A
couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post after I attended the first meeting of
our church’s fall book club, for which they’d chosen my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.
I was happy but also humbled that they chose it.
Among
other questions, they asked me: Why did you write your memoir?
Good
question.
I
took time to answer because a memoir—every memoir—can and should be a gift for
its readers. In fact:
I
believe God Himself
dreamed
up the idea of memoirs.
If
you think that’s a stretch, read on!
That
evening, I took the ladies back to the beginning of my passion for
memoirs—though originally I didn’t even know the definition of “memoir.”
It
started some thirty years ago. I’d been reading Streams in the Desert, a
devotional from 1925 (!) by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (though nowadays they call
her L. B. Cowman).
Not
only have publishers updated her powerful devotional by letting the dear lady
use her own name instead of her husband’s, they’ve also updated the wording and
Bible version.
But
I’m still using the old-fashioned version, so keep that in mind when you read
what L.B. wrote. It’s based on Luke 21:13 which says, “This will give you an
opportunity to tell about Me” (ERV).
“Life
is a steep climb,
and
it does the heart good to have somebody ‘call back’
and
cheerily beckon us on up the high hill.
We
are all climbers together, and we must help one another.”
“This
mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious,” she wrote. “It takes
strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the
altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worthwhile, we ought to ‘call
back.’”
And
then L.B. Cowman shares her poem:
If
you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—
‘Twill
cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And
if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the [lamp] oil is low,
Your
call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.
Call
back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call
back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;
That,
when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,
He
bore you up and held you where the very air was still.
.
. . But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And
if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—
If
you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back—
‘Twill
cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
That
poem—
that
thought of cupping our hands around our mouths
and
cheering on others
who
are coming behind us, struggling up life’s steep trails—
that
thought zinged me.
It
zapped me.
“Yesssss!”
I said.
I
fought tears when I thought of the people
who
had already battled up life’s steep mountain trails,
who
then turned to me to show by their example
how
to choose courage and faith,
those
who shared with me their words,
who
cheered me on and kept praying.
My
heart lurches when I think how my life’s battles
might
have turned out
if
those dear souls had not told me their story—
they
and their stories
kept
me pounding one foot in front of the other,
hoping,
believing, refusing to give up
because
if God had helped them, He’d help me, too.
When
I first read L.B. Cowman’s devotional that day, I told myself: “A Call Back
book! That’s what we need—to share our stories and keep each other fighting the
good fight.”
Reading
that poem was a defining moment for me. For years I thought about a Call Back
Book. But the idea was raw and rough. It needed to marinate for a few years.
Fast
forward twenty years or so. I came upon the following words (words which you
know well if you’ve been with our SM 101 tribe for a while): “Always
remember—and never forget—what you’ve seen God do and be sure to tell your
children and grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9).
When
I read those words, they gave me another zing and zap. That was another pivotal
moment for me. “That’s it!” I told myself. “That’s what a Call Back Book would
accomplish.” My undeveloped concept began to take a more solid form in my mind
and heart and vision.
And
the fact that God told us to tell our stories
to
our kids and grandkids—
Wow
again! He commanded us to tell our stories.
It’s
a calling He’s given all of us.
I
remember asking myself, “I wonder what a memoir is.” I looked up the definition
and—Wow again. Memoir was a perfect format for telling our stories. (Click here
for the definition of memoir.)
And,
as they say, the rest is history:
- I started teaching memoir classes for churches and other interested groups,
- in 2010, I published my first memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa,
- I started blogging at Spiritual Memoirs 101 to reach others interested in writing their stories,
- in 2019, I published my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir,
- and I’ve continued to teach online and in-person memoir classes.
Fast
forward to that evening at our church’s Book Club meeting when they were
reading my memoir. I was in for a delightful surprise. The ladies started
discussing the definition of memoir, and then they realized that each of them
had a story.
They
caught the vision of the importance of telling their stories.
In
the words of Lloyd John Ogilvie, “ “. . . we can be God’s tap on a person’s
shoulder. . . . It’s awesome to realize that God can use us as His messengers,
healers, and helpers. He’s up to exciting things, and all He needs is a
willing, receptive, and obedient spirit” (Silent Strength for My Life).
If
you’re writing your memoir,
YOU
are those Ogilvie writes about—
YOU
are the ones with a willing,
receptive,
and obedient spirit.
How
awesome to realize that
God
is using YOU as His messengers,
healers,
and helpers.
