Time. Trust. Truth. Teamwork.
Communicating through writing is what I do day in and day out, so I thought I’d share a fresh way to remember a few elements of communication whether you use them verbally or in writing. I hope they will remind us how to successfully communicate well with others.
Time matters. When you have no margin in your life to write or to talk with your loved ones (especially your spouse), then communication becomes stilted, scattered, and stifled, whether written or oral. In this crazy world of busyness, you simply have to schedule time to write or communicate with those you love. Be intentional about it, and revisit your schedule when it slides, because it will. Even if you only make 10-15 minutes a day a scheduled, intentional time to write or to talk with your mate, it’ll strengthen your communication journey. It may take turning off the TV, phone, computer, etc., for a certain amount of time, but it’s well worth it. And then, annually or semi-annually, get away and intentionally write or talk about your hopes, dreams, and desires spiritually and relationally.
Trust matters. You’ve got to build trust into your communication, whether written or verbal, and you have to keep it strong. Stay faithful, servant-hearted, humble, and empathetic in your communication. Be caring, affirming, and attentive to your audience, whether that audience is your spouse or a million readers. Be approachable, responsible, gracious, and forgiving with your writing critiques or with your spouse. Sounds hard? Not really. All this looks a lot like l-o-v-e.
Truth matters. Of course we don’t want to be untruthful, dishonest, or liars. But many times, our “truth” is only our opinion, our perspective, our bias instead of biblical truth. We need to build biblical truth into our communication and add big doses of grace, love, and humility. And we must speak and write the truth—in love—as Ephesian 4 commands us.
Teamwork matters. Build a team spirit with your spouse or with your critique group, editor, agent, and others who are with you on the journey. My husband is my greatest fan, my trusted first editor, and my gentle critic. As you work with your team—in whatever you do—your communication will blossom and you’ll be more successful in your endeavors. Accept the different opinions that each of you may have, even celebrate them, for they are what creates great communication, written or verbal.
How do you make time to write and/or communicate with your loved ones? I’d love to know!
Hungry for Attention
People today are starved for attention—successful people, homeless people, big people—and little people. We all want relationships with those who have a caring ear, eyes that communicate compassion and understanding, hands that touch with meaning and gentleness, and a heart that lets us feel God’s love. But how often do we meet those kinds of people, whether in person or through books?
One of my characters met a woman who changed her life by the simple act of listening. This dear woman saw a hurting single mom and showed her God’s love.
In this world of distractions, do we give our full attention to others like Jesus did? Do we really pay attention, especially to our spouse and children, our family, and friends?
Giving others our attention is an active, intentional choice to care enough to push away all the other distractions—our agenda, the noise that fills the room, the obligations of the day, and the distractions that constantly compete for our attention.
To truly give our full attention to another, we have to focus, concentrate, and block out everything else. And in this world, that sure isn’t easy.
I doubt it was easy in Jesus day either. Jesus was a busy man. He was completing the greatest ministry of all time—in just three short years.
There were the constant crowds. The Romans. The Pharisees. The disciples. All potential distractions. But He chose to give His complete attention to those who really needed it. Jesus chose to give His full attention to each and every individual He was ministering to at the moment. Jesus gave His heart with abandon. Jesus cared.
There was Zaccheus, blind Bartimaeus, the woman at the well. There were the lepers, the lame, the crippled. And how about the woman who touched the hem of His garment? He could easily have passed by each one of these individuals, not even noticed them, not even cared. He could have chosen to not give them His attention. But He didn’t.
Attention-giving touches the deep need for intimacy, for the need to feel valued, for the need to be understood. We all have these needs—from the newborn baby to the elderly person in the nursing home, and we instinctively know if that attention is genuine or if it is fake—like the attention a car salesman gives us, the kind we all despise.
I must admit that I am too often like that salesman, not out of manipulation but simply out of exhaustion or distraction. It’s all too easy to hear but not listen, to see but not perceive, to touch but not heal, to respond but without true heartfelt love.
As the saying goes, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” Whether it’s your spouse who is sharing his or her heart with you, a toddler needing a hug, a preschooler frustrated with putting on his shoes, or a friend who’s had a tough day, giving each of these our full attention shows him or her that we really care.
How do you give your attention to others? I’d love to know.
Creating with the Creator
When I coach aspiring Christian writers, one of the first things I encourage them to do is to form a writing life that’s based on biblical values. In the secular culture we live in, that is often not on the top of the list, yet it is a critical part of making your writing life strong and healthy. But how do we do that?
First, put God first in your writing life. Talk about Him as if He’s right there with you, because He is. Make Him an active member of your writing journey. He’s there with you at the dinner table, when you watch TV, when you play, work, talk, or write. He’s there when you go to bed, when you dream, when you create.
Be sure the Bible is your primary source of information about doing life and communicating through your writing. Keep it on your coffee table or on your kitchen counter, and use it often. Grab it and read a Proverb or Psalm at breakfast. Memorize a verse. Talk about it.
Make church one of your primary social activities. If you have children, find a child-friendly church, and let it be an important part of your community. Make friends with other families in the church, and participate in the life of the church. And if there are other writers in your faith community, fellowship together often.
Worship at home, because worship just isn’t for Sunday. Prayer and worship should be a part of each and every day. Pray at meals and bedtime, but also pray in the car and other times. Play worship music and enjoy a time of praise and worship as a normal part of your writing life.
Enjoy creation. Creation and the Creator’s beauty are all around you. And because you are a writer, learn from the Creator how to create! Talk about God’s creation regularly. Acknowledge who made your fingernails or your eyelashes or the bird that flies outside your window. Touch, feel, smell, see—experience creation and worship the Creator. And make it all a part of your writing.
