By Kathryn Haueisen “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2 I live in one of the flatter regions of the country, and prefer to lift my eyes to the horizon across a lake or ocean, yet I gravitate to these verses …
“Check Your Battery!”
by Kristi Holl Remember the scene from Sister Act when Whoopi Goldberg is training her nuns to sing on key? The oldest (nearly deaf) nun is joyfully pounding away on the piano, oblivious to how far she is out of sync. Whoopi stops the rehearsal, stomps her foot to gain the nun’s attention, and yells, “Alma! Check your battery!” Clearly …
Writing Over Speaking
By Cindy Patterson This summer I took the trip of a lifetime … a mission’s trip to Israel. Before the trip, our team of twenty met on several occasions to prepare and discuss what to expect. At our last meeting, the leader asked if anyone would be willing to give a devotion. Speaking in front of people is not my …
I Have a Voice!
by Kathy Harris If you’re going to get heard, you can’t just raise your voice. You’ve got to set yourself apart, showing you have something special to say, and that you have a unique way of saying it. — Jeff Goins, author, blogger, speaker I could barely squeak out my words much less raise my voice over the holidays after …
A New Year’s Prayer
By Elizabeth Musser Dear Lord, As 2020 opens like a blank manuscript before me, please hear my heart. May the words I write this year be well-chosen and crafted to the best of my ability. Oh, I know the first draft won’t be a thing of beauty. But please renew my desire, my zeal, to spend the time thinking about, …
What We Experience Affects What We Write
By Kimberley Woodhouse Write what you know. We’ve all heard it. But is that always the best advice? It worked for the character Anne in her vignettes of Avonlea, and it worked for Jo of Little Women, right? But what about all the adventurous and exciting stories they wrote and longed to write? Just like those fictional characters, our inquisitive, …
Those Important First Pages
by Jamie Chavez Sometimes you set out to do a thing for one reason only to find it was so much more than you ever imagined. More than you could have actually planned. In this case, I learned just how much value can be wrung out of focusing on the first chapter and how it relates to the rest of …
When God Has Something Else in Mind
God has blessed me with a large, close family. Between my mom and dad’s brothers and sisters, I have a total of seventeen aunts and uncles. And that’s not including their husbands and wives. The number of cousins I have, that include second cousins who are actually my age, would take a while to count. If I see one of …
How to Win at Writers’ Conferences
By Deb Haggerty What is your goal when you go to a writers’ conference or convention? Is it to sell your latest book? Is it to learn more about your craft? Preparing yourself for the occasion is important. When teaching networking, my mantra was “Always keep in mind those to whom you can refer others.” You never know when someone …
My Friend Writer’s Block
By Suzanne Bratcher WRITER’S BLOCK: Anything that stops our writing. My high school English teacher would hate that definition. I can almost hear her snap, “What do you mean by anything? For that matter, what do you mean by writing?” To appease her, let’s try a simile. Writer’s block is like a horse that stops dead in the road and …