Finding Time to Pursue your Passion

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writing resourcesLet’s say you have a passionate interest you want to pursue, but can’t find the time to do it. Maybe it’s more than just a fun hobby. Maybe it’s a ministry that you feel the Lord is leading you into.

For me it was writing. I believed God wanted me to do this, but I had to find time to do it along with being a mother and missionary wife. How do you find the time to pursue your passion?

These things help me to prioritize my time and decide which ministries to take part in.

Make the time.

Lee Roddy says, “We tend to do what is most important to us and make excuses for the rest.” If you feel the Lord leading you into a ministry, but don’t have the spare time to pursue it, this may be where you need to start.

I realized that most regularly published authors don’t find spare time lying around and use it to write. They look at their schedule and responsibilities and carve out time to write.

Thirty years ago I wanted to write for Christian publication. I felt God wanted this too. I had an article accepted in 1978 and three more in 1979. Then in 1980 my husband and I took our 10-month old daughter to Taiwan. We spent two years in full-time language school. During that time our second daughter was born. Those days I truly had no time to write. I did have three articles accepted in 1982, but I wrote very little during those days. But the clock was ticking and I knew my time would come.

In 1985 my daughter started kindergarten in a nearby city. Every day I drove her to school, dropped her off, then went to a nearby storefront church. I pulled out my typewriter (no computer yet) and spent the morning writing. That gave me five mornings a week. I wrote articles and short stories specifically targeted toward a particular take-home paper market. That school year I had 15 articles accepted for publication.

That year I got a good solid start in writing for Christian publication. After that I usually tried to write one article or story a month. Some years we travelled on furlough back in the States and I had almost no time to write. But as we got back into our schedule each time I carved out some specific time period to write. Now that my girls are married and away from home I still have many ministry obligations, but this season of life brings me more freedom to arrange my schedule and work on writing.

Focus.

Sometimes I run into people who really want to write for publication. I talk to them about getting started and they show a lot of interest. Later I run into them and they never quite got around to writing something specifically aimed at any particular publisher.  What is the problem? They really do want to write. They also want to quilt, scrapbook, homeschool, join an aerobics class, skydive, kayak, and raise wild turkeys. (Something like that anyway.)

Focus. If you are trying to do too many things at once you probably won’t get far with any one thing. What are you willing to give up to focus on your new pursuit?

Get Creative.

You may have to multi-task. You may find you can think about your new endeavor while you cook dinner, wait in the doctor’s office, or clean house. You may have to work after the kids are in bed or during your lunch hour.

I often think about my story while I fix dinner. (Now you know why I sometimes find things in odd places in my kitchen.) I work out plot problems while I take a walk. If you want to pursue this new activity badly enough, you will find time somewhere.

Three Questions

Years ago I heard writer Pat King speak at a conference on finding time to write. With small children at home she had to be creative. She suggested three questions to ask yourself before you take on a new responsibility. These questions have helped me through the years when I have to figure out what to put into my schedule and what to leave out.

1. What is it that only I can do?

Some things I need to do because no one else can do them. Only I can be a wife to my husband and a mother to my children. Some jobs in our ministry I need to do because no one else knows how to do them or is in a position to do them or will do them.  If a job is important and no one else can do it, I may need to.

 2. What is it that someone else needs to be doing?

I can play the piano, but if I play at all the services while other pianists don’t play, I keep them from having an opportunity to play. If I teach all the classes, others will not learn to teach. I may need to step back and allow others to serve so they can develop new skills. Some jobs I could do, but if I don’t, someone else can step into that job. That may be a good thing.

3. What is it that no one needs to be doing at all?

In churches and other organizations we often keep adding new programs without taking old ones away. At some point we may need to analyze activities and drop them from the schedule entirely.

If you are looking at your own busy schedule and trying to figure what to leave out, these three questions may help you.

Hidden Mothers

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2012 11 mom with bookIt’s easy to celebrate the birth of a healthy baby to a committed Christian couple. Don’t we wish all births were this kind? But these days many babies come to us in other ways. These less-than-ideal births often leave Christians, even more than unbelievers, at a loss for words as well as actions.

When a pregnancy is the result of immorality Scripture is clear on some situations. We must respond to repentant Christians with full forgiveness. We must reach out to unbelievers with the news of salvation. We must separate from immoral people who claim to be believers but are clearly not repentant and persist in their sin. But many people don’t fit into our neat categories. For one thing, we can’t see their hearts. We can’t be sure, sometimes, if they are truly saved or if they are truly repentant.

Then there are births that have less-than-ideal circumstances, even though they are not the result of immorality. Perhaps the baby is unhealthy or the timing of the child comes at a particularly hard time.

