Writer, Who Told You That?

by Henry McLaughlin @RiverBendSagas

Remember the old cliché́ from childhood: sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me?

Not true. Words and names can actually do much more lasting damage. Cuts and bruises heal. Words and names create self-images that linger and poison for years. They can become prophecies we fulfill whether we want to or not.

Find Freedom from Shame’s Shackles

by Sarah Van Diest @SarahVanDiest

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” Psalm 139:14

Shame: “a painful feeling that's a mix of regret, self-hate, and dishonor.”* We all know how it feels. 

Simply put, it’s a negative feeling we work diligently to avoid, and yet so many of us live with shame as our constant companion. (https://www.vocabulary.com/

dictionary/shame)

Weekend Worship—Red Lines

by Sarah Van Diest

Sometimes I feel like I’m being saved from myself.

My computer runs too slowly for me to capture all my thoughts, as though somehow that’s best for me.

I sit waiting for the screen to appear that allows my thoughts to find their mark and be written down, but the page hides from me. It makes me wait and my thoughts don’t want to wait. They fly. They race through my mind and have no outlet.

Then when I do start writing, that wicked red line appears under misspelled words calling me to fix them. To break my thoughts and make sure that they are perfect. I hate that. I don’t want to fix them. I hate fixing them. But I hate the red line even more.

The red line tells me that I’ve messed up. It says that something about what I have written isn’t good enough. It’s not going to be publishable. It isn’t acceptable. It’s not worthy.