Day 21. What stirs you...

I can’t believe we’re nearly done with our 25 Days for Peace project! For 21 days my fellow writers and I have focused on peace both in the writing you read, and in the behind-the-scene conversations you don’t read. Writing can be a lonely feat—this project has made it not just less lonely, but has also allowed me to see that struggle is part of writing; meaning, I’m not the only one that struggles through the process of writing!

I have no formal training in writing (which I’m sure isn’t hard to figure out) and it wasn’t until just a few short years ago that I started to allow my writing to be out loud for others to read. I have always done some form of writing, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I began to let others read my words and it wasn’t until I read the book Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks that I realized I COULD call myself a writer. That book gave me the courage to say what I felt inside—I wanted to write. It was in the pages of that I book I learned that someone I admired for his writing had basically become a writer off of a challenge from his mother. 

25 Days for Peace was presented to me, not as a challenge in the literal terms, but a challenge nevertheless. What has been filled with ups and downs in terms of writing, has also brought ups and downs in terms of my connection to God. I have experienced God in a new way—I have learned to trust the process and to trust that God is in the beginning, the middle and yes, even in the end…every single day of writing.  

So, as you ponder the closing of 2015 and start to turn your attention to 2016 I would like to extend to you the same offer I was given (kind of)—what is it that your heart is bent towards? What is that thing you do that brings you a sense of peace unlike other things? What is it that you may have no training in but, have a natural pull towards?  Set your mind to be in that space, to give attention to that thing you’ve identified, daily for the entire month of January. Maybe you can’t physically do it in January, but you could learn more about it—I’m confident you could find a way to daily put attention to that thing that brings your heart peace.

Too many of us float through one year into the next never giving attention to the stirring in our hearts. Let’s stop doing that, let’s start paying attention and let’s start becoming… 

Writing is a challenge for me, but it’s a good challenge, a challenge that wakes me in the middle of the night stirring my soul. There is nothing else on this planet that does that for me. Find your stirring and then give it attention—God is eager to shed light on that kind of peace to you!