Not every birth is celebrated. Some mothers we honor. Other mothers we hide. Some mothers live with a lifetime of heartbreak and regret.  We want to reach out to them. We applaud their decision not to abort, but we’re not exactly sure what to do with them.  On one hand we don’t want to condone sin. On the other hand we want to show compassion. We try to think of what to say to them, and anything sounds awkward, so we might just pass them by.

My heart breaks for these hidden mothers who enter our churches and don’t quite fit into the family mode. This I know: they need our friendship and love more than the classic Christian family types. When we don’t know how to reach out to them, we need to ask the Lord to show us the way and then reach out to them anyway.

Then we have the babies. Sometimes it’s hard to rejoice when they are born. They have a way of complicating life. Some babies are conceived by a Christian couple who want a baby in the perfect will of God. Some conceptions don’t involve immorality, but surprise us and change our plans. Others are conceived in a situation which is contrary to God’s will, but God allows the conception to take place.

I believe that every baby that God allows to be conceived is precious in his sight. He covers each baby in its mother’s womb. He knits it together, plans its looks, abilities, and personality. He fashions its days before it is born. He loves that little baby. And he loves the child it becomes, even when it complicates our lives.

This week when we celebrate Mother’s Day let’s honor those godly Christian mothers who sacrificed to raise us to become women of God. But let’s not forget those hidden women who don’t quite fit the ideal mother situation. We need to love and encourage them to become godly Christian mothers. We need to celebrate their children too.

Women in ministry don’t have all the answers. In difficult situations we may want to do the right thing, but be confused about what that right thing is. Sometimes we don’t know how to reach out to people, but we just have to prayerfully move ahead with whatever awkward attempt comes to mind. We try something, see how that works, adjust, try again. We have to move forward, because others look to us to know how to treat people and we must model Christ-like behaviour.

For those of you who plan baby showers, I’ve just added a baby shower game that comes from that remarkable chapter on childbirth, Psalm 139.  Baby Shower Word Search–Psalm 139

Choosing a Book Title

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Book TitlesRecently we have chosen this title for the book I am writing: Edges of Truth: the Mary Weaver Story. If you’ve ever written a book, you know that choosing a title is a big deal. The title is one of the first things a reader looks at to determine if she wants to read your book or not. A great title helps sell the book. A bad title may send the reader to look for a better one.

 

If you are trying to choose a title for your book you may want to read this article:

http://debbrammer.com/writers-circle/writing-articles/Choosing%20a%20Title/ . This article tells you some characteristics of good titles and how to choose them. But today I want to take you on our personal journey to finding a book title. How we did it. Perhaps you will find an idea that helps you.

 

First of all why are we looking for a title? Most books have one author, but this is the personal, true story of Mary Weaver. Her lawyer was Steve Brennecke. I am directing the writing process, but Steve has also written some scenes and we are all involved in the process.

 

Also, if you go with a traditional publisher, your editor or the marketing department may suggest a different title than the one you have chosen. It’s not always up to you. But in this case we are self-publishing so the decision is up to us. It’s nice to be in control, but that also means we don’t have the safety net of someone else helping with the process and eliminating ineffective titles. So choosing a title was up to us and it was important that, at least the three of us, all needed to be happy with the final choice.

Getting ideas

 

1. I thought through the plot line for our book, searching for words that stood out in the text that could be used for titles.

 

This Present Chapter came from a quote by Mary while she was in prison. She knew this wasn’t the end, that God was still working and prison was just “this present chapter” of her life.

 

2. I viewed a video clip of a national news program which featured Mary’s story to look for concepts that could be used in a title.

 

This led to writing this promo sentence: Better to let 99 guilty people go free than to take the liberties of one innocent person—but what happens when the system doesn’t work? Two titles worked with that promo sentence: One Innocent Person and Stolen Liberties.

 

3. I wrote a list of nouns, verbs, and adjectives that characterized our book. I shuffled them around in different combinations to find titles with a good ring to them.

 

That led to the title Uncertain Evidence.

 

4. Our book is a true story which is similar to legal fiction. I Googled legal phrases to find phrases we could use or alter for a play on words.

 

This led to Under Oath, Final Appeal, Presumption of Guilt, and Beyond Reasonable Doubt. An article that talked about a similar situation talked about medical witnesses who were “dancing on the edge of truth.” That concept comes into our final choice of titles.

 

5. I Googled legal fiction and true stories on Amazon or Christian Book Distributors to see what existing titles are out there. While you can’t copyright a title, we wanted to avoid prominent titles in our genre which were already used. Viewing these titles also help me think of similar ideas.

 

We liked Shadow of  Doubt, but Terri Blackstock already has a prominent suspense fiction book by that title. We considered using a similar titles, Shadows of Doubt, Shadow of a Doubt, or Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt, but didn’t choose any of these in the end.

