It definitely wouldn’t be the first time and most likely won’t be the last.   A little over a year ago I began to feel nudges.  Not physical nudges like somebody was poking my arm, but those pesky little spiritual nudges that say our Daddy in Heaven has a new assignment for me.  Just like human fathers, it has become my belief that our heavenly Father likes to tease his children for a while before letting them in on his plans for each of them.   We are created in his image so it makes perfect sense that he has a sense of humor, mischief, and merriment.  He whispers to us, “I have a new, fun, awesome plan for your life!  Can you guess what it is?”  So I started to look for the little clues he was leaving me that would tell me what he had in store for me next.  Eventually, with the help of two wonderful people (one a pastor who is also a good friend that has moved on to follow a new calling of his own in distant lands and the other a patient lady with a great big heart who has sentenced herself to being my spiritual mentor), the conclusion was made that my next assignment was to write.

Pure excitement gripped my soul.  God wants ME to be a writer!  Memories of pretending to be Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls Wilder for hours on end all through out my childhood flooded my mind.  It made absolutely perfect sense to me that I should join the ranks of these fictional kindred spirits of my youth and become an author.  So I did the only thing a dutiful, loving child of God can do when given a new task by the Father.  I questioned him on his choice of assignment for me and tried to stall as I wrestled with self-doubt.

What was I supposed to write about?  Will the writing take the form of a book or an article or something else completely?  Where do I even begin?  I haven’t had any education in the writing arts what if i can’t do it?  Am I capable of writing anything another human being would find engaging?  How do I get started?  For months these questions rolled around while I delayed getting on with the task at hand.  Until I decided that the spec sheet of my assignment specified that I should pay tribute to a dear man by incorporating his legacy of poetry into a daily devotional format.  Armed with this new information I plowed ahead with more procrastination.  So maybe that wasn’t the plan after all.  Perhaps I had misread the memo and wasn’t really supposed to write after all.

Never fear!  He didn’t leave me to flounder around in the shadows of self-doubt.  Instead he brought new people into my life to advise and encourage me to pursue the writing road.  Renewed energy surged through me for my devotional project.  I even came up with a name for the project, then stalled again.  On the advice of a new friend who is a gifted story-teller and writer I compiled a sample of the dear man’s work and eagerly sent it off to three folks that had never met him to see if his poems had any appeal outside of the family circle with sentimental attachments to the words.  Oddly enough the reviews came back with positive feedback for the poetry, but two of the three reviewers said they wanted to hear my voice, and asked what is God putting into my heart to share with his children on planet Earth?  One of them suggested I start small, with a blog.   As a result Wisdom Wanderings was born.

Awesome! Mission complete!  Task finished!  I have become a writer!  Now I can be done, right? Not exactly.  Plans for further writing abound and continue to be at the front of my mind.  There are a couple of drafts started for new blog posts, and ideas for books to review in future posts are running around in my head.  The classic movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner brought us the epic line “If you build it, they will come.”  So I am going to choose to trust in God and that he didn’t assign me a pointless calling and continue to publish new posts on a regular basis hoping that if I write it, followers will come.  If you are a fellow human being and you have found your way to my blog in its infancy stage, thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings!

But wait there’s more!  The time has come to take the next steps in this call to write and branch out to magazine articles.  I have chosen the magazine and gotten the requirements for submitting items for publication to the editors.  While I haven’t begun the actual writing of said article there are a couple of topic ideas running through my head that I have plans to begin researching.  One is on two important female characters that had very important roles in the Old Testament, despite the fact that they weren’t Israelites.  Another idea involves taking a look at when and why the angels were created, and comparing the fallen angels to the fallen humans in the Garden, if that is possible.

It has been said that I don’t dabble at anything, so in true Pixie fashion I am also planning to try my hand at writing curriculum for the new Mennonite Sunday School curriculum, Shine as well.  Providence seems to be in agreement with me as it led me to an issue of the Mennonite World Review where I ran across an article (want advertisement) that was looking for people to write curriculum for year three of this new program.   Of course I clicked on it and now have all the information needed to submit a sample to be considered as one of the said writers.  Unlike the blog posts or plans for magazine article submissions, this idea includes a built-in time frame.  All samples must be submitted for consideration by the middle of December.   So I guess I better get busy!

So have I bitten off more than I can chew?  Possibly, but I serve a  God who is greater than me, and through him all things are possible.  If this writing thing is indeed a gift he has graced me with, then he will also give me the wisdom, words and abilities needed to be successful at it.  The exact audience he is intending me to reach will be reached, as he will see to it that the needed opportunities arise to make it happen.  After all, He is a gentleman,  and he will open the doors needed for me if I just have faith.   So buckle up!  I am embracing this new calling and looking forward to seeing where this journey will lead me.