Is this the year you’ll publish your memoir?

 

Whew! Are you like me? When Christmas and New Years are behind me, I catch my breath, mentally turn, and step into a different chunk of the year.

 

The holidays hold many distractions—fun distractions, usually—but when we take down our old calendars and replace them with new calendars, it’s time to refocus. We look ahead and make plans: We remind ourselves we’ll have a couple of months of fewer hours of daylight, we’ll have cold weather and maybe snowy roads, and we’ll focus on indoor activities.

 

And that brings me to this indoor activity: How are you doing on writing your memoir?

 

Is this the year you’ll finalize your manuscript?

 

Is this the year you’ll pin down your memoir’s title?

 

Is this the year your book will get its cover design?

 

Is this the year you’ll publish your memoir?

 

Is this the year people—even strangers—will buy and read your memoir?

 

Is this the year your story will change lives?

 

If you’re like many of us, over the holidays you took a break from writing to spend time with family and friends, and now you need motivation to continue authoring your story.

 

Are you struggling to find that motivation—that incentive, that enthusiasm? If so, you’re not alone.

 

At such times, it’s easy to get distracted—because, for many, it’s hard to get back into the writing process. It’s hard to focus.

 

So we fidget. We check Instagram. Send a couple of text messages. Grab a snack, go shopping—all in an attempt to get back into our groove.

 

You’ll probably identify with this Mignon McLaughlin quote:

 

“There’s only one person

who needs a glass of water oftener than

a small child tucked in for the night,

and that’s a writer sitting down to write.”

 

Mick Silva at Higher Purpose Writers posted on Facebook a couple of years ago: “. . . Everyone says [persistence] is the most important part of writing. I’ve said it to all my clients: Most people don’t finish. Even if they finish a draft, they don’t follow through with the rewriting, or the rereading and editing. They just stop. . . .”

 

Refuse to let that happen to you!

 

Mick also offers this encouragement: “Consistent baby steps are important for when passion wanes.”

 

So, persist! Remember: Even baby steps result in progress.

 

And here’s a Nora Roberts quote to inspire you to keep working:

 

“. . . You have to be driven. You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline, and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done,” Nora says.

 

Here’s my advice: Pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve already come.

 

Since the clock is ticking, be intentional: Keep penning your first draft. Don’t judge your writing at this point. Sure, you’ll have to fix it, but you’ll tackle that later. For now, just write!

 

Focus. Resolve to complete your book.

 Persevere.

 Pray.

 

Writing and publishing your memoir is not a hobby—it’s a ministry.

 

You can do this! You can!

 

Your life: holy threads, consecrated strands, hallowed fibers, blessed filaments

Your job, as a memoirist, is to do the hard work of discerning and writing about "the designing hand of God and his intervention in our lives" (Ravi Zacharias).

Think about God's footprints alongside ours, His fingerprints all over our lives: Divine intervention.

Sounds good, doesn't it? We like having God intimately involved in our lives.

But " . . . divine intervention is nowhere near as simple a thing as we might imagine," writes Ravi Zacharias (Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives). 

Think about this: 

Sometimes our footprints, and those alongside ours, are muddy, or worse.

Sometimes tattered, holey shoes left those footprints.

Sometimes God's fingerprints all over our lives are sticky, smudged, scarred, bloody. Sometimes the fingerprints we leave behind are, too.

Divine intervention "cannot be only a journey of unmistakable blessing and a path of ease," Zacharias continues. "To allow God to be God we must follow him for who he is and what he intends. . . ."

Each of us has countless blessings and yet, each of us has experienced heartaches, disappointments, failures.

Sometimes life knocks the air out of us.

Too many experience betrayal. Unfaithfulness. Rejection. Abuse.

Some know hunger and sickness and handicaps and homelessness.

We know loss, grief, exhaustion, confusion.

Hopelessness. 

At such times we can be tempted to despair, thinking God doesn't love us enough, or that His plans for us are not good enough. We think we deserve better from Him.

Other times our lives seem hum-drum. We're boring people living boring lives. We wonder if we matter, if we are worth anything of value.

". . . Incident follows incident helter-skelter leading apparently nowhere," Frederick Buechner writes, "but then once in a while there is the suggestion of purpose, meaning, direction, the suggestion of plot. . . ." (The Alphabet of Grace).

