I’ve been creeping back into the writing game over the past few months, and a couple of my articles have been posted on myMISSIONfulfilled. Thought you might want to hop over there and check them out.
First, the article about prioritizing relationships that I mentioned in my first crack of dawn post has gone live on myMISSIONfulfilled. Making Room: How to Make Relationships a Priority in Your Life was a challenging article for me to write, because I knew that I needed to make some serious adjustments in my own life, and I tried to be as honest as possible about my own failures to make the most important relationships in my life a priority. I also tried to celebrate my successes, and I thought the article turned out well.
The second article is about using journaling as a tool in prayer. Writing to Remember: How Journaling Helps Me Pray explores my own experiences with using a journal in my prayer life, something that I’ve done for over 10 years now. It’s probably the most important spiritual discipline that I practice, and it certainly helps me remember not only where I’ve been, but also where I’m going.
Hope you enjoy reading the articles!
Until next time, grace and peace.
In the months following Micah’s birth when I fell off the face of the planet, a few of my articles were published on myMISSIONfulfilled.com. I also had a couple of articles run in LifeWay’s ec, but I haven’t gotten those scanned yet, so if you’re interested in reading my latest published work, myMISSIONfulfilled will have to do.
When Mary (the former editor of MMF) asked me to write an article about life with a newborn, I thought it would be easy, especially since she asked for a journal-style article. Since I keep a journal anyway, I thought writing the article would be a breeze. Ha. Silly me. I neglected to acknowledge the fact that having a newborn changes everything, and finding the time to sit down and scribble a few lines in my journal was nigh impossible. But I did it anyway. And I’m glad I did. Newborn Life is the result.
Before Micah was born, I wrote a two-part series on God’s love for the nations. The first article, We, the People of the Nations, explores how God demonstrates his care for all the nations, not just the people of Israel, in the Old Testament. The second article, Talking with Ting, talks about opening our eyes to the nations that are among us.
Back in August (the last days of my pregnancy), MMF ran Working for Peanuts: How Microenterprise Gives Women a Hand Up. I was particularly excited about this article, since it gave me a chance to write about Northern Empowerment Association, one of the ministries we visited in Ghana. I also got to share some of the photos I took on the trip.
And finally, one day Mary was looking through leslieannjones.com and she found an entry that she liked. She asked if she could use Identity Crisis on MMF. How could I refuse? The article appeared on the site in late September, and I completely forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
Hope y’all enjoy looking through some of these articles. In the past couple of months, I’ve begun writing for MMF again, so expect to see some more links in the near future.
Until next time, grace and peace.
Life has been busy lately. So busy, in fact, that I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write here as often as I would like. With a baby set to arrive in just three weeks, baskets of pink onesies and fluffy blankets have swallowed me. I’ve been getting her room in order and and hosting family and having a baby shower, and life has been insane. In the midst of my normal, everyday life, I’ve been consumed by writing projects. I’ve got articles coming out in ec and myMISSIONfulfilled in September, and another article coming out in the December issue of ec. I’ve also signed a contract to write Sunday school curriculum for Clarity Publishers, and I’ve completed one of six lessons. I’m trying to crank out a couple more lessons before it’s baby time. All of that explains my recent absence. If you don’t hear from me again for a while, it probably means that the baby is here and I’m getting used to life as a new parent.
But regardless of all that is going on in my life, consuming my time and occupying my thoughts, I am still called to be about the business of God. Last week I wrote a Sunday school lesson to teach other people, but this week, the truths of the lesson keep popping up in my life. It seems that I need to teach myself the things that I wanted to teach others. It’s far too easy for me to lose sight of God in the middle of my busy-ness, and I was on the verge of turning down a wonderful opportunity to serve him because the timing is inconvenient.
I’ve been writing for myMISSIONfulfilled, a Woman’s Missionary Union Web site geared toward young women, for the past couple of months, and I wanted to point you in the direction of some of the articles in lieu of posting a real entry. Happy reading!
Ancient History: How Archaeology Enhances Our Study of Scripture. Archaeology has made the news a lot lately as talk about the ossuary of James and the discovery of the Gospel of Judas has brought it to the forefront of our attention. But archaeology is more than bone boxes and controversial ancient documents. . . . It can actually enhance our study of Scripture.
Parthenon, Shmarthenon: Paul’s Speech in Athens. Thoughts of ancient Greece bring to mind gods, goddesses, philosophy, the Olympics, and the Parthenon. Paul’s words about idolatry weren’t spoken in a vacuum. He was looking right at the Parthenon when he talked about temples built with human hands, and still he proclaimed the superiority of God.
Losing My Voice: How the Psalms Helped Me Find It. When I was so frustrated with God that I didn’t know what to say, Psalms gave me the words I desperately needed and taught me how to pray again.
