One of my favorite things is my grandma’s oatmeal cookie recipe. It’s a framed copy of the butter-stained treasure that’s been used to make hundreds of frosted oatmeal cookies with sprinkles.
Every birthday card Grandma gave me, every note, and every Bible verse she wrote out was a work of art. Even her grocery lists were written with care. Grandma had beautiful penmanship. After she died, I found little bits of paper here and there: a list of things for Grandpa to pick up at the hardware store, a poem written on a small scrap, a favorite verse tucked away in an old book or left in a drawer. How I would have loved to find a journal! But Grandma didn’t journal.
My bookshelves, however, are loaded with journals. To overflowing! And that’s not all. My file cabinets are filled with manuscripts, some published, some in process, and some waiting to be discovered after I’m gone.
I love words. But I never considered myself a writer. I remember a lady coming up to me after a speaking engagement. She said she always aspired to be a published author—I never did. And I still don’t have the drive it takes to try to write a best-seller.
When I was a little girl, and people asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “I want to be like my mom.” I wanted to be a good wife and mother—a homemaker. But I always loved to write.
In my teenage years I wrote to my grandma; she lived in Tinley Park; we lived in Ottawa. We kept in touch every week with letters.
My family moved to Ottawa during my sophomore year of high school; my best friend’s family moved to Agra, Kansas. So Karen and I wrote to each other every week. Back in those days, writing was the only way to stay connected. Neither of us could afford a long-distance phone call. But a stamp, back in 1973, cost only eight cents.
In my twenties and beyond, I wrote lessons for my Sunday school class, skits for the Christmas program, Voice of the People articles, the hospice newsletter, greeting cards, columns for The Write Team and many other masterpieces that, I’m sure, my family will one day cherish! LOL!
I used to think everyone wrote stuff down. But they don’t.
Writers are people who need to put the things they care about into words—on paper—and I’m one of them.
Chuck Sambuchino, on the Writer’s Digest blog says, “It’s not the published book that makes you a writer. You’re a writer because of… the joy you feel stringing the right words together so they sound like music. You’re a writer because you’re obsessed with making your ideas clearer, tighter, fiercer. You’re a writer because you have every reason to stop… but you can’t. It’s not that you love to write so much as you need to write.”
Aren’t you glad we have words? Of all God’s creation, human beings are the only ones who communicate with words. Words can do evil and good, they can bless and they can curse, they can encourage or bring despair.
The Bible has a lot to say about words. It tells us to let our words be few. But it also encourages us to speak the truth with boldness and clarity, courage and conviction, compassion and kindness. And isn’t that what writers love to do!