That's what Zacharias calls us to see: "the designing hand of God and his intervention in our lives" so that "we know he has a specific purpose for each of us and that he will carry us through until we meet him face-to-face. . . ."

Yes, sometimes life is overwhelmed with sadness, other times life is blah, but if we let Him, and work with Him, God uses all of it to shape and polish us, to mature us and beautify us, even though we might not understand it at the time, or even see it.

Zacharias challenges us to imagine our lives as exquisite fabric: vivid, brilliant colors with threads of gold and silver intertwined. He wants us to see God as the "Grand Weaver . . . with a design in mind for you, a design that will adorn you as he uses your life to fashion you for his purpose, using all the threads within his reach."

You are important to God. You are His workmanship, His treasure. Your life is sacred.

God is custom-making the fabric of your life. Look back over the years and search for each thread and color: the dark ones and the pastel ones, the heavy ones and the light ones, the coarse ones and the golden ones. Those are holy threads. Consecrated strands. Hallowed fibers. Blessed filaments.

Search. Make it your quest to discover the excellent, one-of-a-kind pattern the Grand Weaver is creating out of you.

Go back: Look for spools of thread, God-designed, for you alone. Watch and listen for the sound of the shuttle going back and forth in God's hand. He's making something beautiful: YOU.

The more you grasp

how important you are to God,

and that He's crafting you

into His masterpiece,

the better you can write

your God-and-you stories,

the better you can share them with

your children,

grandchildren, great-grandchildren,

and generations yet unborn. 

On authoring change: Listening and looking at your life candidly, searchingly, and feelingly

 

What kind of difference could you make, or do you want to make, or need to make, with the time you have left on this earth?

 

Here’s another question for you:

 

“ . . . How do you turn your dream of making a positive and meaningful difference in the world into a reality?”

 

Nina Amir asks the question and then she answers it for you: “You author change.

 

“You write and publish a book that inspires positive action or change. . . .”

 

Here’s another question for you:

 

“Can we listen to ourselves in the silence? Can we sit and wait for the whispers of our souls to come creeping, slowly, falteringly, letter by letter through our pens? Can we allow our truest selves to tell their stories through the gateway of broken language . . . ? Catch it before it is gone, capture it in a jumble of letters. . . .” Edith Ó Nualláin

 

Always remember: Your story is part of God’s much larger story.

 

Jesus said, “Go tell your family everything God has done for you” (Luke 8:39). That means writing a memoir is a holy work, a ministry.

 

As a memoirist, you have the privilege of working with sacred stories—stories that are for the most part stories of everyday events and ordinary people. It’s a holy calling to tell the next generations about God’s involvement in their lives and their families’ lives (see Psalm 145:4 and Deuteronomy 4:9).

 

“The writers who get my personal award are the ones who show exceptional promise of looking at their lives in this world as candidly and searchingly and feelingly as they know how,” writes Frederick Buechner, “and then of telling the rest of us what they have found there most worth finding. We need the eyes of writers like that to see through. We need the blood of writers like that in our veins.”  

 

What have you found that’s most worth finding?

 

Write it in your memoir before it’s too late. “Catch it before it is gone.”

 

“The world needs change agents,” says Nina Amir. “It’s your time to make a positive and meaningful impact with your words.”

 

Your words, your stories—your memoir—could do that. It’s your time, Nina says.

 

It’s your time!

 

On sputtering flames and rekindling sparks: Offering others the light someone gave to you

 

Every once in a while, a passage of Annie Dillard’s makes sense to me. (I usually struggle to grasp much of her writings. How about you?)

 

But recently one of her anecdotes came across loud and clear. In Holy the Firm, she writes about a camping trip, reading at night by candlelight, and watching moths flying into the flames.

 

She writes:

 

“One night. . . a golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspan, flapped into the fire, dropped her abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, frazzled and fried in a second. Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing. . . .

 

“Her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms. . . her antennae crisped and burned away. . . . Her head was . . . gone. . . .

 

“All that was left was the glowing horn shell of her abdomen and thorax—a fraying, partially collapsed gold tube jammed upright in the candle’s round pool.

 

“And then this . . . spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick. She kept burning . . . a saffron-yellow flame. . . . She burned for two hours without changing . . . while I read by her light.” (Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm)

  

That reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s quote:

 

“At times our own light goes out 

and is rekindled by a spark from another person. 

