Writing for Christ’s Glory

Writing for Christ's glory.

Image via Deeply Rooted Magazine

This is the start of my newest article for Deeply Rooted Magazine.
Read the full article here!

For those of us who are word lovers, who enjoy the feeling of pens in our hands and keys clacking under our fingertips, writing often feels like second nature, like coming home. We love the ways that words help us make sense of our lives and help us encounter God.

This, I believe, is a good and holy thing.

After all, God spoke the universe into existence with a word. The first five verses of the book of John remind us of the beautiful and timeless declaration that Jesus is, himself, the Word—and so we see that who God is and how he is are bound up in the power of words.

To be those who love and use words is a high and sacred calling—and not one that we can take lightly. This is because words hold great power; they name us, shape us, and ultimately point us (and our readers) to the Truth of Christ or to lies and death.

Words hold great power; they name us, shape us, and point us to truth--or lies. Share on X

But how do we seek to be women who are writing for Christ’s glory? While there’s no one definitive answer, my own journey as a writer has shown me several ways that we can focus our hearts and our words on Jesus in this work of writing.

First, I believe that writing for Christ’s glory means that we lay down our right to renown. In the world’s eyes, a writer garners praise for her byline, for her status, for her fame. But to write in the Kingdom may mean something else entirely. It means that our heart’s aim is not to secure our own fame, but the fame of our King. If we have opportunities to write that further his Kingdom and his work in the world, then we can pursue those without concern for our own name.

Read the rest of the article here, at Deeply Rooted!

And if you’re a writer, head over to Writing with Grace to learn about the six week writing course that I teach. Registration is open now, but only for a little while longer!

Writing with Grace: Registration is Open!

Writing course for writers: www.writingwithgrace.com

After having the great joy of teaching Writing with Grace this winter, I’m thrilled to let you know that I’m going to be teaching the course again this Spring!

Writing with Grace, a six week course for writers. www.writingwithgrace.com

If you haven’t heard of Writing with Grace, it’s the live, online, six-week course that I teach for writers who want to grow in their ability, craft, and voice. The course includes interviews with industry professionals, optional reading assignments and writing prompts, and recorded sessions of every class for you to watch again and on your own schedule for a month after the course ends.

I taught college writing courses for five years, and wanted to offer the same, power-packed material to writers who don’t have the time to go back to school in their season of life. I teach with Jesus at the center of the writing process, and love helping others own their call as writers and pen their stories beautifully.

Love to #write? Check out @annswindell's course: writingwithgrace.com! #amwriting #writer Share on X

You can hop over to www.writingwithgrace.com to see the course schedule, editor interviews, and complete details. Registration is only open until March 15th, and class starts in April.

I would love to see you there!

[Photo by Ann White Photography]

4 Ways to Grow as a Writer

 

4 Ways to Grow as a Writer at www.annswindell.comThis is the start of my newest piece for Darling Magazine. Read the article here!
Image via Madison Holmlund

For those of us who feel the tug toward words and books, toward verse and ink on the page, writing may feel like second nature, like a gift. For many of us, it even feels like a lifeline—a way to uncoil our thoughts, understand our existence and connect to our truest selves.

But after our years of school end, how do we continue to grow as writers? How do we invest in this passion? Is it even worth it? If we aren’t going to write a best-seller or even make money writing, can we justify giving the craft more time and expense?

Yes. In fact, I believe that we must invest in what brings us fully alive, even—and especially—if it isn’t “profitable” from the world’s perspective. Instead, we must ask ourselves if our souls will prosper from time spent clacking at the keyboard and penning words into journals. If so? Then we have our answer.

We must invest in what brings us fully alive. Share on X

Here are four ways to invest in our desire to grow as writers—as women who live fully alive in our gifts and callings:

1. Take a writing class.

Most of us won’t have time to drive across town to take a traditional college or graduate writing class, but there are other choices are available. Online writing courses, communities and cohorts are wonderful options for writers who need to fit their love for words in the margin of their lives. For example, I teach a live, online writing course.

2. Respond to consistent writing prompts.

The best way to become a better writer? Write! It seems simple, but it can be difficult to actually sit down on a regular basis and write for ten or twenty minutes, especially if you don’t know what to focus on. In order to stretch your writing muscles, aim to respond to three or four prompts a week. You can time yourself—say, five or ten minutes per response—and write in whatever direction the prompt takes you. My guess? You’ll probably be surprised where your words lead! Pick up a book likethis or head to this website for a dose of regular writing prompts.

