Using a Magnifying Glass!

 by Anusha Atukorala

Recently, I had the joy of having a new friend over for afternoon tea. Beautiful Susie (not her real name), came bearing a warm apple and sultana cake she’d just whisked out of the oven. How Susie managed to bake a cake while caring for her three small children beats me! Amazing! Her cute treasures aged 4, 2 and 6 months were a delight. The cake was delicious. We enjoyed a happy time together, even if it lacked as much adult conversation as Susie and I would have liked.

 

I brought out some of my son’s old toys for her little girls to play with. Amidst cars and hand puppets, plastic animals and an assortment of paraphernalia, was a tiny magnifying glass. The two older kids were fascinated by it. They used it for a long time, gazing intently at everything around them. I was a little surprised at first how something so small and seemingly insignificant could have given the children so much pleasure, until I realised that I too still enjoy using one. Nowadays though, they are useful mainly to read the tiny print on medicine bottles or on items off the supermarket shelves!

 

As a disciple of Jesus, I could do with a magnifying glass, well … a figurative one! Don’t you think? And … whom can I magnify today? How about … Christian Writers Downunder? It’s the best place to start, isn’t it? Christian Writers Downunder began in 2011 with a handful of writers but grew very quickly and now boasts of 1350 members (when I last checked). CWD’s help and support to us Christian writers has been immense and far reaching and I am so grateful.

 

I was new on the writing scene when I joined CWD, having just published my first book. I remember the thrill of attending my first interstate Writing Conference in Queensland in 2012. It was lovely to be able to recognise many who came that year, the moment I saw them, because we’d already connected through CWD. A big shout out and THANK YOU to CWD’s current dynamic Admin duo – Jeanette O Hagen and Kirsten Hart. You do a fabulous job! And thank you too to Mazzy Adams (whose currently having a well deserved break)  God bless you three richly for all you do. We are very grateful!

 

I’d also like to magnify a few of the books I’ve drunk deeply of over the years, that have brought me closer to Jesus. 

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster,  

7 Lessons from Heaven by Mary C Neal, 

Imagine Heaven by John Burke, 

Life without Lack by Dallas Willard, 

Satisfy my Thirsty Soul by Linda Dillow, 

Sanctuary of the Soul by Richard Foster, 

A Call to the Secret Place by Michel Ann Goll, 

Reclaiming Love by Ajith Fernando, 

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich, 

The Way of Blessing by Roy Godwin, 

Prayer by Richard Foster. 

Appointments with Heaven by Dr Reggie Anderson. 

And these are but a small snapshot of a myriad assortment of books that have wooed me to our Saviour. I am so grateful for numerous great men and women of God over the ages and their writings that have grown my soul.

When times are tough, it’s easy to focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. We human beings are good at moaning about the bad rather than extolling the good. But God’s blessings abound. Daily, hourly, moment by moment. The jewel studded night sky that fills me with awe, the gentle sound of waves lapping on a sandy shore, a bright silvery moon on a dark cold night, the perfect yellow rose which displays my Creator’s magnificence, a colour splashed rainbow that thrills my soul, sunshine and cool breezes which that bring warmth and refreshment to my being. These are but a few of them.

 

And of course we are blessed, not only through material gifts. Paul informs us in the book of Ephesians that we have every spiritual blessing in Christ. Every spiritual blessing? Wow! Isn’t that something? Our lives are made richer through family and friends. We are blessed by circumstances both good and bad – even the tough times can be stepping stones to becoming more like Jesus. Thank You God. I magnify all the rich blessings You bring my way. Every. Single. Day!

 

I also seek to magnify the family of God – and as Paul urges us to do, consider their needs as more important than mine, their accomplishments as deserving higher recognition than mine. As a Christian writer, I magnify and showcase other writers. All of you on CWD! Thank you writers – your writing blesses our world. I won’t mention you by name in case I leave some of you out. But be assured … you do make a difference. And  … there needs to be a word for the good kind of gossip - talking behind another’s back of admirable traits we discover in others? I magnify the unique and wonderful people in my world – who make it a better place. 

