Lifesong

I've been having a hard time coming up with something to blog about these days. I don't know if it's because I'm losing interest in it or that my life is just that boring that I don't have anything to talk about that worth's reading. :)I've been trying to decide if I want to change the way I do my blog or keep doing it like I have been already. Like I said from the very first blog I posted, I mainly started writing my blog so I can get back into writing and organize my thoughts better. I never really intended to write about my everyday happenings but it just sort of happened that way.

I love to write though. It's hard for me to start writing at first...coming up with a topic. I stare at that blank screen with the blinking cursor and think, "How am I going to fill this page?" Once I type that first sentence everything just seems to seep out and I can come up with something, however meaningless, to say. I do love to tell a story. I just had an article come out in ONE Magazine which is the Free Will Baptist magazine. The article was titled "Ragged Andy" and if you are interested you can read it here (by the way, that's not my picture next to the title. That's the artwork they used in the print version of the story.) It is a true story that did happen when our family started a church in Davenport, IA many years ago. The name was changed in the story to protect the innocent. :) This isn't the first time I've written an article for the magazine. Well, it was the first for ONE but I've written two other articles for the previous FWB magazine, Contact. It was a lot of fun. If I could write for a living I think I would do it. I might have mentioned it on here before but I used to write a children's newsletter for our home missionaries' children. I had created a story about a family who moved from a city and planted a church in a different region of the country. It was basely loosed on my family and mine and my brother's experiences. I wrote it monthly and I've contemplated combining it all together and putting it into a book but I just have never had the time or the creativeness to really do it.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday after church and he was asking me about my writing and my job situation. He's known that I haven't been that happy at my current position for awhile and it's mainly because this is what I really want to do but I've become so comfortable where I'm currently working that I haven't had the gumption to move on. He encouraged me to put all my writings into a portfolio so I think I will do that. I would like to have all my writings and stories in one place anyway, so this will give me a chance to organize it all. Maybe once I have it all organized I might find the courage to start contacting magazines to see about submitting articles.

But writing has become a passion for me lately. I know that I've always had an urge to write and I've always written stories. I remember my 6th grade teacher telling me that she always knew she could get a good story out me and told me I was a good writer. But it's all I think about anymore. Just writing and coming up with a good story but not just a good story to pass the time but I want to make an impact on people. I love getting lost in a good story. I would love to do that for others. I would love to write a story or an article and let people get lost in the words and in the images that they create in their own minds. I want, through my writings, make people want to be better people...better Christians. When I read a story by Karen Kingsbury or Debra White Smith, I always step back from the story wanting to up my walk with the Lord. I want to serve Him better, tell more people about Him and be the best I can be for Him. I would like to have that same impact on people. I want what I do to reflect my walk with the Lord. In reality we all should strive for that in whatever profession we do. We should always try to make an impact on others. Help people become better people and be that example that we should be to bring more people to Him and build His Kingdom. When we help others to lean on the Lord more, we in turn, lean on the Lord more and if we could reach everybody with that goal...man, what army for the Lord we have built.