I'm already a winner

I was engaging in a routine prayer time when something life changing took place. During this prayer time, I'd asked God why he was calling me to write a book. In His still, quiet voice, He said "You asked me for this."

 You see, I didn't come to know Christ until I was eighteen. I was always a shy, quiet child. Writing was the voice I could never seem to find growing up. When I became a Christian, and the Holy Spirit did His rejuvenating work in my life, He made me into a completely different person. He gave me my voice, I and felt that God was going to use me in a way different than writing. I sang on a worship team at my church, and assumed that was my new place in the Christian world. I had limited God and His choice for my life. As I flipped through my masterpiece, I rejoiced in the fact that my gracious God chose to forgive me. I am now committed to this new path, and want to allow God to use me however he chooses.

Besides writing a bit of poetry for my high school literary magazine, I 'd never written anything of this magnitude.  I told myself I would not write again after those poems. I'd closed myself off to writing and replaced it with other venues, and God honored my request. I tried to write again in my own strength, but nothing came to me. I repented of cutting myself off from this gift, but nothing happened. at first. I then said to Him if he wanted to use me to write a book, he could do so. It didn't happen at first, but then one ordinary day last fall, God said "It's time." I was hesitant at first, fully expecting this to be a project that took many years to complete. But, I wanted to be obedient to whatever God had for me in this venue. To date, I've just printed off my 130 page manuscript.


So, here I am, with a book that I can attribute to nothing else but the Holy Spirit's power sitting on my bedroom dresser and no opportunity to sit before a publisher. Proverbs 31 Ministries and Lysa TeurKeurst is holding their annual conference in Concord North Carolina July 30- August 1 to give women the opportunity to hone their writing and speaking skills ( for more info, see http://lysaterkeurst.blogspot.com or www.proverbs31.org ). One of the things this conference also provides is the opportunity to sit in front of a publisher for a 15 minute initial interview. The publisher might take one look at it and pass it right back to me across the table without a second glance. Or maybe, just maybe, he might be interested.

 Whether or not I win this scholarship doesn't really matter. It would be great if I did, with my husband's recent pay cut and small part time job I could really use the break. The main thing, though, was that I responded to God's calling in obedience and came away with a finished product. In that sense, I'm already a winner.