Each of us has cause to think 

with deep gratitude 

of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

 

Read those two sentences again and pause to think:

 

How many times has your light dimmed and faltered, only to be rekindled by a spark—a light shared—from another person?

 

In what ways did God arrange events to bring that person into your life?

 

Back then, you might not have recognized God’s efforts to bring that person into your life, but it’s not too late!

 

Think about Annie Dillard’s moth. Think of people who are no longer with you but whose lives and light have lived on, guiding you, encouraging and inspiring you to fight the good fight. I think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., former U.S. Representative John Lewis, Helen Keller, Corrie Ten Boom.

 

I have a hunch that the brightest sparks of light in your life are people who don’t make it into the news or Wikipedia or books. Maybe he or she was:

• a neighbor,
• or a grocery clerk,
• a fireman,
• a four-year-old,
• a writer,
• a parent or grandparent,
• an athlete
• a librarian,
• a nurse,
• a conference speaker,
• a coach,
• your best friend,
• a new friend,
• or even a stranger that you never saw again.

 

Who “enlarged the circle of light” available to you? Who “kept burning . . . while you read by her light”?

 

Be deliberate. Make time to remember.

 

Snap the puzzle pieces together. Connect the dots and notice the ways God hovered close, using that person to rekindle your light.

 

Uncover it, even if it takes weeks or months.

 

Here’s a suggestion:

 

Make yourself a working document, a three-column list, one column for your “dark” times, a second column for the people who shared their light, and a third column to make notes about specifics that come to mind.

 

Some, if not all, of those incidents are stories to write in your memoir.

 

When you write, dig deep. And deeper. Refuse to skim over the shallow surface of life.

 

What did you learn about yourself through both the dimming of your light and the rekindling of it?

 

What new and better person did you become?

 

 As a result, how did your life change?

 

What did you learn about God?

 

How did the experience strengthen your faith?

 

How did it inspire you to be a light in other people’s lives?

 

When you write about those experiences, you are saying, like David in Psalm 18:28, “My God turns my darkness into light.”

 

2 Peter 2:9 speaks to those chosen by God, set apart, belonging to God, for a purpose: “that you might declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

 

Just think!

Through your memoir you can pass on to others

the light someone gave to you!

 

Your story can reach into the lives and hearts and minds

of those whose lights have dimmed and faltered.

 

Your memoir can rekindle a spark

that can grow into bright flames of light.

 

Wow! Just Wow!

 

Our memories of 2020 are going to be "muddled and confused"

 

Musings for the end of 2020, the year of the Coronavirus pandemic:

“‘Our memories of this moment are going to be muddled and confused,’ says Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College who studies how people remember their lives, and how public events affect that. ‘We're going to be left with this vague notion that's going to be hard to articulate, hard to describe, hard to capture for those folks who haven't been through it.’” (Ted Anthony) 

 

And yet, your job and mine, as memoirists, is to push through the confusion and murkiness and, instead, to articulate, describe, and capture what has happened this year.

 

We serve as “a hand pointing in the direction of the past.” (C. H. Spurgeon)

 

But here at SM 101, we do more than that. We do more than tell stories from the past.

 

Here we dig deep within those stories to discover what God has done for us—stories about His constant companionship and provision each day.

 

The beauty of memoir is looking back, examining, and discovering significance we might have missed at the time.

 

At the end of 2020, let’s reflect on the past twelve months because:

 

• We and people around the world have been tossed about, spun around, and upended by Covid-19 and its ripple effects. The pandemic this year has been unique for everyone—except for those few people still alive who also lived during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. But for most of us, a pandemic like this happens only once in a lifetime.
• As a nation, we’ve also experienced racial unrest, political turmoil, economic tragedies, and social isolation, to name only a few. (See last week’s post, Covid-19 and those “Beneath life’s crushing load.”)
• On top of that, most of us have experienced personal struggles and heartbreaks.

 

This past year has numbed us and bewildered us, and not enough time has passed for us to accurately assess everything that’s happened. Nevertheless, we need to get some of our thoughts and experiences in writing even now. We can go back and revise later.