Yes, you too dear Reader! You too!

Over the last few years, I’ve been struggling with an issue that often diminishes the joy in my life, like a mosquito that keeps buzzing in my ears. I realised recently that when I had turned 60, I desired one thing for my new decade. 

“One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” 

Psalm 27:4-5. 

Perhaps I need to make an exchange? Each time I am triggered by the one thing that trips me up … I can exchange it for the ONE THING I surely need. 

To behold the beauty of God!

Yes. There’s One we can’t help but magnify daily for all He is and He has done for us. Our Awesome Great Triune God. The Alpha and the Omega. Who is like Him in the heavens or the earth? No one. He stands apart. High! Holy! Creator! Saviour! Lord! King! Redeemer! Friend! Majestic! Infinite! One who forgives! Transcendent! Mighty! Faithful! Teacher! Wisdom!

                          Light of the World. Jesus.

"Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good; 

for His steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 118:1

               “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, 

              slow to anger, abounding in love.” Psalm 103:8

                      "O magnify the Lord with me. 

               And let us exalt His Name together.” Psalm 34:3

 

Would you like a peek through my magnifying glass?

Anusha’s been on many interesting detours in life, as a lab technician, a computer programmer, a full time Mum, a full time volunteer, a charity director, a full time job chaser, until one golden day (or was it a dark moonless night?) God tapped her on her shoulder and called her to write for Him. She has never recovered from the joy it brought her. She loves to see others enjoying life with Jesus and does her mite to hurry the process in her world through her writing and through her life. The goodness of God is her theme song through each season, as she dances in the rain with Jesus.

 

Her first book Enjoying the Journey contains 75 little God stories that will bring you closer to your Creator. Her 2^nd book ‘Dancing in the Rain’ brings you hope and comfort for life’s soggy seasons. Her 3rd book, ‘Sharing the Journey’ is a sequel to 'Enjoying the Journey' and was released in March 2020.

 

Do drop in on her two websites to say G’day! She’d love to connect with you.

Dancing in the Rain 

Light in the Darkness

 

Thanks for reading!

God bless you!

Imperfect Progress

 There is a beautiful thing called Imperfect Progress

It comes when we take slow steps of progress wrapped in grace

Lysa TerKeurst

 

I don’t know about you, but there are some things I need to be perfect and others I don’t.

So many times, I’ve watched YouTube videos of people folding fitted sheets and ended up bundling mine into a squarish shape and shoving them into the linen cupboard. 

At the end of the day, I don’t lie in bed and worry about those sheets being scrunched instead of beautifully folded. But, there are other things that I obsess about, worry about, and try to make perfect.  

When something keeps you awake at night, when something interrupts your peace during the day, when you keep going over and over something to get it right, then you know you have a perfectionist problem. 

When this happens to me, I get stuck. I’m like a mouse on a running wheel that keeps going in circles, not getting anywhere, but I’m giving it all I’ve got. I’m sweating. I’m putting in a lot of effort. But, I’m not getting anywhere.

Every book I've worked on over the years has the same struggle. I keep editing, adding, second-guessing, getting advice, editing, adding, second-guessing ... 

You get the picture.

I decided to take this problem in hand and forget about perfectionism. Instead, I took up imperfect progress. 

I now build my plans around fewer goals. I have had pages and pages of goals in the past but now I’ve refined them. Maybe it’s a by-product of getting older? 

I  make sure I have milestones along the way. I just have to get the words on the page. I write on planes, trains, and ferries. I write between appointments. I write wherever and whenever I can. 

When I have the first rough draft done, it feels great. Is it perfect? No.

Do I still have work to do on it? Yes.

Sometimes, we need to break down a big goal into steps. Make it manageable.

Sometimes, we need to give ourselves grace. 

Beating ourselves up over something because it’s not perfect and letting that stall us into inaction, is not helpful.

Whether it’s writing, parenting, weight loss, fitness, or climbing a mountain, taking slow steps of progress wrapped in grace is a great way to live. 

Grace means forgiving yourself, allowing yourself to be less than perfect. Allowing yourself to acknowledge that there is a purpose for your life and that, step-by-step, you are walking on that path.

