This Week in My History -- July 23, 2008

 

It has been a most unusual week. To start with Kim's grandfather passed away last Tuesday and we did quite a bit of traveling for the funeral and the burial. Though it was a sad time it was refreshing to spend time with the family.

We have also been struggling mightily with financial problems and I had resigned myself to the fact that God was going to let us flounder because we have brought most of it on ourselves anyway. This is not a knock on God's love or His care for us but I simply thought I was paying the consequences for poor decisions.

But the last couple weeks I have seen His hand in tangible ways. For instance as we were heading to the burial site on Sunday our van broke down about one mile from Belle Plain, Ia at about 11:30 am.

We were caravanning so there were people with us but it was Sunday.

We discovered there was a gas station that could come help us. The man had a battery pack that we hooked onto the van and I was able to get to the station. He looked at the battery and discovered the alternator was not charging and he could not get one until the next day.

We had to have my in-laws come to Cedar rapids with us because we did not have enough space to fit all our luggage and ourselves.

I figured it would be around $200-$250 for the repair and I had just enough to cover the cost actually in my wallet. When I called to get the price I was was stunned to find out it was $365.00! I did not have that much, or so I thought.

A black cloud formed in my heart as I also discovered we also had an unexpected $500 bill. things were not looking good at all. I turned to the Lord in a very Davidic way asking why He was letting us get farther into trouble when we had been working so hard to get out this mess! I was a mess and we had company! I couldn't hide I had to be a good host though I thought my heart was going to burst form anxiety!

I went to find out what we had in savings and low and behold we had $400! Praise the Lord! That would cover the cost fully!

I came home yesterday, Tuesday,  to discover I had a "Thank you" from my company for the role I played in the flood efforts and that "thank you" has helped us pay off a couple of bills that were taking their toll on our finances. What a great and unexpected praise! I never doubted the Lord was good but I did not think He would intervene in this way! He is so good!

The reason I added the times into my story above is to show God's timing:

It was Sunday. Rarely will you find a service station open at all let alone on Sundays.

The station closed at noon on Sundays. We broke down one mile from the station at 11:30.

I thought we were out of money but we had enough to cover the cost of the repairs!

And finally the "thank you" from work! Like a cool rain after a hot sticky day...SO refreshing!

It has not solved all of our woes but it so very helpful in a tough time! So cool! God's timing is perfect! I maintain that money will not solve all of your problems but when you can get control of it the stress levels in your life are so much less! Praise the Lord for His steadfast goodness!

Never fail to trust the Lord! He will always be with you whatever the circumstances!

A Big Step for A Little Writer --July 15, 2008

Well, I did it! Another big step for this little writer.

I submitted an article to a publisher, Tranquil Living.

The article was an instructional piece on how to journal. If my article is chosen, I will a whole lot closer to my retirement goal. In fact, I will be $24.00 closer. That's right! You read it correctly! $24.00! I look at it this way: If I were $24.00 away from making my first million, if chosen, I would, sniff, have obtained my goal of making my first million dollars.

the biggest problem with this line of thinking is that I have never had a goal to make my first million so it really doesn't matter but if it did matter I would be that much closer!

My real goal is to get better at writing so that submitting articles for publication and being accepted by the publisher will become a regular source of income. that would be cool and is a goal I am shooting for, even if it's just part time.

Since I submitted it to a publisher I am not sure if it's available at the usual Helium.com or not but go a head and check it out and let me know what you think. I need good constructive criticism if I'm to grow so feel free to "criticize"!

Bye for now.

Preening in Pride -- July 11, 2008

I finished my second article today, finally. It took me longer than I expected because I want to make each new article better than the last. So I went to work rewriting and rewriting. I wondered if I was being too picky but I was not happy with the article when I finished the first copy but I did like my idea so I went paragraph by paragraph, yes even sentence by sentence and rewrote the whole thing.

I don't say it's award winning but I enjoyed writing it so much and I think I did alright.  I will have to see how good a rating it gets.

Though I still struggle with stretching out plot lines beyond the first twenty pages, I still can not get the excitement of building a world, a character, a plot...a story that stirs my heart! But as my article indicates, I have one enemy that I must face and defeat...Complacency.

I let complacency rule and it is squashing my work. It's time to draw the sword of discipline!

TO BATTLE!--

Fare thee well, fellow warriors!

Not Much for Updates

It has been a surreal time in my life with everything that has happened around here and that is my excuse for lack of writing. In my opinion there is never a good excuse for not writing. I find that I regret the times that I don't write.

I have started an article about the craft of writing that I still need to get published on Helium.com but it is not ready yet.

I felt...awkward writing about writing having never been published but the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that even though I have not been published ( yet! :-) ) I still have enough experience to add my two cents' worth so I wrote and am now rewriting and hopefully will post it soon.  You will note a powerful weapon to beat back the monsters that attack a writer during the creative process but you will need to read the article to get the answer! (Pretty good marketing, huh?!)

I have another idea for a story that I am toying with and it has been fun but I have not have not put much time into it yet. Lots of ideas and so much procrastination!

This is it for now, see you later!

Bye!