 

6. I typed words like these into the search box of Google images: prison, freedom, innocence, guilty, legal, court, child abuse. This gave me an idea of visual images related to those words. That suggested images we could use on our cover, images that could be related to the title.

 

My search gave me images of abandoned teddy bears, helium balloons flying, prison bars, people in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs. Some of these images would work with some of the legal titles.

 

Mary and Steve used similar ways to come up with their own titles. At the end of that process we found out one very important rule.

Titles are Subjective

 

They didn’t like some of my favorite titles! (Why couldn’t they see what a great choice these were?) I didn’t like some of theirs. One scary thing about self-publication is knowing that you are choosing this very important title without the help of an editor or a marketing team. We knew we needed a broader perspective.

 

I made a list of sixteen titles we had come up with and sent them to family members of the three of us. We suggested each person mark their top six picks for titles and number them from one to six. I had hoped that this would give us some very clear guidance about the best choices. What it did show  was that people varied widely in what they thought were good titles. But it did help us eliminate the less popular ones. I narrowed this list down to the top six titles, making sure that the top choices from Mary, Steve, and I were reflected in the list. After all, we need to feel good about our book.

 

Then I listed those top six titles in a survey on my website blog. I asked my Facebook friends to vote on their top three, listing them in order. I asked Mary and Steve to do the same thing with their friends. I told all these people that if they took the survey they would go into the draw to win a free book of mine. I left the survey open for one week. (Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey! Your votes were key to choosing our title.)

 

At the end of the week two titles stood out as the most popular. Steve and Mary and I emailed back and forth, compared notes, thought, prayed, weighed the pros and cons, and finally chose Edges of Truth.

 

Is this the best possible title? Probably not. Maybe five years from now we’ll think of the perfect title. Even then, if I thought it was perfect, others might not agree. But we needed to make a choice now so that we could proceed with book design and promotion. We chose one we all could live with. And then we move on. “No turning back, no turning back.”

Is God in Control?

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Every day Americans dash to their TVs and radios to find out one thing: What’s happening? And what reward do they receive for their faithful commitment to the news? Violence, corruption,

AIDS, rape, hatred—news so bad that news shows need ratings so parents can know when their children should leave the room.

That kind of news makes us wonder: Where is God in all of this mess? Is He still in control? Why does He allow such evil? If He can stop it, why doesn’t He? Questions such as these can turn unbelievers away from God and can shake the faith of Christians. However, we don’t have to fear the answers. We only have to make sure we look to God for the answers.

Nevertheless, God doesn’t explain the reasons behind all of His actions. After all, He is not accountable to us. He does, however, explain enough of His logic so we know that we can trust Him. His explanations give us some facts to anchor our faith upon.

What does God’s control mean?

Is God in control? Yes. But God is like a teacher watching her students on the playground. The teacher watches while one student uses another’s truck without asking. She sees a big girl crowd in front of a smaller one in line for the slide. She hears a boy call a girl “stupid.” She does not police every action. She doesn’t force each child to correct each misbehavior, though she often disapproves. She knows that children must learn to give and take and cope in an imperfect world. But the teacher watches carefully to ensure that actions do not escalate out of control and that someone does not get seriously hurt.

The teacher controls the situation without controlling the students’ every move. In the same way, God controls everything all the time. Furthermore, He keeps perfect records for coming judgment.

Is the world today more evil than ever before?

But how can we conclude that God is in control when the world around us lists in a sea of chaos? This stormy world just seems to grow worse and worse. Have circumstances ever been as bad as circumstances today? History teaches us that our world’s immorality, greed, cruelty and indifference to God are not unusual. In fact, many periods of history were just as bad or even worse!

The Minor Prophets lived during one of those dark periods of history.

Zechariah and Haggai worked to rebuild the temple in a time when Jerusalem looked like a Midwest town after a tornado. The people in Zechariah’s and Haggai’s day laid the foundation of the temple. Then jealousy, disillusionment, poverty and selfishness stopped the project for 16 years.

In Hosea’s day even the priests turned to drunkenness, prostitution and murder.

Micah lived while government leaders were corrupt. But, then, everyone else was equally corrupt. Micah couldn’t trust anyone—not even his friends, his relatives or his wife. He claimed that not one honest man remained in all of Israel.

Those prophets questioned God. “Why?” they asked, just as we do today. God did not try to hide from us the doubts and despair those men felt. In His Word, He gives us a clear record of their feelings. He reveals to us all of Israel’s chaos and hopelessness. But during the nation’s darkest hour, God was in control.

Don’t Blame God.