If you get stuck for a while, just do one small thing that will take you one step closer. 

If I don’t take those imperfect steps, my manuscripts would still not be finished. 

If I hadn’t taken many walks and climbs in preparation, I’d never have been able to climb Mt Kilimanjaro a few years ago. 

If I hadn’t given myself some grace, I’d still be stuck. 

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.

My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

The Message 2 Corinthians 12:9

Is there something in your life that needs imperfect progress? What small steps of progress wrapped in grace do you need to take?

Elaine Fraser

www.elainefraser.co

Meeting God in Every Plot Twist

Photo by SIphotography from Deposit Photos

When I was a relatively new Christian, one of my favourite books was Meeting God at Every Turn, by Catherine Marshall. This book is the author’s very personal account of how God met her at every major turning point in her life. Every time something was confusing, troubling, heart-wrenching, or scary, God met Catherine with his incredible grace—even when her husband, renowned preacher, Rev Peter Marshall, died. The book had a profound effect on me at the time and encouraged me to trust God as I followed him in life and ministry.

 

But… It turns out I’m not great at trusting. I forget sometimes… God has always been there for me but nearly all the big mistakes I’ve made in my life come from my failure to trust him. Is that the case with you?

 

As writers, we love creating ‘plot twists’ in our stories, but we don’t like the plot twists life throws at us. When hard, horrible, or crazy stuff happens, do we believe God will help and strengthen us, or do we get in a flap like the hens in the Chicken Run film? 

via GIPHY

I confess I’m often like those hens. I tell myself not to panic, then I panic. But I’d like to share something that happened last year—something that reminds me of God’s faithfulness and my own struggle to trust.

 

I’d been unemployed for a while and our finances were low. I was plodding along working on my writing and doing a little editing. I was trying to polish and publish my YA book, Running Scared, work on my website, and write the first book of a series (new genre). But I kept on thinking I had to do more to earn a living! 

 

I tried. I made enquiries about work, but no doors opened. I couldn’t do veterinary work because of my bad back. My home business wasn’t earning much. My foray into NDIS support (and art teaching) had ended when my client’s funding was slashed. 

 

And our funds were bottoming out.

 

A wise response to this would have been to trust God and rest in him. It would have been to focus on writing and thank him for every spare moment he’d given me to focus on my creative call. I could have trusted he had everything under control, rather than letting worry pull me away from this call.

 

I still wrote and was creative, but I would have been a lot more productive if I had just TRUSTED.

 

Because something happened.

 

Late November last year God spoke in that still small voice while I was praying. He said, ‘Why are you praying for provision when my word says I will give that to you. Pray instead that you can write your book.’

 

I thought it was a strange thing for God to say, until three weeks later, he gave me a job. For some reason—and for some time—I’d been thinking a lot about copywriting. While I love writing fiction, I also love how words—in short form—have power to encourage and compel. I took a short copywriting course which helped me write the copy for my website, and I began exploring what it would mean to work in this area.

 

Then, suddenly, I had a copywriting job. Not just any copywriting job, but one at marketing  company with a Christian ethos. One that used both my writing skills and my background ministry training and experience. I was thrown in the deep end while everyone else had their Christmas holidays but somehow, I didn’t drown. Probably because I have the loveliest line-manager (you know who you are 😊).

 

It was hugely tough. I’d been used to working to my own rhythm but now I had to work to other people’s timetable in a shared corporate space. It was overwhelming and my body wasn’t used to me doing that level of work. It still rebels some days. But I’ve gradually learned to swim. 

 

Thing is, I’ve found it really, really, really hard to do any of my own writing. 

 

Guess what I’m praying for 😁.

Feel free to pray too, if you like...

 

Through his word to me last November, the Lord showed me he still values my fiction writing. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth me persevering even if it takes me all year to finish a first draft. I’m believing this.

 

I look back at the time and space I had to write last year, and I groan at the energy I gave to worry. 

 

There have been more plot twists since then—some affecting the day-to-day of life, health and work—others potentially affecting the bigger picture. The truth is, there will always be plot twists, but the author and perfecter of our faith says he will work all things to our good. Even the hard and crappy stuff.

