People Free....or not!

I thought I might go People-free, you know like Gluten-free or Diary-free.

The perfect answer to my allergy to friendship pain, don’t you think?

But alas, it isn't how God wants me to be. 

The writer of Hebrews reminds me not to give up the habit of meeting together with other believers…. I couldn't find the ‘even if they hurt you’ clause, and believe me, I searched for it!  

No amount of reading between the lines helped me to find any way of becoming People-free.

And besides, God has given me a heart that longs to give love to others, in person and in the written word.

Long ago, when I was a child, I discovered my love of writing.

My grandparents lived two hours away and so I often wrote them epistles of my life as a primary aged student. 

Looking back now, how they must have laughed at my missives!

As a school student I longed for the first Monday back after holidays (in the days when there was no such thing as a pupil-free day), on that Monday we always wrote the ‘what I did during the school holidays’ story. 

I didn't do anything terribly exciting, but I could imagine I did.  

And so a fantastic piece of work was written for the teacher to mark. 

I wonder if they ever really read them (apart from correcting mistakes) and said to themselves, this girl has talent!

Not only did I inherit the craft gene from my maternal grandmother, she also passed on to me the art of telling a good story. 

I can certainly regale listeners with a wonderful interpretation of what happened to me at work, or church or anywhere else I have been.

And so my crafting hobbies include knitting, crocheting, patchwork and taking the time to pen a good story.  I think they are good.

My husband is my biggest fan and he has urged me on from the sidelines of tapping away at my stories to put them in the public arena.

So that’s what I decided to do.

Well isn't that a shock?

Who would have guessed my manuscript was nothing to anybody but me!

(Nor did I realise the need for a professional editor).

It’s a tough world out there in publishing land. (Not new news really is it?)

The life experiences I have gathered do have need to be in the public arena, if I can save one person from hurt, disappointment or despair, I want to do it.

Self-publishing was where the Lord led me.  

              

We edited, re-edited and brought The Significant You and Me into the world.  

My book is a short read to give Christian women a little glimpse of how special we are to God.  Each one of us unique because of who God has made us to be, nothing to do with where we live, what we look like or how many ministries we have.  A splash of tips on how to get alone with God in the busy-ness of the daily workload is the way I rounded off my first piece of public writing.

My fiction is still simmering on the back burner.  With words being steamed out and others being added in slowly, all the while being stirred lovingly to bring about a delicious read for teenagers.

So People-free is absolutely not an option for me, I've got too much information, so many stories to share….and maybe something of all these things will help someone out, make them feel loved, shed light on their dark path and make a difference.

Dianne Riley

www.dianneriley.com.au 

Dianne lives in NSW with her fabulous husband and son.  A Christian for over forty years because of an amazing Religious Education teacher.  Dianne has taught RE (or skipcha, as the children call it) in local schools with great passion for over 25 years.