The decisions we make…

When an obstacle comes, there can be a couple different reasons (please feel free to offer others…)

Sometimes God allows obstacles because you’re drifting off the path and he wanted to wake you up and urge you back into his will.

But sometimes, it’s the opposite, a faith builder. We are refined during adversity, and God allows obstacles because he knows we’ll be stronger when we have to work to overcome time.

The trick is this: Being close enough to God that you know the difference. Because, I have to be honest, sometimes it’s not easy to tell. Is this God making me stronger? Should I be “shee-woman”, pray through it, ask God for strength to overcome, strap on my climbing boots and concure that obstacle? Or should I keep on my walking shoes and look for a different path?

I promised my writing story, so I’m going to be mean and start at the beginning….

It was on a crisp April day when my mother’s pains began…. Just kidding. Actually, if I remember the story, it was a rainy, stormy day, and I was ridiculously stubborn because she was quite overdue, but that’s my mother’s story to tell.

(BTW, I LOVE you Mom!)

My love for writing began as a love for reading. I’d devour books almost as fast as I devoured brownies (and believe me, that’s a pretty close call.)

The first time I wrote a fiction story, and really felt that desire stir in me was in high school. We had to write a paper that described ourselves in a unique way.

Being the future fiction writer I was, I decided to write a short story featuring my family a few years after my death.

In it, my eight-year-old daughter was asking her daddy to tell her again all about her mommy who’d died of a brain anurism (my mom said it was a painless way to die, so I was all about that. Thing is, I know have this horrible fear of dying everytime I have a headache!) Anyway, my widowed-husband told my daughter all about me, what I was like when I was young, and at the end my twin little boys came into the room, and it was a great family moment.

My teacher loved it, I got like an A+, and she wanted me to read it in front of the class. The shy girl I was, I declined.

But, it started me on a love for fiction. In my later teens, I was introduced to Christian Fiction and loved it.

My senior year of high school, I really struggled about “what to be” when I grew up. I was good at Math and English, and liked them both. Which should I focus on?

I chose neither.

I got married at the age of 18 instead

TBC…