 

The best encouragement I can bring today is to say if you are facing any plot twists in your life, delve deep into what God says in his word about these things, and believe it. 

Don't believe your own fears or the fears of other people. Write out the relevant verses and trust they are true. Bad stuff can happen, challenges can occur, health can fail, but Jesus is faithful, and he doesn’t give up on us. 

 

He doesn’t give up on our writing, either. He’s really into creating things 😃.

Image by beate bachmann from Pixabay 

Don’t waste energy on worry. God’s word is true. Worry doesn’t accomplish anything. Instead, give everything to him and do what you can. 

 

Trust him and let him surprise you!

 

And when he does come through for you, please tell us all about it so we can be encouraged too.

 

Has God ever met you during a plot twist in your life? What did he do? Let us know in the comments 😊.

 

 

Bible verses to ponder:

Matthew 6:25-34

2 Timothy 2:13

Proverbs 3:5-6

Hebrews 12:2(a)

Deuteronomy 31:8

Romans 8:28-32

Matthew 28:20(b)

Psalm 23

Isaiah 55

Susan J Bruce is an author, artist and animal addict who writes mystery and suspense books—with heart. Susan is a former veterinarian and animals often run, jump, fly or crawl through her tales. Her writing group once challenged her to write a story without mentioning any animals—she failed! Susan lives in sunny South Australia with her husband, Marc, and their furred and feathered family. This currently includes a fat tortoiseshell cat, a rescue cockatiel, and an irrepressible ShiChi (Shih Tzu x Chihuahua) who thinks her mission in life is to stop Susan writing.

Running Scared is Susan’s first novel and was awarded the 2018 Caleb Prize for an unpublished manuscript.
Visit Susan at www.susanjbruce.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Keep Going! by Susan J Bruce

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

How are you faring? Do you feel as if you are soaring in your writing life? 

Photo by Pete Nuij on Unsplash

Or sinking?

Photo by Joel Durkee on Unsplash

Is the rain pounding against your window, is the ceiling leaking, or are you sitting in the shade on a warm day, sipping a cool drink of lemon squash? 

Photo by Alexander Mils on Unsplash

I wanted to write a more reflective post today. I’m in the last stages of preparing my first novel, Running Scared, for publication and I’m feeling both extremes. The process of birthing this baby began over twelve years ago when I wrote the first draft as part of my MA in Creative Writing at Tabor, Adelaide. 

Yep, that’s a long gestation. There have been lots of labour pains. There was the agent in 2012 who told me they were loving my book, only to decide a week later not to take it. Then there were the publishers who liked the book and said it had commercial appeal—but then said the manuscript didn’t fit their list. It wasn’t quite what they were looking for, but it was a really good book, and they couldn’t stop reading it! 

Yes, really.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!

That is what the publishing world is like. Your book has to be in the right place at the right time. Eventually I got tired of waiting. I rewrote the book to please myself rather than a publisher and decided to independently publish it. 

Yes, you say. Much easier. Well, it might have been if I didn’t decide to do everything myself, including design my own cover. That process is for another blog article. My husband Marc is an excellent copyeditor, so he helped. But the learning curve was huge – especially as I want the finished product to equal that of any traditionally published book.

Now, when I’m nearly there, it feels as if I’m climbing a mountain, certain that the finish line is just around the next bend in the track. The problem is when I get to that bend, there’s another bend, and another, and another. There’s always something else to do. How do some people publish a book a month?

But the excitement is beginning to brew. It. Is. Nearly. There.

Of course, then there’s the marketing. Another mountain …

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

The writing life is full of exaltation and despair, joy and disappointment. 

How are you going? 

Do you need encouragement?

Here’s some.

God is with you – always (Mathew 28:20). He loves you and you can trust him. 

We’d nearly run out of money. I hadn’t been able to find a job and I should have just trusted God and kept my head down writing. But just at the right time he gave me a job. A stretching when-am-I-ever-going-to-have-time-to-write-my-own-stuff kind of job. But it came when I needed it. 

