U is for Understand ~ by Wendy L. Macdonald

 

Something surprising happened during my 1981 college English class. But first, let’s set the stage.

In those days I was exponentially insecure about my writing because my English professor said I was verbose. His bluntness helped me face my need to slash vast sections of early drafts. I needed to get to the point without padding projects with unimportant details.  

Our last essay of the year counted for much of our final grade. The pressure to be precise was immense. I don’t perform well under pressure. I freeze. While I was stuck in the research stage of the topic I was intrigued by, another student asked me to read her essay.

This only added to my insecurity. I was impressed by how brave the student was to already have her project completed. And the scope of her essay was deep and wide. Since I got lost in the big words and long sentences, I figured she must be smarter than me. How could I write anything worth reading when I couldn’t understand a classmate’s writing? Was I out of my league? Was I going to fail?

One thing I appreciate about my personality is that I’m competitive. I don’t like to give up without a fight.

The night before the essay was due, I pulled a near-all-nighter. My work was finally done.

The huge surprize came when I found out my classmate’s essay failed and mine got top marks.

Huh?

It didn’t take me long to realize that mine did well because I stuck to my outline. My essay gave the reader facts in easy-to-understand language. Big words and long sentences that lose the reader aren’t fun or informative. 

Overly embellished pages are quicksand that bogs readers down in unnecessary details. They’re dead ends that prevent our audience from understanding what we gleaned from research and experience.

They’re failing grades.

...whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

Proverbs 11:25 NIV

What have you learned from a humbling critique of your writing? I’m nosy to know.      

Wendy L. Macdonald is an inspirational blogger and YouTuber who loves photographing nature on Vancouver Island. Her happy place is making junk journals to sell in her Etsy shop. Her byline is: “My faith is not shallow because I’ve been rescued from the deep.”

Soul Food by Nina Faye Morey

 

In her July 19th post, “Soul on Fire,” Tracy Krauss comments on the passion for writing expressed by so many of the contributors to InScribe’s new anthology, Creativity & Chaos: Artistic Endeavours for Trying Times. You can check out her interviews with them on our InScribe YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/@ICWF-Canada

“Soul on Fire” is a perfect descriptor for the creative passion on display in this fifth anthology published by InScribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship. Another term I would associate with this anthology is “Soul Food.” Soul food is the comfort food African Americans created in response to the oppressive and troubling times they have experienced, and unfortunately still often experience, in their lives. It is also an apt description for the nourishment of the soul our anthology contributors tell us they derive from their creative responses to the chaos and crises they’ve endured in their lives.

Here are just a few of the talented writers you will find in the pages of Creativity & Chaos: Phil Callaway, Ruth L. Snyder, Valerie Ronald, Brenda Leyland, Sandi Somers, Carol Thornton, Sally Meadows, Carol Harrison, Marnie Pohlmann, Tracy Krauss, Lorilee Guenter, and Barbara Fuller. Their enormous and diverse creative talents are on display in fiction, creative nonfiction, nonfiction, devotionals, reflections, memoir, and poetry, as well as in the creative projects described in the section on hobbies & home.

Are you struggling with overwhelming stress, pain, and chaos in your life? In Creativity & Chaos: Artistic Endeavours for Trying Times, you'll discover the many ways contributors use the creative process to cope with all that negativity and transform it into something positive. If you want to break the chain of negativity and live the abundant life Christ desires for you, InScribe’s brand-new anthology will help you:

• Learn coping skills to deal with life's crises

• Become empowered to transform your life

• Go from surviving to thriving

• Use your God-given gifts to feed your soul and spirit

• Rekindle your passion for life

If you are eager to see how your fellow InScribers use their creativity to cope with life’s challenges, Creativity & Chaos is now available. InScribe members can purchase their paperback copies for the special preorder price of $15 (plus shipping and handling if applicable) until September 15th at https://inscribe.shelbynextchms.com/external/form/a6014bdf-4ade-41b0-87a6-5d411d70827f  Copies will also be available at this price during the book launch at our 25th Anniversary Fall Conference in Calgary, September 26-28th. After the Fall Conference, paperback copies will be released at a higher price on Amazon. The eBook version will be released on September 9th and is currently available for the pre-order price of $0.99 on Amazon at https://a.co/d/2ZoUmof