Read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine!

The Gift of Celebration, The Gift of Friendship

Celebrate well

I’m a celebrator by nature. I love throwing parties, surprising people, and making up excuses to celebrate the people I love. I love being the one to gather friends together to show them why they are worthy of encouragement, attention, and time. Celebrating is a love language for me.

But my birthday falls in January, which, I’ve found, is not a great time to have a birthday if you like celebrating. For most of us, January is recovery month. We’re tired, we’ve used all our vacation time, we’ve made New Year’s resolutions that forbid us from eating sugar or carbs, we’re sick of seeing people, and we just spent a lot of money at Christmas. We’re tired of celebrating once January rolls around. We want to hibernate. We want to hole away.

Therein lies my problem; birthdays are special to me.

But then, last year, a friend asked me how I would feel most loved for my birthday. She wanted to celebrate me, she said. Even in her asking, I felt loved. And I told her the truth: I wanted to be with my closest friends, and I wanted to share a meal together. No gifts, no songs—just time gathered around the table.

And that is what happened, in the cold and dreary month of January. Ten of us shared a meal. We paid for babysitters so that our conversation could go deep; that in and of itself was a precious gift of time and money. Each friend surprised me by sharing an encouragement for my coming year of life. They told me how they saw Jesus at work in me, and they prayed for me. I sat there and felt deeply celebrated, and deeply welcomed into the new year of my life by the friends I loved the most. In my memory, it remains a holy and beautiful night.

To me, I have come to realize how that night encapsulates what is meant to be at the center of every gathering; in fact, what is meant to be at the heart of friendship. For true friendship is a kind of gathering. It is pulling people together around a shared table or on a soft couch, and it will cost us in time and even in money. True friendship means giving those things that my friends offered to me on my birthday night—time, encouragement, intentionality, welcome, love. And true friendship is celebration; it is seeing what is worthy of encouragement in those we love and declaring those things over them. It is seeing the presence of Jesus in the other and acknowledging his beauty through them.

Birthdays only happen once every twelve months, but gathering to celebrate those we love—to speak truth and hope and encouragement to them and over them—that can happen any time of the year. We can gather in coffee shops and pray for one another. We can gather on playgrounds and encourage one another. We can gather around kitchen tables and welcome one another. We can gather in restaurants and celebrate one another. And we can gather, always, and love one another—no matter where, no matter when. 

If this blog post was encouraging to you, I would be honored if you would consider partnering with me as a writerClick here to read more!

 

God-Help Instead of Self-Help

My newest article is up at Today’s Christian Woman, where I have the privilege of being a regular contributor.

GETTING

Here’s the start of the article:

There’s no denying we are a nation of people looking for help. Although we may try to seem put together on the outside, our book purchases alone point to a different reality: we are struggling, and we’re looking for help anywhere we can find it. “Self-help” is an entire industry in this nation that generates roughly $10 billion per year—and the industry shows no signs of slowing down. Whether you want to read about fixing broken relationships, living more healthily, making more money, or finding contentment, there’s a self-help book—or 50—out there for you. And if you are willing to spend the time and the money, there are myriad options for self-help conferences, webcasts, and personal coaching, along with the thousands of books you can read.

It’s common for self-help books to tout that they offer the key to “win in life and business” and “unlock the way to life’s riches.” And why not? Who doesn’t want to have a better life, make more money, and experience more happiness? Who doesn’t want life to be easier, simpler, faster?

Chasing an Illusion
But perhaps what we want is something we were never promised—and so we’re chasing an illusion.

We live complex, challenging lives, and many of the promises offered by self-help gurus seem wonderful and easy. Too easy. We want a quick way out of our difficult marriage without having to work through the pain. We want to make money easily and without having to work diligently. We want to feel happy without having to face our own brokenness.

Jesus is clear—unapologetically so—in telling his followers that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33, NIV). This life is not meant to be perfect. In fact, Scripture tells us this earth isn’t our real home—we are “foreigners” on this earth (Hebrews 11:13) and our real home is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). If we’re longing for perfection and pure happiness on this earth, we will always be disappointed.

The “Self Problem” with Self-Help

There’s a second problem with the self-help industry: the self-help industry depends—unsurprisingly—on self. In the solar system of self-help, the sun in the center of it all is you—and, apparently, you can make everything better on your own if you can just read the right books and access the right resources. Ultimately, the focus of self-help books comes down to a reliance on self as the one who can make things right.

