Creative Life – Rebekah Lyn Books

Only So Many Hours

Lately I’m seeing how much God wants me to let my spirit meld into his. I’m seeing that he won’t punish me, hurt me, or give me more than I can handle. I’m seeing that His will is my true will and my true will is His will. God is love, nothing else, nothing less.

It hasn’t always been like this. At one time, I so wanted to impress God, and other people, with my spirituality that I became a one-person counseling machine. I was a stay-at-home mom. The phone rang so many times during the day while the kids were at school and Bill was at work, that I couldn’t do much else than keep up with the household, talk on the phone, and answer the doorbell. Here’s a sample of my projects at the time. There was the woman whose husband beat her, another was a married woman who wanted to have an affair, then I felt responsible to talk a woman out of killing her aged husband because he was driving her nuts. Of course such “clients,” often threaten either directly or indirectly to kill themselves. I stayed available because I certainly didn’t want that to happen on my watch. It was so bad I couldn’t even go for a walk without taking a backpack of other people problems onto the trail with me.

One day, I was tired of fighting it and asked for help. The Spirit of Christ brought ideas and people to my aid. I got an answering machine and when people learned I wasn’t available at the exact moment of an emotional crisis, they stopped calling. In the book, When Helping You is Hurting Me, Rene Berry says, “They’ll find another fool, they found you, didn’t they?” Yes to both. My “clients” moved on and so did I.

Most of my life, I’ve known I was called to be a writer. Now I began to write for myself. That meant giving up doing the writing other people asked me to do for them. I started living a more normal life. I told the Lord he was in charge of all my personal contacts. I began to wait for him to lead instead of selecting my own purgatory. Soon I slowed down from an unnecessary and counter-productive pace. I’ve discovered that God makes and presents wonderful plans.

Sweet invitations and delightful conversations happen in which our Lord takes His part. He gives me love pats every day. Love pats are good things that happen, which otherwise might be called coincidences. I’m getting more writing and painting done than I ever have, but I’m not a recluse or a hermit. All that counseling without qualifications did me good though. I learned a lot. What could have been better for a budding writer? He was guiding me through all that to get me to go where He really wanted me to go.

Here’s a paraphrase of Matthew 11:30 personalized (taken from The Message)

Beloved,

Walk with Me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with Me, and you’ll learn how to live freely and lightly.

Do You Keep a Diary?

I’m reading a thick book called, A Diary of the Century by Edward Robb Ellis. He started keeping a diary in 1927 when he was seventeen and had boxes full of his writings when he died at 83. I’m just to the part where he got his first full-time job for Associated Press in New Orleans when Huey Long was trying to become the dictator of Louisiana.

Eddie speaks of The Great Depression, how the banks closed and people lost all the money they had. The stress was so bad many of them had heart attacks and died. When Eddie saw a breadline of over 200 starving men, he felt the depression was there to stay for a while.

Edward Robb Ellis’s wrote about large events of the days, and he wrote about his feelings and personal experiences, as well. To me that is a combination of a diary and journal. It is sometimes difficult to draw a line of separation between the two. We don’t need to do that if we want to combine them.

David in the Bible did the same thing. He wrote about events, he poured out his anguish, and then he prayed for help. It seems God answered the prayers as he was writing because often in the same Psalm where he’s asking for help he soon begins thanking God for His deliverance.

I write in a diary or journal almost every day. It never fails to lift my spirits. Only God can do that, of course, but writing is my best way to hear Him. Eddie said that writing a diary keeps him straight and honest with himself. I agree.

This week I’ve written about going to a sales party and seeing friends I haven’t seen for awhile. It was a joyous time. I’ve written about Bill and I having lunch with our son and walking around Lake Eola in Orlando. The swans are all in love. The turtles are swimming together. A beautiful black man in a hot pink tee shirt was walking entwined with his ladylove who looked like an exotic Indian dancer. The next day I had lunch with our daughter and we talked in mother daughter shorthand. I wrote all about that.

Today I had no appointments, but I got up grouchy. Thank the Lord there’s a way not to ruin my own day. First, I wrote about the dog next door. If he’s outside, he barks at us every time we open the door. I wrote about my headache. I even wrote about how Bill keeps washing the dishes and putting them in the drainer instead of rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher so I can accumulate a full load. I know, they are frivolous, silly complaints, but when I got through telling the God who loves me and who already knows everything about me, I felt relieved of a burden. I was ready to write His love pats. The process reminds me a little of David’s, but of course no one is trying to kill me, as they were him. The great thing is that God loves little old me as much as He did David and so he makes no difference in the help we need or deserve.

“Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar.” Psalm 5:1-2

Jargon, We All Use It

I’m saved? Are you?

What does that mean? A whole raft of people could tell you, but many more could not. Why? Because I’m saved, is jargon. So what is jargon? It’s a code, a language. It’s quick, it’s easy, and everybody in our circle knows what we’re talking about. That’s fine as long as we don’t mind excluding people who aren’t in the know.

What’s up? Are you working hard? How do you like this weather? Those are okay to start a conversation at the beginning of a chance meeting when there’s not much chance of having a real talk, but specific questions and answers are more

. Here’s a couple of examples: “I remember that the last time we talked you were working on a great project. What stage are you in now? For a traveler, you can’t do better than, “When is your next trip and where are you going?” If we’re creative, we’ll hear much better stories, and possibly be inspired with something exciting to write about.

What lines of jargon are we familiar with? We know religious jargon, and writing jargon. Then we have our music specialties and historical references, maybe you speak politics or sports or entertainment or cooking. It might be fun to watch our own statements and ferret out things that others will not understand. I don’t know texting, computer, or game jargon, so I’m not the best at communicating with young people and some of the things I say such as, “You’ve got the cart before the horse,” are incomprehensible and weird to them. They are not only jargon, but they are clichéd, and archaic. I hope to root them out of my vocabulary, someday, but until then perhaps I can be more careful about when and where I use them.

Have you ever been to a doctor that told you precisely what you wanted to know in words that you could easily understand? If you have, you’ve been to a good doctor, who knows how to communicate without using medical jargon. He is especially valuable if he doesn’t take a superior attitude and judge you for not knowing.

So what do I mean when I say, I’m saved? Here’s a short explanation. It means that Jesus died on the cross for me because I was too busy ignoring Him and His Father to bother connecting with them. He had to get my attention. He got it in an act of atonement that will never be forgotten. Then he rose powerfully from death, and now because I asked Him to take over my life I’m being healed and living a freer and more abundant life than I could ever have imagined. Because he cast his cloak of righteousness over me, and He is no longer aware of my self-life, Jesus looks upon me as holy and perfect. Maybe I should just say, I’m saved, but what good would that do? What’s the point of saying anything at all if people can’t understand what I’m talking about? If I’m a Christian, I’m a teacher. If I’m a writer, I’m a teacher. Teachers must, by definition, be able to truly communicate.

#writingtips #faith #communication #writingideas

Synchronicities in Life

I learned the word synchronicity when I started studying the concept of creativity. I’ve probably given it some added meaning over the years of being acquainted with it. To me, a synchronicity is a simultaneous, coincidental, serendipitous happening engineered by God. It’s always a thrill to experience one. Continue reading “Synchronicities in Life”