I hope you will be as entertained, inspired, and blessed by these stories, essays, and poems as I and my editorial team were while putting this anthology together. And as Barbara Fuller so eloquently wrote in her introduction to this anthology, “Our prayer is that the God who spoke into the chaos of darkness and created all things will be glorified through this creative offing.”

I want to conclude with a quote from Phil Callaway’s “Words of Gold” that appears in the Reflections Section of Creativity & Chaos: Artistic Endeavours for Trying Times and fitly illustrates this post’s “Soul Food” theme and the words of comfort and nourishment for your soul that you will find in the pages of this anthology.

“We, too, can deliberately choose to use precious words of gold to affirm and uplift others …They may be exactly what someone needs to hear, and they could be life changing.” 

 

Nina Faye Morey is InScribe Press Coordinator, Managing Editor of Creativity & Chaos: Artistic Endeavours for Trying Times, and Columns Editor for InScribe’s FellowScript magazine. She’s also a contributor to this anthology, as well three previous InScribe anthologies: 7 Essential Habits of Christian Writers (2015), Christmas: Stories & More (2017), and Easter: Stories & More (2021).

Teatime with my Fellow Writers ~ by Michelle Strutzenberger

Will you join me for a cup of tea and a scone? Have a seat. Here you go. The tea is hot, so be careful. I made the strawberry jam.

Aaaaah. Isn’t this lovely?

Now, I’d love to hear all about your work.

What are you excited to be writing these days?

Interesting. That sounds like a good challenge.

You’re asking about my work? Well, I’ve recently been encouraged to revisit a book I wrote on my journey through grief after the death of my twin. I wrote and self-published it to share with a few friends and family several years ago, but I’m wondering about editing it and publishing an updated version. I’m just praying about it right now. It will be a challenge for me, so if you could help me pray about this, I would be grateful.

Speaking of challenging writing tasks, what are some practices that you follow to help you cope?

Very good. Thank you for sharing. You’re wondering about mine? Well, one is prayer. I pray before I write, while I write, and after, when I am sharing. I feel I need the Lord’s guidance and strength every step.

I also try to ensure I write when I have the mental and emotional “space” to do so. In other words, if I am exhausted physically, emotionally spent due to some crises in my life, or just have too much on my plate, I will not push myself to write. I wait for a time when I have a few hours of quiet and I am in a relatively calm state of mind.

One more question, what is your greatest hope or prayer for your current writing project?

Okay, thank you for sharing. What is my greatest prayer for this project, you ask? Well, if I do go forward with this book, I would like to know that readers are helped and encouraged in their own grief journeys. I have been very careful in sharing my grief story not to say that others must follow the same grief path. I believe everyone will grieve differently and, also, each person will find different things helpful in coping. However, if I can share my story and experience, others may at the very least find hope that if I could get through, then they can too.

“After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

It’s been so nice to chat today. Let’s keep in touch, okay?

Michelle and her family enjoy hiking mountains and trails together. She is currently writing a series  called, What Growing Up in a Mennonite Family of 10 Taught Me About Survival. To receive the bi-weekly tips, visit this link and subscribe.

The Thing About Tests by Brenda Leyland

Today's post is in response to Joy Bailey’s recent challenge to take stock of old drafts, finish what's worth finishing, and get them out into the world—see her post here. Pulling up my figuratively dog-eared digital file, I came across one draft that fits with this month's 'T' prompt. I worked on it, finished it, and posted it. Whether that old draft has turned into something worth bringing into the light of day, well, you can decide. 😉

* * *

The past is where you learn the lesson.