This reliance on self, though, is in directly opposition to Christianity. As believers in Christ, we have already declared—through our very faith in Jesus as our Savior—that we are not reliant upon ourselves. We are reliant upon Jesus. In fact, when we believed in Christ as our Lord and Savior, we acknowledged that we cannot save ourselves at all. We cannot get “better,” in any way, on our own. We need a Savior to rescue us from our sin and from ourselves, and the danger of the self-help industry is that it lures us to look for help outside of Jesus.

This doesn’t mean self-help books and media are all bad. Some offer helpful insights on how to relate to others and set healthy boundaries on our time and with our money. But if we find ourselves looking to self-help materials rather than turning to Jesus, we are looking for ultimate help where it can’t be found.

Continue to read the rest of article here!

3 Ways to Start the Year off Right

3 Ways to Start the year off right (1)

I tend to love the beginnings of things. This year ahead is fresh and new, and I have learned that if I don’t intentionally pursue the things that refresh my soul, those things won’t happen. We have to take meaningful steps toward renewing our hearts and minds in Christ, and there may not be a better time to do that than right now, when our calendars are full of more white space than they will be for awhile.

Here are some ways that we can look at how we are living at the start of this new year and invite God to lead us into better ways of living.

Make Time for Solitude and Silence

When I was in college, I had a professor that took a day off every month to retreat from the world and re-center his life by spending a day with God. He would spend the entire day at a retreat center, speaking with no one and spending long stretches of time in solitude and silence. The silence, he said, gave him time to reflect on the deep places in his life that constant noise and stimuli kept him from ever reaching internally.

In our media-drenched culture, colors, lights, advertisements, and technology surround us. There is always another thing to buy that promises happiness, or something to look at to amuse or entertain us. What happens when we get away from all of these things? What happens when we are alone, without anything to distract us? Often, the deep longings of our heart begin to surface when they have the time and space to bubble up in our minds. The things we really hope for and care about become prominent in our thoughts. Our true heart has the space to come out.

It is hard to get to this place. When I spend time alone, in silence, I am often bombarded by thoughts of things that need to get done, of projects that are unfinished. If I followed every rabbit-trail that came into my head, I would never reach actual silence, because the noise inside of me can become so loud. I have found that tangibly writing down the “to do” list that pops up in my mind helps release me from having to listen to those thoughts anymore. With the ideas written down, I can set them aside and focus on reflecting on life.

Pray

Prayer is the best way to truly refresh, because it connects us with the One who knows us best—God. By spending time to ask God about our thoughts and our lives, we can connect with our Creator in meaningful ways that will truly give our spirit life. I have found that taking chunks of time to read the Bible and pray has significantly changed my life. If you find that it’s hard to concentrate for extended periods of time, try taking a walk while you talk with God, or journal your thoughts by writing them down. Sometimes I even enjoy singing my prayers, making up the tune as I go along. There are many ways to pray, and as long as our hearts are in the right place—seeking to connect with the One who made us—it will be time well-spent. Time spent with God is never wasted.

Take Time Away

Getting away from the schedules that we have carved out for ourselves is sometimes the most challenging thing to do. It doesn’t seem possible that the world we’re in will run smoothly if we step out of it for a few days, or even a day, or even for a few hours. Will our households, businesses, and families survive if we leave?

The answer is yes. And the reality is that if you make the time to step out of the regular schedule of life to reevaluate and refresh, you will come back to “regular” life with better and more insightful thoughts, as well as with more energy to offer to your family, your friends, and your co-workers.

Taking time away will look different for everyone. You may only feel that you can responsibly take a couple of hours away from your duties at home or at work, or you may figure out a way to step away from your responsibilities for a full day or two. Whatever the amount of time that you can set aside to get away, it can be meaningful.

And that is the key focus for getting away. While it might sound nice to go on a mini-vacation and unwind by watching a movie or sleeping the day away, the focus for this time should be centered on purposefully looking at your current life—what you love about your life, what you long for, what you want to grow in, and what you need to cut out. While a nap is not a bad idea, consider removing any and all kinds of media for your time away. A ringing cell phone is almost certain to keep you focused on the minutiae of life, rather than help you think about the life you are seeking to live.

Blessings on you, friends, as you start this new year. What do you want this year to be?