In spite of the fact that God has complete control of everything at all times, He doesn’t cause our greatest problems; He allows them. Sometimes we think that allowing them and causing them are the same. We think that if God doesn’t stop life’s tragedies, He is partly to blame for them.

Who, then, is to blame for the chaos in the world? Not God. He created a beautiful world and put in it people to whom He gave volition, or free will. He made them free to love and serve Him—or to disobey Him. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and all of us have followed in their footsteps. Sin entered the world and brought with it death, disease, hatred, greed and every other kind of evil. Our world is cursed by sin, not by God.

Blame Sin.

Satan wants us on his side. And he has a lot of help: society taunts us to do what feels good, and an urge inside us makes wrong seem quite right. In spite of this world full of people trying to please Satan, society and self, many still blame God (not people, not sin) for the world’s problems. They’ve forgotten who their enemies are.

In spite of sin’s influence, in spite of man’s blame-shifting, God is in control. He has, however, determined to work for a while in this sin-crushed world. Sin causes many problems. Sometimes those problems come as punishment for a specific sin committed, but often they come simply as the natural result of living in a sin-cursed world. At other times we get hurt because of someone else’s sin. It isn’t fair, but sin never promises to play fair.

Crimes of abuse, murder, theft, rape or drunk driving claim innocent victims. Sin by its nature hurts others. When a teenager rebels, parents suffer. When Christians neglect witnessing, prayer and giving, unbelievers don’t hear of the One Who can change their destiny.

Are we doing our part?

When Christians get too busy meeting their own needs to help others, the needs of other believers go unmet. Naturally our sin and neglect hurt others. Today God uses people to do much of His work. When we fail to do our assignment, or our part, we hurt others.

Instead of blaming God for the world’s problems, we need to ask ourselves, “What problems am I causing? If I’m not part of the problem, can I be part of the solution?”

We can offer tremendous help to the others in our own little corners of the world. But so much of the world lies beyond our reach. Even if we all do our share where we are, the world will remain in terrible shape.

God will fix it.

“Why doesn’t God fix things?” we might ask. Wouldn’t it be great if God would get rid of sin and make life perfect?

He will. In Heaven. But we aren’t in Heaven yet. Earth’s flaws and hardships will make Heaven all the sweeter by contrast. They set us longing for Heaven, and that longing is only right.

Well, then, why couldn’t God just fix up the earth, make everything fair and just, and make people do what’s right?

He’ll do that too—for a thousand years when Jesus reigns on the earth. However, even then, many people won’t love Him.

Right now we’re locked into time. The great here and now seems so important that it’s hard to peek past the now into eternity, when Jesus Christ will make everything right. Though God cares very much about every detail of our lives, He never loses His perspective. All of our tragedies and cares put together form only a speck of eternity. Many of the problems that we regard as crucial now will one day seem trivial. If we would see time as God sees it, we would face life with confidence.

In the meantime we can use that speck of time to live out our lives in a way that will affect all eternity. As small as “now” is, it is all we’ve got to work with.

Don’t lose your joy.

How can we cope with the world’s chaos and come out on top? Believers still need this old prayer: “God, give me the serenity to accept what I can’t change, to change what I can’t accept, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Sounds great—until we come across something we can neither accept nor change. What do we do then?

Accept it anyway—with joy. It’s easy to let the world’s chaos and life’s trials rob us of our joy. We need to guard the joy in our hearts.

Paul’s entire letter to the Philippians explains how to remain joyful in chaos. It is in this context that Paul instructed us to fill our minds with things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy. This verse is more than a how-to on keeping a pure thought life. It provides a how-to on guarding our joy.

We sing “Count Your Blessings,” but we more often count our trials—the appliances that have quit working this month, the number of times the kids have been sick, the people who cut in front of us in line.

On one foreign mission field I could easily count trials, or problems, such as the traffic violations I had seen at a given intersection, the trash dumps on a certain road, the missionaries I’d heard about that got cheated or the weird diagnoses of doctors.

Bad things happen. Denying reality won’t make it go away. However, after we’ve dealt with our problems, it’s time to push them out of our minds and replace them with blessings. After we’ve faced the tragedies of the world and can do no more to help, we need to dwell on God’s benefits. When our conversations center around negative issues for which we have no answer, we can introduce some positive issues to balance them.

Sin cursed the world, but it did not completely destroy God’s creation. In spite of the violence, hatred and ugliness brought into the world by sin, much of the gentleness, love and beauty created by God still remains.

Searching for it will bring the joy back into our lives.

Give God control.

God is in control of the world today. And though we are forced to live in a sin-cursed world for a time, we can make that world a better place for others if we let God control us. We can refuse to let sin’s misery blind us to God’s blessings.

Every day gives us another opportunity to build our faith in God. We need that faith to face the world’s toughest problems.