The future is where you apply the lesson.

Unknown

Think back a moment to your student days. You're sitting at a desk, test paper in front of you, waiting for the signal to flip it over. You are either calm and ready to tackle it, or you've got a sinking feeling you may be scraping deep to pass this one.

My classmates and I used to think our teachers invented tests to torture us. Groans used to fill the classroom when a surprise quiz or upcoming test was announced. But with maturity often comes wisdom, and I eventually understood the purpose for tests (although it never really stopped the groaning). Tests can certainly be a pain, but, no, they aren't meant for torturing students. Neither are they designed to be a teaching tool—unless it is the lesson that we should have paid better attention, studied more earnestly, in the first place. Rather, our instructors used tests to determine how well, in fact, we had learned our lessons. How intimately we knew our subject of study and could apply it where applicable. And whether we successfully met the requirements to graduate or advance to the next level.

With that in mind, I have mused on and off over the years about where we get the idea, when it comes to our personal or spiritual lives, that God uses tests to try to teach us something. Who learns to swim when the boat has capsized in a storm? That's not the time to reach for the instruction manual. At that point, we desperately hope we can, in the manner of well-prepared boy scouts, swim for shore and safety. 

Now that's not to say we don't learn something in the struggle, but I don't think it's where we're really meant to gain our knowledge and expertise.

As I see it, that's why our Heavenly Father has given us His Spirit to come alongside and be our 'paraclete', to help and instruct. To teach us the way we should go, so we're prepared when the tests and challenges come our way. In my own life, how often I felt his instruction and guidance, grateful for the heads-up when I found myself needing it down the road. I remember times when he nudged me to get in the Word more, to study and know those promises inside out, to come away and rest a while, to pray, to listen, to gain greater insights into his divine nature (and my own stubborn ways) . . . all so that I would be more prepared to face life's disappointments, sorrows, and challenges. I also recall times where I realized too late that I should have listened to that nudge, the still small voice, and could have avoided some hard things.

There was a time years ago when I couldn't get enough of a certain passage, in fact, it was Psalm 37:5 NKJV. I kept returning to the verse, hungry to have those words about trust and waiting feed my thoughts and assure my heart. Only to have a situation show up where I had to wait patiently for Him and not do anything on my own. He was adamant about it, I felt his urging strongly. The test to wait and do nothing was not easy. I so wanted to put my oar in and figure it out myself—I had to keep returning to the psalm to stop myself. Then the day came, and I watched amazed at how the solution unfolded in a way I could not have imagined. To this day, I still shudder to think how easily I could have messed up something beautiful if I hadn't learned to listen... and wait.

As I began to see it, these tests weren't about me being taught something in that hard place. They were the opportunity for me to ‘test it out', as it were, to see if I truly meant what I said I'd do. If I trusted God to do what he said he would do. To see if, indeed, I'd overcome an old habit or attitude and would choose the better thing this time. I'm happy to report that sometimes I passed with flying colours. Which always gave me hope for the situations I still struggled to make the grade. 

God is a good parent, and with all my heart I believe he does work lovingly with our oft-stubborn selves, encouraging us, helping us to be prepared and ready for tests that do come to us as we live on this imperfect planet earth. Tests are the opportunity to show our mettle in the mess, to put into practice what we've learned. As a student in God's school of life, I'm still learning and still taking tests. But just think! One day all the tests will be done, we'll have passed the lot, and graduated to better things. It's something hopeful to keep us going in the meantime.

Photo credit: Image by Viarami from Pixabay

Inspired by the beauty of God's world around her, Brenda uses her favourite creative pursuit of writing to play with words and shape them into beautiful thoughts for good. Her sweet spot place for writing is on her blog It's A Beautiful Life, and she also enjoys being a Guest Blogger here. A longtime member of InScribe, she has been a contributor and columnist in FellowScript magazine and has contributed to two InScribe anthologies.