Contact Me

If you enjoy my blog and would like to contact me, you may reach me at this email: dena.netherton@gmail.com

Some of my stories are published in:
A Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers and Daughters (Adams Media, 2009)
Chicken Soup: What I Learned from the Dog (2009)
Love is a Flame (Bethany House, 2010)
Extraordinary answers to Prayer (Guideposts, 2010)
Love is a Verb (Bethany House, 2011)
Big Dreams from Small Spaces (Group Publishing, 2012)

Monday, September 20, 2010

"Take It Up With God!"

I just read Sandi Rog's blog about how difficult it is for a writer to deal with friends and family who don't understand the time and devotion needed to craft the written word.
What they see:
we work at home
we often don't get paid
we must divide our writing time between loads of laundry, meals, errands and a hundred other distractions.
we're not famous like Debbie Macomber or _______ (insert name).
We don't travel (much)
We don't speak (much)

But, this is what we writers know:
We work at home
we often don't get paid
We must divide our time between hundred of daily distractions
We're not famous
We don't travel much
We don't speak much

This is what we also understand:
Writers are often the first ones to get put in prison when there's a revolution.
Writer's book are banned or even burned when ideologies clash.
Writers are sometimes threatened because they express controversial ideas.
Jesus told stories and those stories are preserved for all time in the Bible.
A good story has way more power than a sermon because it flows like a memorable tune.
Story has the power to change lives.
If God has called me to write, there's no way I'm going to listen to naysayers and not write.
God called Noah to build an ark. It seemed like a ridiculous project to his contemporaries. But Noah was obedient in spite of the ridicule.

And finally, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin), he said, "So you're the little lady who started this big (Civil) war.

You, as a writer, are the only one God spoke to and called to do this work of writing. God doesn't explain to others what He's called you to do.

And anyone who thinks they know better how you should be spending your days, will have to take it up with God!

"From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." (Eph. 4:16)

1 comment:

  1. Hi Dena -

    Your post underscores the importance of what we do as writers. We have an opportunity to express what God has put in our hearts and impact a generation.

    Thank you.

    Blessings,
    Susan

    ReplyDelete