Making Room for Thankfulness in the Midst of Privation

God has been nudging me about memorizing Scripture. I have embarrassingly little of His Word committed to memory, so I started with the verses I have tape-flagged in my Bible, ones I wanted to keep close anyway. I practice each verse for a few minutes a day, adding a new one when I have the [...]

When the Creativity Well is Dry

“Understanding is a fountain of life to one who has it, but the discipline of fools is folly.” -Proverbs 16:22 After struggling with a rough spot in my WIP for a ridiculous period of time, I concluded that my creativity well had run dry. It needed something I simply didn’t have. Thus, I did what [...]

Overcoming Obstacles

“Maybe God means all of these troubles to show me that I’m not supposed to be a writer.” Ever feel that way? Somebody tell me I’m not the only one. Choosing a writing career means facing insecurity and rejection, and it means waiting, patiently or otherwise. When I got my first subscription to Writer’s Digest [...]

Sometimes Prayer’s Job is to Not Change Things

Turn Your Face Toward the Son…

Change Your Mind

As I started to write this post, the words I typed felt strangely familiar under my fingertips. I checked, and sure enough, I wrote them before in this space last year, which just goes to show that it takes more than a new year to change a person’s mind! The most important change I could [...]

Abide in Christ

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me [...]

What it Means to Follow

If God has been teaching me one thing this year it’s been what it means to follow. Dance has been one giant metaphor for my relationship with God and His leading in my writing career and personal life. While in the past I’ve always tried to follow God’s will for my life, the process in [...]

Speak No Evil

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 I am often guilty of forgetting this verse. Or worse, choosing to ignore it. As one who [...]

The Nature of Art

The opening line of Anne Lamott’s writing memoir Bird by Bird states, “The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth.” As a Christian writer, I often wonder at how truth in fiction is achieved. After studying the parable [...]

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