So, as many of you may or may not know, I write – a lot. Not
just missionary newsletters either. I usually write poetry and have been doing
just that for the past 12 years. What many of you may not know is that about 8
years ago I almost published a book. It was going to be a random collection of
poetry that I had written when I was 16 of about 100 something poems which I
considered to be from my best writing streak. I had submitted it to an editor
and it had been looked over and we had a meeting. Now, if he was just stroking
my young and fragile ego I will never know, but he said that my work was really
good and had quite an original voice. Part way through all that, it fell
through and I ended up not publishing and less than a year later I ended up
moving to South America and my life completely changed.
Did any
of you know that my plans before that of becoming a missionary were to be a
writer? I even started my first novel when I was 13 – not saying it was that
great or anything, but I wrote it and I was 13. When God started guiding me
towards missions I thought it was just something that I had to give up – you know
give up my dreams and take on the dreams that God had for my life. I just didn’t
get that God was taking away my dreams, but adding on to them. As the years
went by and my professional writing dreams far behind me I actually started
writing less in general. The thing is I hadn’t started writing with any
intention whatsoever of people reading my poetry – it was a dream that came
along later. I started writing because someone made an offhand comment that writing
how I feel might help me to feel a little better. So, as I began to write less
and less I really began to miss it. But these things are like muscles – you stop
doing something for a while and it’s hard to start back up; you remember how
but it takes time for your muscles to get back into shape.
So as
the years went by I tried and tried and tried to get back into writing and
every once in a while I’d come out with something, but I just never really did
get back into the swing of it. I kept trying nonetheless and then I felt God
pressing upon my heart to finish what I had started. To take the idea I had
originally for my book - which was to be an autobiographical poetry book about
coming out of depression – and finish it and publish it. So that’s what I did
This is the name of my first book - "Soul CPR" and it is a book of poetry about my journey with God through years of depression.