How are you going financially? Do you need a financial miracle? Keep following Jesus and he will help. Don’t worry (Matthew 6:25-34). If his word says it, we can believe it.

Do you need wisdom? Are you not sure where to go, be it with a major life decision or a plot point in your book? God will always give us the wisdom we need. But when he does, we need to trust him (James 1:5).

Are you feeling that everyone else is moving forward and doing amazing things with their writing careers, and you are still at the start, putting along faithfully but never getting anywhere?

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve felt like that. 

But Marc reminded the CWD community in his blog the other week that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). 

Our story isn’t over, but we sometimes need to remind ourselves that we are the hero, not the victim. When life throws plot twists in our way, what do we do?

The important thing is to keep going.

I think this was what I was meant to write today. Whatever God has put on your heart to do, do it with all your might. Don’t give up.

Trust. Rest. Believe.

My book is being born soon – and there will be much rejoicing in my household.

What are you believing God for this week? Why not share in the comments. I’ll pray. So will others. Keep going!

Susan J Bruce, aka Sue Jeffrey, spent her childhood reading, drawing, and collecting stray animals. Now she’s grown up, she does the same kinds of things. Susan worked for many years as a veterinarian, and now writes stories filled with mystery, suspense, heart and hope. Susan also loves to paint animals. Susan won the ‘Short’ section of the inaugural Stories of Life writing competition and won the 'Unpublished Manuscript' section of the 2018 Caleb prize. Susan is the editor of 'If They Could Talk: Bible Stories Told By the Animals' (Morning Star Publishing) and her stories and poems have appeared in multiple anthologies. Click here to check out Susan’s writing and artwork on her website.

Resistance is Futile!

This is my Star Trek avatar created on Trekkietar

When I was about fourteen, I discovered Star Trek. I loved it. We only had the original series back then—on rerun, by the way. I’m not that old. I remember going with friends to mini conventions which basically involved dressing up (you didn’t call it cosplay back then) and binge-watching series episodes on the big screen. I was in true geek heaven. When other kids had posters of KISS, ABBA, or The Bay City Rollers (yes, really) on their wall, I had pictures of Kirk, Spock and the starship Enterprise.  

Yep. Geek. How amazing is it that William Shatner recently travelled to space at 90-years-old? 

There have been several iterations of the Star Trek universe since then and while I’ll always love Shatner, Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, in the original series, my favourite Star Trek series is The Next Generation (TNG). Set a hundred years after the original series, Sir Patrick Stewart, as Jean-Luc Picard, gave a new dignity, and eloquence, to the role of Starfleet Captain. 

The TNG crew also featured in my all-time favourite Trek movie, Star Trek: First Contact. This movie was a lot of fun and it showcased one of the most sinister villains of the Star Trek Universe, The Borg. The Borg are black-leather-clad cyborgs. Their starship is a huge cube with weaponry that can overpower almost all other ships. They operate as a hive mind—The Collective—and are controlled by the Borg Queen. Their goal is perfection, and they operate by assimilating other races into their own by injecting nano-bots into their victims. 

They are a powerful enemy of all civilisations and their demoralising warning to all is: Resistance is futile. The Borg are too strong. Give up now.

By IMPAwards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54488873

I won’t spoil First Contact for you (but if you haven’t seen it, where have you been?) but those words, resistance is futile, are used to great effect in the climax of the film.

By now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with writing. 

Well, this week I’ve had the Borg catch-cry in my head as I’ve pondered a different, but very futile kind of resistance: resistance to writing.

I suffer from this resistance a lot—even though I love writing. Do you? I know I’m not alone.

To create a world and immerse yourself in the lives of your characters is a thing of joy. You get to know these make-believe people, torture them in some diabolically cathartic way, then cheer them on as they overcome the obstacles you throw before them. What’s not to like? Writing can be so much fun, so why do we resist sitting down and filling empty pages with our words. 

Resistance is weird. Why will we do almost anything other than write our first draft of a fiction novel? I’ll work on my website, write a blog post, take the dog for a walk. Anything. I have a friend who says her cupboards are never cleaner than when she’s drafting a novel.