 

Jennifer Talarico’s words (above) comfort me. They tell me I’m not the only one struggling to find words and discern what, specifically, was going on in various levels of life—my life, my extended family’s life, my fellow citizens’ lives, and of those around the world.

 

Even in a “normal” year, too often we don’t take time to recognize that, in the words of dear old Samuel, “The Lord has helped us every step of the way” (1 Samuel 7:12, NIRV).

 

Back in the 1800s, C. H. Spurgeon pondered that same verse in The King James Version: “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”

 

He wrote:

 

“The word ‘hitherto’ seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty years or seventy, and yet ‘hitherto hath the Lord helped us!’”

 

Or, in today’s language, “Whether we’re twenty years old or seventy, ‘the Lord has helped us every step of the way.’”

 

Spurgeon continues,

 

“Through poverty,

through wealth,

through sickness,

through health;

at home,

abroad,

on the land,

on the sea;

in honor,

in dishonor,

in perplexity,

in joy,

in trial,

in triumph,

in prayer,

in temptation,

—‘hitherto hath the Lord helped!’”

 

If we invest time in looking over Spurgeon’s list in light of our own past twelve months, we’ll see that every day, in each event, even in the worst of times, God has always hovered in our midst, has always loved us, and has sent us encouragement and help in practical ways.

 

This is a busy time of year but for now, jot down a list, make a few notes, and promise yourself—and your family, and God—you’ll write those stories in 2021!

 

Each child, grandchild, great-grandchild—niece, nephew, and “spiritual” child—needs to know your stories. They can serve as a guide to show future generations how to manage their own surprises and emergencies. When your readers see what God did for you, they’ll be more likely to trust Him in their own circumstances.

 

Each story can be a celebration of what God has done.

 

Always remember, and never forget,

what you’ve seen God do for you,

and be sure to tell your children and grandchildren!

(Deuteronomy 4:9)

 

Covid-19 and those “Beneath life’s crushing load”

 

Tragedies caused by Covid-19 can certainly be called one of life’s crushing loads. As of this morning, more than 1,700,000 people have died around the world. I estimate that for each one, at least fifty family members and friends are grieving. That number comes to 85,000,000 people mourning those deaths. That’s probably a low figure, and it will continue to grow.

 

Add to that financial disasters to businesses and employees, the enormous emotional and physical toll on first responders and healthcare workers, and people being evicted from their homes.

 

Add to that the isolation so many are experiencing from families at Thanksgiving and Christmas, teachers exhausted as they teach online instead of in person, and students struggling to keep up with their lessons.

 

Add to that careworn parents trying to work from home and supervise kids and help them with their schoolwork—all at the same time. Families are struggling financially because breadwinners have lost their jobs. Thousands every day wait in line for food. Others have enormous medical bills. Those recovering from the virus can have long-term health issues, making it difficult for them to get back on their feet.

 

And doctors and scientists are concerned over a sometimes-deadly syndrome related to Covid-19 which effects children’s “heart, lungs, blood vessels, kidneys, digestive system, brain, skin or eyes.”

 

Now there’s news that the coronavirus has mutated in England, and probably has reached other nations as well, and that the new strain spreads much more quickly than we’ve seen so far.

 

And that just scratches the surface when it comes to Covid-19.

 

In addition, in recent months our nation has experienced political unrest, violence in streets, racial tensions, and significant disagreements among Christian denominations.

 

That’s a lot of heartache to bear.

 

And I’m sure you’ll agree: All of this has added an element of sadness to this Christmas season.

 

In my family, we have our own layers of sadness, but really: We have little to complain about compared to millions of families that have many more problems than we do.

 

I ran across this artwork (see photo below) in an antique Christmas book and its caption took my breath away. “Ye, beneath life’s crushing load,” words from the beloved song, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

 

The words are so familiar to me—I’ve sung the song for as long as I can remember.

 

But this year, those words take on deeper meaning. I’m glad they caught my attention and jostled my heart and made me care more deeply.

 

Sometimes we want to block out the grimness of a time like this—we desperately want to ease our pain. We grab hold of distractions like Christmas parties and movies and music and decorations and gift-giving.

 

And yet, it’s good to step aside from our giddy Christmas festivities to pray for those suffering around us, in our nation, and around the world—those staggering beneath life’s crushing load.

