life that most of us don't give a second thought to, the host invited listeners to contribute their own stories about small gestures.

Contrary to the many times I've heard this offer with nary a thought that related to me, this time I immediately knew I had a story to share.

Of my parents, my dad is the quiet one: always a diligent and steady worker, a kind and gentle man who deserved my respect. He's someone I've never wanted to intentionally hurt - from the days of youthful testing-my-wings through to the present when my visits with him are an occasional and precious treat. Though Dad is soft-spoken, he has a sure conviction about important things of life; like integrity, compassion, respect; and his way of communicating those values has been in keeping with his personality.

Growing up in a devout Christian family, we faithfully attended church together: at least two times a week, often more. Church was a place of worship and biblical learning - and a gathering place to visit. When I was about nine or ten Mom and Dad let me sit with my friends, but I just knew I was in my Dad's sights, regardless of where we sat. We did the normal kid things like writing notes, comparing the contents of our purses, whispering when we thought nobody was watching and when something would strike us as funny, trying hard to make ourselves stop giggling. Every once in a while I could feel my Dad's eyes on me and I couldn't resist a look to see if he was watching. If we made eye contact and he had one eyebrow raised and the other lowered, I knew I had better pull myself in line - right now. Mercifully, he never embarrassed me by getting out of his pew to come and ensure an improvement in my behaviour. All I needed was that one small, but meaningful, gesture to smarten me up in a hurry.

I've been given a lifetime of gestures from my Dad. Just a few months ago, grasping my hand to say good-bye and slipping me a $20 bill. On my wedding day, his gentle tug on my arm - my soon-to-be husband singing as we walked down the aisle wasn't a surprise to Dad. The little endearments shown to my children - and some not so little, like sitting in a rocking chair with babe in arms for two hours so as not to wake her up.

Actions speak loud and clear. The small intimate ones can sometimes be the most powerful.

It's More Than Charity That Begins At Home—Lynda Schultz

Today is my birthday. I'm one year closer to heaven. Today also marks the beginning of my fiftieth year of knowing the Lord. That's the birthday I really find amazing. It seems like such a short time ago when, at the age of eleven, I asked Jesus to be my Saviour and the Lord of my life.

It happened one Friday night at a children's program and the first thing I did when I got home that evening was to tell my mother and father what I had done. As I was reading in Mark this morning the idea of telling those closest to you about your spiritual decisions impacted me once again. The story is about a demon-possessed man. When Jesus cast out the demon and the man was once more clothed and in his right mind, all he wanted to do was to follow the Lord wherever Jesus was planning on going. Most leaders would love to have a few more followers in their entourage but in this case the Lord told the man: "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you" —Mark 5:19, NIV. And so it was.

Family is sometimes a "hard sell" because no one knows your wrinkles better than those closest to you. On the other hand, sharing your faith with family, new-found or not, is a logical step. My parents didn't say much when I told them that I had accepted Christ—they never were very demonstrative. But those few words did have an impact. A short time later I went forward in church when the pastor gave the invitation at the end of his sermon. He had encouraged me that Friday night to testify to my new faith in front of the congregation and to express my desire to be baptized by this public declaration. As I stood at the front of the church I sensed someone beside me. I turned my head slightly to see who was there. To my eternal surprise, there stood my mother.  As usual, she hadn't said a word to me about what had been going on in her own life—it wasn't her way. She'd been a believer for many years but had never publically declared that through baptism. My decision proved to be a catalyst for hers.

Over these fifty years of celebrating Jesus I've had many opportunities to share him with others. But no reaction to my words has been as special as that demonstrated by my mother so many years ago. When the now not-demon-possessed man returned home to tell his family and friends what the Lord had done for him, the Scriptures say that: "all the people were amazed" —Mark 5:20, NIV. I can't help but believe that this amazement produced much spiritual fruit for the Kingdom.

If charity begins at home so does telling how much the Lord had done for us, and how he has shown us his mercy. You just never know how the Lord will use even the words of a child.