A Writer Glances Back and Looks To the New Year

My early morning devotions today had the theme “Facing the Future.” Ray’s devotional post last Monday was Facing the New Year and my thoughts and prayers this morning went back, way back over the many years of my writing, especially those first days of new years. And there have been many of those now! I dragged out my diaries to what I wrote at the beginning of new years, but don’t be afraid.,I won’t bore you with a personal history here! I think you can read enough on my website and blog.

Over the years I’ve heard it said so many times that a “Writer” simply writes. I had no idea I was a “Writer” over those many years I wrote in my diaries and later those long letters back home after I left for the “Big Smoke” of Sydney. They sure make interesting reading now. Interesting? Well, I do have to confess cringing at too many of the things that teenager wrote back then and also a bit disappointed there are only a very few actually written on December 31st or the first day or so of January. So that shows one thing has NOT changed – simply too busy to write over Christmases and New Year’s Days.

But then I noticed that so many thoughts I had then over the past years and about “facing the future” are similar to today’s heart of mine.

Way back in 1958, this young woman starting her “7th month of nursing training” wrote, “Well, it’s been a disastrous year in one way but full of new experiences. New friends made, old friends seldom seen but some old friends becoming dearer still.”

(Oh, and the photo here was taken on graduation night four years later!)

On January 2nd, 1959 the “writer” in me wrote, “Well, the New Year is here with all its promises and disappointments.” And of course that happened as it does still.

I went off to Bible College in the beginning of 1963 where I sure did make many “new friends”, including the wonderful man I have now been married to for over 47 years. The writing in the old diary since that year is very spasmodic with only several yearly summaries of key events. A shame, but “Writers” do move on to other kinds of writing like I did with College assignments, then that Writers Course after Ray read my diaries when we had been married a couple of years. Of course then there were articles, short stories and novels. In the last year that has even extended to trying to write these blog posts to share – which are not easy for a writer who now finds it easier to write a chapter of a book!

So, I’ve looked back through these old diaries this morning and while I am humbled at what God has given me over the years, the joy, the peace, the love and purpose in life, those events are all in the past. Even though they show me now the changes the years have wrought in me, the main thing in this writer’s life has only deepened – my personal devotion and commitment to continuing to seek out what God wants of me this New Year and trying still to obey Him. Will it be to keep writing more books? Will it be to try and be a mentor for other writers? I know it will not always be easy to listen to God, to always obey Him, but this morning’s devotions in James 4:13-17 stood out to me - especially verse 15. Let us remember to say with James, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do (write too?) this or that.”

Oh, and should add I am spending next Week from Sunday at the Poatina Faith and Arts event as a leader for the Creative Writing – Fiction elective. – if the Lord wills of course! Will not be able to post here next week so will fill you in Thursday week.
Click HERE to go to the Poatina Faith and Arts Website!

Ray on Monday - Least Likely To.....

Coming towards the end of life’s journey should be a time for reflection, assessment and tying up loose ends. In fact that is something we should have done on a regular basis across the years. This came to mind when I looked over some previously jotted down thoughts such as the following. I wrote it, as I often do, like a conversation in my mind with the Lord.

Time…4:10pm.
Place…a Sydney (Australia) suburban train.
Funerals are interesting experiences, Lord. We learn things most of us were ignorant of. For me, Lord, I learnt things about myself.
It was a good funeral as funerals go. My friend belonged to You. This made it easier to say farewell. At the family gathering afterwards a group of us from the ‘yester-years’ gathered and shared our journeys. Some have done quite well. Others have struggled. Some have remained faithful to the Faith. Some haven’t. That’s sad.
As I grew up with these people, we had a great time in the church and community. Friendships are precious and years apart don’t distract from that. When we are growing up it seems to me we are not very conscious of how our mates see us. That is why one young lady’s comments floored me a bit. On reflection they were true. I just didn’t think how others saw me then. She said “ You hung in there with the church when most of us at the time thought you were the least likely to succeed.”
I’m not sure, Lord, what she meant by ‘succeed’. To me it means that in their eyes I changed from a shallow, self indulgent hypocrite to a maturing, caring minister sold out to you. However, Heavenly Father, I can’t kid myself. I don’t think I would have ‘succeeded’ in any sense of the word if You hadn’t stood me on my head, metaphorically speaking, and said “Shape up or ship out!” How thankful I am that You prevailed. Your perseverance over the years has been the sole factor in any so called ‘success’ people may see. You shaped me up! You’ve kept me! You’ve proven Yourself true through Your word.
As I am carried along by this train, I am thankful for the honesty of my friend in reminding me that I was ‘the least likely.’ It creates a shout of gratitude to You. In Your mercy You have made a ‘least likely to succeed’ a testimony of what Your power can do with raw material surrendered to You.
Oh, that more of my friends had done that!
Amen!
Ray (with room for improvement) Hawkins.