I’m convinced resistance is different from writer’s block. While these two problems can be related, in my experience writer’s block is usually caused by a problem within our stories. If our plot isn’t working or if the goals, motivations and conflicts of our characters aren’t sound, we can easily stop writing and feel blocked. Resistance, on the other hand, is often experienced even before we sit down to type.

The resistance I’m talking about is also different from the inability to write that comes from serious life situations. I couldn’t write for six months after my brother died. That wasn’t resistance, it was grief.

Resistance to writing is the psychological force that pushes back against us when we try to create. 

In the realm of physics, resistance reduces to the ability of a wire to conduct electricity. The larger the resistance, the less electricity passes. In the same way, resistance to writing holds back the creative flow. 

Inertia is another physics term that says a mass will stay still or keep moving in a uniform way unless it’s acted upon by an opposing force. If you have a large SUV broken down in front of your driveway, it will stay there unless you are strong enough to push it out of the way. The good news is that once you get the SUV moving, inertia helps to keep it moving. The harder you push, the more the vehicle gathers momentum. But if you stop pushing, it will stop moving because of gravity and friction. Now if you are trying to push it uphill and you stop pushing...

Image by Schäferle from Pixabay 

Writing resistance is like that inertia. If we can overcome it, we gain momentum that keeps us moving forward, but if we don’t maintain our force and intention, our stories grind to a halt. 

Resistance to writing can lead to futility. It can stop us in our tracks, take us captive and rob us of the satisfaction of creating a body of work we are proud of. It can cripple our self-esteem, assimilate us into the mundane and crucify our joy.

But fighting resistance is not futile. It can be beaten even if, like me, you have a bad case of this malady.

Here are some things that can help:

• Start. It sounds simple but the best way to overcome resistance is to begin. Determine that you will write some part of your novel, however miniscule, each day.

• Make your goal doable. If resistance is a strong force in your writing life, then start with a tiny goal. Forget NaNoWriMo with its 50K words in a month. Begin with 300 words a day. Or say you will spend half an hour a day writing new story. 

• Give yourself permission for those 300 words to be the worst writing ever. Because words, even badly composed words, can be edited and built upon.

• Experiment. Try a different approach. I recently discovered the dictation function in the Office 365 version of Word. I am woeful at dictation, but when I use it to get a distracted rabble of words down onto the page, I don’t have a blank page anymore. And the fear goes away.

• Use a pen name. Sarah Painter in her book, Stop Worrying, Start Writing, suggests if fear of failure is holding you back, tell yourself you are going to publish your book under a secret pen name. Whether you use that name or your real name at the time of publication, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you trick your brain into thinking no one important to you need know these words are yours.
• Believe in God? Then pray. After all, one of his titles is Creator!

When we start, even with tiny goals, and give ourselves permission to write badly, a strange thing happens. The forces of inertia are overcome, and we begin to move forward. Our 300 words build momentum and become 500 words or 1000, until the story takes a life of its own.

I began this post by talking about Star Trek and the Borg. In this case the Borg were the opposing force speaking words designed to demoralise their victims. Resistance is futile. But resisting the Borg (sorry, spoiler after all 😆) wasn’t futile. 

Nor is resisting resistance. With writing, the power of resistance is itself futile. It can be beaten. 

And no alien cyborg is gonna stop us!

Have you wrestled with resistance? What tactics do you use to beat it? Let me know in the comments below.

Susan J Bruce, aka Sue Jeffrey, spent her childhood reading, drawing, and collecting stray animals. Now she’s grown up, she does the same kinds of things. Susan worked for many years as a veterinarian, and now writes stories filled with mystery, suspense, heart and hope. Susan also loves to paint animals. Susan won the ‘Short’ section of the inaugural Stories of Life writing competition and won the 'Unpublished Manuscript' section of the 2018 Caleb prize. Susan is the editor of 'If They Could Talk: Bible Stories Told By the Animals' (Morning Star Publishing) and her stories and poems have appeared in multiple anthologies. Click here to check out Susan’s writing and artwork on her website.