So much of my childhood I do not remember even after years of getting help regarding it, but some things I recall clear as day. Like the exceedingly wonderful love I had for writing from whence I was a little girl. When the rest of the world in the way of children wanted to run off and play and do this or that, my heart above else was to read and to write. I could not get enough of either. I read and read and read, and I wrote and wrote and wrote. Endlessly it seemed. To the point I would get pads and pads and notebooks and notebooks of paper but never did I seem to have enough. Because the writing simply poured out of me like a beautiful satisfying river I could not stop nor wanted to stop. Oh, how I loved to write!
My Mom told me one time I sold my poetry at my lemonade stand I likely had with my younger brother when I ran out of lemonade. I used to cry out to her when grocery shopping with her desperate for paper as she would scramble through her pocketbook for anything at all to write upon even the back of an envelope.
On and off as I grew up I would write and write and write. I studied English in college but this didn’t satisfy my yearning as it was more scholastic than anything. It was creative writing I loved. Though I dabbled in nonfiction writing at times.
I would stop writing at times, but never could I stay stopped. I could not contain the gushing through me of writing. Rarely did I have notes, outlines, and plans. I would pick up my pen, or go to a typewriter, or eventually the computer, and out would pour poetry, stories, and even books. It was as if the writing was writing itself as if writing could write! Oh, what a gift I had been given! A gift I simply loved, loved, loved.
Then came one of the greatest blessings I have ever received in the way of having a dream like my writing. See, I didn’t believe in the Lord until I was in my 20s. And, even then, I wasn’t at all a committed follower. But ultimately God led me to repentance for how I had used my writing dream. My writing gift. I had used it for me, for the devil, for the world, but clearly not for Him and His will for me and others in the way of loving and serving them in His name. I needed to repent, and by God’s grace I did.
Fast forward. Today, I am a totally devoted follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. My life’s calling is to help people become and remain totally devoted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And my writing is totally devoted to the Lord for His use for His glory.
I love writing today more than ever, and the greatest aspect of it for me is the joy and fulfillment I get in knowing the gift of writing I have been given is being used to bring love, honor, praise, joy, pleasure, and glory to God almighty and that it is being used to help people find and forever follow the Lord!
Lest you think this message is all about me and my dream of writing, it is not. I believe God has given us all gifts and dreams, and it is simply a matter of making sure our whole hearts and lives are devoted to the Lord and that we are using the gifts and dreams He has given us for His glory. Please note I write, “the dreams He has given us.”
Many of the dreams I have had throughout my life have NOT been God-given. They were fleshly and about self not Jesus. They were desires I have had to love and please self rather than to love and serve God and others in His name. I have had to learn to let go of what God wants me to let go – including when it comes to dreams.
With all my heart, I encourage you to take your dreams before God almighty. Pray to Him. Cry out to Him. Seek Him. Ask Him what to do with the dreams you have. Find out if they are from Him. If they are not, ask Him to give you the strength to let them go if they are not His will for your life. But if they are from God, pray to Him about how to use them for His glory. And just as I am now with my writing gift and dream, enjoy the blessedness of loving and serving the Lord with all your heart – and with the gifts and dreams He has bestowed up on you. Remembering always, always to give God ALL the glory, AMEN!
Friend, what are your dreams and desires? Have you sought the Lord about them? Oh, please do! Hallelujah, AMEN!
“I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”” Psalms 40:8 NKJV
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” Colossians 1:9-12 NKJV