Meet the Author(s)

It’s Monday and time for another full week of writings from your faithful Kingdom Bloggers.  Tony is taking a sabbatical, and Joyce (that’s me) has rejoined us.  Joyce is taking the lead each week with the Monday postings.  

This week, we return to a topic we’ve done before: if you were to write a book (or are writing a book) what would you write, what would the title be, would it be adult or children’s, etc?  We might surprise you, there might be some changes AND we have some new voices on Kingdom Bloggers, so you are sure to enjoy this week’s writings.  

We write for the glory of God and hope you’ll add us to your regular reading and tell your friends about Kingdom Bloggers.

I’ve been talking about writing a book for FOREVER.  When I was in High School, I read an essay in our textbook.  I have no idea what the essay was, or who wrote it.  What I do remember was writing a reflection on it.  In that reflection, I said that I liked the essay because it was about a writer and that was what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Well, I guess I haven’t grown up yet.  That’s good because I hate the thought of being old.  Recently, I had to write something for graduation about what I learned in the doctoral program.  I said that I learned that age was a number, it didn’t define me, or limit me.  That means there is still time to write and be an author.

Once upon a long time ago, I was very much involved in children’s ministry.  One summer, our theme was Psalm 150.  It’s a great Psalm that serves as the finale crescendo to the book of Psalms.  It sums up all the praises and laments of Psalms with three words:

PRAISE THE LORD!

To help with teaching the children about praising God and the book of Psalms I had a little finger puppet – he was a field mouse named Selah.  I told the children that there was a funny word in the book of Psalms.   No one knew for sure what it meant – I told them it was a secret.  The word really was the name of a field mouse that King David found when he was a shepherd boy.  When David was praising God, he’d call Selah.  David carried Selah with him everywhere.

What a great children’s storybook series I thought.  Selah, the mouse in King David’s pocket would tell the story of the life of David from the eyes of a field mouse.  That was my book.  A children’s book!  Somewhere, I might still have the beginning manuscript for that book.  Someday, maybe I’ll still try to write it.

Since then, I’ve developed several deeper theological type books in my mind.  One was on a fresh look at those verses most women love to hate – or at least wonder about – The Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31.  I did a paper on this and developed the idea that this could also be interpreted as a look at the mature “wife” or church.  That was my next idea for a ground breaking book.  A book quickly followed this on the difficult passages in Genesis surrounding Hagar and Ishmael.  I preached a sermon series shortly after 911 on the Intercession of Hagar.  I thought it would make a great book and later did a lot of theological work and even translations of Genesis 16 from Hebrew to English.

There have been lots of books; all in my head.  I recently finished my dissertation, soon I’ll get a bound copy of that and I guess then I can say I really wrote a book.  But the book that is yet to be written is a book about my life. 

I have had several working titles and none I really like – but my story is one of being a high school dropout who every one saw as a loser – of being a welfare mom living in a trailer – of being a single mother after being beaten and abandoned by her husband – of being a child bride and so much more who through the grace of God has had a marriage of 35 years to a wonderful husband, bore and raised 8 beautiful children, had several successful careers and now is getting her doctoral degree. 

That’s the story I am compelled to tell and will.  The day will come when I will be an author.