Looking Good and Writing Well

Our church published a lenten devotional with 40 daily devotions written by members -- all the way from children to teens to pastors to middle-aged laypeople like me. I wrote one of the pieces.

The booklet was distributed today, and I flipped through it. It was great. I liked the assortment of pieces. I came to mine. I read it, and found that I had messed up my grammar and punctuation. How could I have done that? I took care to edit what I wrote and submitted. How embarrassing!

So I went to find what I submitted, and found that what was published had been altered from what I submitted. I actually can write with full sentences, and had written it as was grammatically correct for what I was saying. Oh, well! Sigh . . .

I guess the first lesson to me is that -- since I am so deliberate about wording and grammar and style -- I need to not agree to write when I'll be out of the loop in editing and publishing what I wrote. I find it horrifying to be identified with something that just isn't the way I think it should be written!

The second lesson to me is the theme of my life these days: daily obedience, with my focus on the One I'm obeying. All the rest is just "stuff" He has to manage all that I cannnot see or anticipate or understand.

I can try to dress nicely and groom myself well . . . and later discover that I had black mascara smeared down my cheek or some other embarrassing detail that mars the picture I intended to create . . . and know that God was in both the effort to appear my best and in the accident that ruined it. I can trust Him. And most of us born as long ago as 1964 are pretty okay with that by now!

And I need to apply the same thing to my writing and all the other details of life . . . I will obey God in the effort to produce my best work, and then leave the results to Him.

God is God, and can even use bad grammar to communicate His truth. May it be so!