just a bit of writing!

“1852 was the year when it happened, a mountain top experience that would give a dull life a purpose and a delight.

They had slowly made their way to the top, wanting to see the view in winter that they had so often seen in summer, a view covered now in a fine layer of snow.

With gloved hands pulling and helping each other, they had made it and were standing looking at the valleys and peaks as far as the eye could see.

It was then the perfect moment came. He lifted the small box from his pocket. She blushed as she realized what this moment would be. After a moment of perfect joy in each other, they shouted their joy. They shouted it from the mountain tops making it echo valley after valley after valley.”

The group of students erupted with mirth, the clichéd tale not lost on them. ‘A good attempt,’ they said!

It was lunchtime, we were at Writers’ Club. The deal had been to select random settings and weave a story around them. A few minutes of writing to come up with something. I didn’t usually get involved. I usually sat back and ate my lunch while the students wrote. But today I was in the mood to have a go.

There’s something extra special about writing with others. Sharing some fun, playing around, learning to enjoy the gift of writing from God. It’s in learning to let go that we gain so much.  My writing has been so blessed, so enriched, so pulled down to the level of reality by students who have listened and critiqued and encouraged me. Writers need friends who tell it like it is and I’ve had them – dozens of students who have humbled me by their writing, and oh so gently encouraged mine.

At home it has been my own children who have made me feel that I’m a writer, who have shared their writing with me and encouraged me to keep going.

Find people in your life who will encourage your gift, who will support your sometimes stumbling steps to ‘have a go’. When all is done, just ‘have a go’, have fun. Find more of God in the joy of being who He created you to be.