 

But let’s go beyond that—let’s remember the suffering and sadness we have experienced in the past, and let’s remember the ways God stuck with us and got us through to the other side of the pain.

 

Remember the people He used, the Bible verses, the sermons, the stories He used to minister to us and keep us from going under.

 

Let’s always remember the good God brought to us within our past heartaches and sufferings. And then let’s comfort others with the comfort He has given us (1 Corinthians 1:3-4). How? By telling them our stories.

 

“Listen to your life,” wrote Frederick Buechner. “See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and  hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” (Frederick Buechner, Now and Then)

 

Marlene Bagnull wrote, “I discovered the answers he [God] had given me could be a source of help and reassurance to others who asked . . . ‘How Much Longer, Lord?’ . . . I sensed the most difficult things for me to share could be the very words someone else needed to read.” (Marlene Bagnull, Write His Answer)

 

Which people did God use to comfort you when you were staggering beneath life’s crushing load? Thank God for them, (and thank them, too, if you can). Then pass it on: Share your stories with others.

 

Search your mind and heart for stories you need to include in your memoir, stories that will bless and encourage readers.

 

You don’t know what’s in the future—you can’t know now what will be happening in the lives of your kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and all the others who will someday read your memoir.

 

Right now you can’t know what crushing loads your readers will be carrying.

 

But this is what you can do right now: Ask God to help you remember the good He brought out of your past heartaches and disasters. Dig deeply, layer by layer, and find the gems. Connect the dots.

 

Spend time recalling specifics of your situation,

Bible verses that made a difference,

God’s answer to prayers,

and people who loved you and stuck by your side.

 

And then, ask God to help you write your stories.

Ask Him to use them to give others

courage and hope and faith,

stories that will help them persevere

beneath life’s crushing load.

 

Of Sears Christmas catalogs and Bing Crosby and aluminum Christmas trees

 

Your childhood Christmases were significantly different from those of your kids and grandkids.

 

So, make time to search your memory for specifics so your words and scenes invite readers into your story with you.

 

Did you spend hours looking through the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog?

 

Did you ask Santa for a cap gun? Or a transistor radio? Or a poodle skirt?

 

I remember asking Santa for a walking doll. (Do you remember walking dolls?) And my little brother asked for, and received, a Howdy Doody puppet-doll. He treasured it for years.

 

If someone in your family got sick on Christmas, did the doctor make a house call?

 

Did you have a real Christmas tree or one of those new-fangled aluminum ones?

 

What unique Christmas traditions did your family carry out?

 

What were your favorite Christmas movies?

 

If you had a TV, did you watch Christmas specials? Andy Williams, Perry Como, and Pat Boone come to mind. To change TV channels, did you have to get out of your chair and walk over and turn a dial? Did you have a rabbit-ear antenna on top of your TV?

 

And don’t miss this blast from the past: Click on Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby’s 1957 TV Christmas special.

 

What were your favorite Christmas songs? Did you play 45s on an old record player? (Just curious: Do you remember Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer?) Because I grew up surrounded by large numbers of Scandinavians, I have fond memories of one of them, TV personality Stan Boreson, and his classic performance of Vinter Undervare. Don’t miss this video clip! 

 

Did you and your family dress up in fancy clothes and go to church on Christmas Eve? Did your mother sew you a new Christmas dress each year?

 

Or, if you’re a man, did your parents make you wear a tie to the Christmas Eve church service? And did you use Butch Wax to keep your flat-top hair in place?

 

Did Santa leave a pack of Black Jack chewing gum in your stocking? Or candy cigarettes?

 

Did you usually stay home for Christmas, or did you join someone else—grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, or . . . ?

 

What was likely on your Christmas Day dinner menu? What did your mother or grandmother do with leftovers? If plastic wrap had not yet been invented, what did you use instead? And before plastic garbage bags were invented, what did you use?

 

When I was a kid, no one had a dishwasher. Do you remember helping mom, grandma, aunts, and cousins wash and dry dishes for hours after Christmas dinner?

 

Did your family take photos with a camera that used flashbulbs—or maybe flashcubes—the kind that left you with a glaring blind spot for half a minute or so? Were the photos black and white?

 

Because your childhood was so different from that of your kids and grandkids, such details will invite readers to join you in a rich experience of your Christmases past.

 

Have fun! And be sure to include old photos!