How I started speaking and writing
I hope my story encourages you!
Perhaps you feel frustrated waiting for God to launch you in a particular ministry. A friend recently sent me this:
God answers ALL prayers!
Sometimes He says Yes,
Sometimes He says No and,
Sometimes He says, "You have got to be kidding!"
For many years, I was unhappy with my level of fruitfulness. I wanted God to use me. I wanted to change my world for Christ. As I kept beating my head against the wall, I kept hearing, "You have got to be kidding!” No, it wasn't really God. I’ve learned that the Lover of my soul would never treat one of His kids like that. But He might say, “Wait.”
One year I sat miserably in a women's meeting at my former church. As the women discussed our upcoming retreat and how we might find a speaker, I was lost in my own thoughts. I was the pastor's wife, but that seemed to mean little. Feeling embalmed in inconsequentiality, my heart lamented, "Why doesn't anyone ever think of me to speak?"
I knew I lacked the "stuff" of a Christian speaker, but I had a lot to say. The want‑to in my heart was unrelenting. As I drove away from the meeting that night, I felt so dejected that I didn't even want to go home. Instead, I swung into a restaurant to drown my sorrows in a hot-fudge sundae. Soon after the hostess seated me, a trio of chattering men came in and sat in the booth beside me. They wore badges. Finally, my curiosity was too much. "What organization do you belong to?" I asked. They said they were members of the local Toastmasters Club. "The what club?" I'd never heard of that one before. They explained that it was a public speaking club. I shrugged off their invitation to come check out their meeting sometime.
The next day I was driving home after running errands, when suddenly a speedy little sports car swerved around me, snapping me to alertness. “Ok, I noticed you!” I thought. Before it sped away, however, I glimpsed its bumper sticker. It said: Speak up. Join the Toastmasters.
I learned a lot from that little Toastmaster's Club. In the few months of my involvement (we soon moved away), I got numerous opportunities to present my Christian faith within a supportive environment. These were not Christian people, but they encouraged me greatly. One even advised me to write a book someday. Little did I know that one day I really would speak at retreats and write books.
Often, people will ask how I got into writing because they, too, want to be writers. I never know quite how to advise them since mine is one of those rare stories that defy logic. Mine is a simple “amazing grace” story, pure and simple. I had always enjoyed writing in church newsletters but never had formal training or saw myself as “a writer.” One year our church’s youth Sunday School class needed a teacher, and I volunteered. I decided to write my own curriculum based on the Pilgrim’s Progress. We would read the story in class and use my discussion questions. Week after week, I compared a modern version with an old English version as I searched for good study questions. But I felt growing frustration. It seemed to me that an enduring classic deserved better than what this modern rendering offered.
“Someone should write a new version,” I decided. “Why not me?” Once I had the audacity to try it, I sent a brief but impassioned proposal to a dozen publishers and waited. Within a month or so I had landed a contract with Tyndale House Publishers. The year after the book’s publication, it won a Gold Medallion Award. At the awards banquet in Dallas, Tyndale’s president, Mark Taylor, asked me how I had gotten involved with Tyndale. My Cinderella story surprised him. He said it hardly ever happens that way.
That I wrote the book is amazing; that a major publishing house accepted it is a miracle; and that this book went on to win a much-coveted major award is a mighty miracle! Amazing God! Amazing grace! All I can tell would-be writers is that God can do whatever He chooses. He chose His timing for my miracle carefully. It was not random chance. He knew my heart’s deepest needs and wildest dreams. He knows yours, too. Take heart!
You will find more of my personal story in the Women of the Word series.
