Weekend Worship - Welcome to the Family!

Today you're in for a treat! My good friend and fellow writer, Cathy Baker, is sharing a devotion. She has an amazing blog and I encourage you to visit her there.


Welcome to the Family
Although feeling more like the redheaded stepchild with all my questions and quandaries, Cindy from ChristianDevotions recently made this novice writer feel right at home with those words.

I’m quickly learning that the writing community is indeed much like a family. One visit to our Upstate Christian Writers Fellowship—co-led by Vonda Skelton and Edie—and one soon discovers it’s more than just a family…it’s a functional family.

• Cheerleaders with no need for pom-poms. No hype here—sincere, practical, and wise advice is more than sufficient to spur on even the most defeated lover-of-words.
• A wealth of knowledge shared, not hoarded. The skilled writer embraces the opportunity to share their expertise with all those desiring to learn.
• Creativity is encouraged, perfectionism doused. One frees—the other captures.
• All are welcome, family and friends alike. While writing can be lonely, a community that comes together to merge ideas, plots, schemes, and things, is anything but.

As with any family, true motivations eventually emerge—love, guilt, fear—and this family is no exception. Without a doubt, however, love is the undercurrent that runs swiftly throughout the writing community.

Forget the sweet and sappy type of love that avoids crunched toes at all costs. What family is functional under those terms?

Apparently, crunched toes serve as a badge of honor for this community, proving that vulnerability is both present and active. A true indication of love at its best.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” 1 Corinthians 8:1b

Don't forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,
Cathy

Cathy Baker delights in observing God at work in the nuances of life, and sharing those observations through writing, journaling, and blogging. She’s a woman who has been forgiven much and strives to live a life that shouts, “Thank You, Jesus!” An experienced Bible teacher, Cathy leads a Bible group in her church, as well as a community Bible study for women. She and her husband Brian live in South Carolina with their answer to the empty-nest syndrome—a pampered pooch named Rupert.