Appreciate life. Instill a deep sanctity of life in your relationships and in your children. Talk about how God made each of us unique and special. Intentionally counter the lies of our culture that says preborn babies and old people are expendable and that life is cheap. Talk about how precious life is; don’t just think it, say it! And write it! When a baby is born or a person dies, talk about what God thinks about these events and what it means to our world.
There is a multitude of ways that you can create a Christian culture in your writing life. What are some ways you do this? I’d love to know!
Teamwork
The characters in my novel faced lots of changes in their marriage, and I’m guessing you face lots of changes in your marriage as well. But as we embrace those changes together, seek to understand ourselves and our mate, and work with God and each other to walk through our adventures of change, we can be a blessing to each other and to those who are watching our lives.
But beware! When you’re in the midst of adjusting to all the changes that come in married life, it’s easy to hurt one another—to over react, accuse, get angry, deny, and more. You’ll read about how my characters experienced these things—once the book comes out.
But as we learn how our personalities work—our strengths and the weaknesses we have—we can learn to rely on the strengths, work on our weaknesses, and work together to walk through life as a team. And it’s so important to not let the hurts linger, fester, and infect your relationship. It’s a skill to be learned, but having those skills will help you care for each other better.
From being first-time parents to the preschool years and beyond, when children are involved, change is a given. As you discover how each of you are wired, including the personalities your children have, you’ll find yourself more equipped to make good transitions on a regular basis. My character had six kids. Yikes!
In the midst of change, a couple also has to make lots of decisions. To do that, they must communicate and resolve conflict well, but that’s not always easy in the heat of the moment. People have very different ways of coming to a decision, disciplining the children, or resolving conflict. So it’s helpful to understand how you’re wired before you’re in the mist of an unexpected situation.
All the little changes that come with daily life in a family can simply exacerbate the weaknesses we have in dealing with change. Not only do we need to understand how each of us is wired and work to overcome our own weaknesses, but we also need to learn how to compensate for each other’s weaknesses. When we do this, we’ll have an easier pathway to family peace and compatibility.
What have been the greatest changes in your marriage and how have you worked as a team? I’d love to know.
Writing His Story
I’ve been developing a few writers workshops, and I hope they will inspire many writers to see their lives as a part of a much bigger story that God has for them by sharing Him with others. Yet it seems that these thoughts transcend writers—they are for anyone who wants to touch the lives of others with God’s truth and love.
Why is our desire to connect with others so important to our human experience, whether in person or through story? While there may be a few hermits and others who are anti-social, most of us long for human interaction. We were, indeed, made for relationship.
We are created in His image, the God who longs to be in relationship—with us! Moreover, God wants us to speak into His creation, so He allows us to be a part of His work on this earth.
How cool is that?
We don’t have to have a degree or a license or anything the world sees important. We don’t have to be articulate or even a great writer or some spiritual giant. He freely beacons us to be His partner in speaking His truth to whomever we meet!
He’s also planted a desire in us to share His truth, whether that’s as a writer, a friend, a parent—whatever! And even more than that, He wants to fulfill a very special purpose in our lives and in the lives of others.
When my children were small, it was such a joy to share the love of Jesus with them. Now as a writer, I get to share that same truth through my writing. In my novel, I have included several of God’s truths in the story, and my prayer is that it will touch people’s hearts just as if I were there, sharing those truths face-to-face.
He gave you gifts and talents to use, and He wants you to express them. And He has a unique ministry, audience, or group that only you can reach. He also wants you to deliver a specific message, and feel the joy of sharing life with others.
How can you connect with someone this week and share God’s love with him or her? I’d love to hear what happens. Go for it!
Big Changes
In my novel, my main character is struggling to accept some really big changes in her life. She hates change. So do I.
A single mom is afraid to trust again. A businessman can’t risk applying for that new job for fear of rejection. A spouse can’t forgive and get past an offense. In each situation, the work of change becomes incomplete, the lessons are not learned, and the person is more than likely going to repeat history in some form or fashion.
That’s tragic, and although many of us know how sad this is (me included), we just don’t have to abort the process. We can—and should—find a way to move forward. Sometimes that takes the help of your spouse, a good friend, a professional counselor, or a pastor.
For my character, she and her husband had to struggle through taking their six small children and leaving their homeland to go and live in a foreign country for the rest of their lives. Big changes. Much bigger than most of us have ever faced.
One of the best things we can do is analyze how we naturally tend to deal with change. When we recognize this and then adjust our not-so-healthy patterns of thinking and behavior, we can learn how to deal with change more productively.
Take some time to discover your natural tendencies, and learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. If you do, you’ll be surprised how differently you will react and how much easier you will be able to accept and adjust to the change. I had to figure out that I hid my fear of change in busyness.
Sometimes a change seems accidental or random, and it’s frightening. Often, we simply have expectations that are unrealistic, and we think that everything should work out well, like a Hallmark movie. When it doesn’t, we are surprised or disappointed, angry, or hurt.
If we take some time to assess the unrealistic expectations we’ve learned from Hollywood, the media, or other people, we’ll be able to adjust our thinking accordingly. And when we bring them into a biblically accurate perspective, we’ll realize that they weren’t so random after all.
Other times we just can’t face the loss associated with the change. So we become trapped by fear, sadness, or loss, and we feel embarrassed, ashamed, or confused that we have these negative feelings.
But sooner or later we find ourselves at a point of decision—either we acknowledge it and move through the transition, or we abort it and return to the old thing. It may be as simple as stepping away from a toxic friend or as big as making an transcontinental move like my novel character, but without completing the transition, we’ll likely repeat the lesson we need to learn.
Have you had to repeat something? I sure have! I’d love to hear your story.