I have recently come to the realization that I have an entire editorial department at my disposal.
Unfortunately, the entire staff lives in my head.
There are no scheduled meetings. Nobody takes minutes. There are frequent tea breaks, although calling them “breaks” is questionable since the meeting never actually stops. And absolutely no one respects normal business hours.
This is usually how my writing begins. I rarely sit down at my computer and think, Today I shall write something profound. Heaven help us if I ever do. Usually something happens. I notice something odd. Somebody says something that stays with me. I read a verse and one little phrase refuses to let go. Sometimes it is something so ordinary that there is absolutely no reason I should still be thinking about it hours later—but I am.
And somewhere along the way, the conversation in my head begins.
I’m not outlining three points and a conclusion. I’m asking myself questions, chasing one thought into another, laughing at something ridiculous, remembering a detail I had forgotten, backing up because I wandered too far down the wrong road, and occasionally telling myself, No, Kimberly, that’s not quite it.
Sometimes these conversations go on for quite a while before I ever write a word. I turn the thought around and look at it from different directions. Why did that bother me? Why did that make me laugh? Why am I still thinking about something somebody said three days ago? What is it about that particular verse that suddenly feels different?
Eventually, somewhere in all that mental wandering, I bump into what I was really trying to say.
And that’s when I start writing.
I suppose that is why writing has never felt to me like simply putting words on a page. It is much closer to listening. I have to stay with a thought long enough to hear what is underneath it, because the first thing that catches my attention is not always the real story. Sometimes it is simply the door through which I entered.
Very often, Scripture is where the conversation finally settles. A verse I have known for years suddenly looks different beside something I have just experienced. A pancake that wouldn’t flip becomes a lesson about patience. A junk drawer starts me thinking about what accumulates in the heart. An armadillo beside the road becomes a lesson about how easily something can capture our attention and quietly change our direction. None of those things announced themselves as writing material when they happened. They were simply life.
But I am discovering that God has a remarkable way of leaving lessons scattered throughout ordinary life, and ordinary things are terribly easy to overlook. Sometimes writing is simply my way of stopping long enough to look twice.
That may also explain why I prefer writing that feels like conversation. I’m not particularly interested in standing on one side of the page and explaining something to somebody on the other. I would much rather pull up a chair and say, “You know what I was thinking about…” Then we can follow the thought together and see where it leads.
Of course, getting the thought onto the page does not mean the editorial meeting is adjourned. Quite the opposite. That is usually when everybody becomes particularly opinionated. One voice says, You’ve already said that. Another says, That sounds too preachy. Someone wants to know why it took three paragraphs to say something that could have been said in one, while somebody else apparently has a personal vendetta against unnecessary one-liners. They can be a difficult bunch.
Eventually, though, one question becomes more important than all the others: Where is God in this?
That question matters to me because I don’t want to manufacture a spiritual lesson out of every ordinary experience simply because I happen to write about faith. I would much rather discover that God was already there. Sometimes the connection is obvious; other times I have to sit with it awhile. And occasionally I discover there really isn’t an article there at all. It was just something funny that happened on Tuesday, and apparently my editorial department called an unnecessary meeting.
But every now and then, an ordinary moment opens a little window. Something I have seen a hundred times suddenly helps me understand a truth I have read a hundred times. I think that is when writing becomes something more for me. It becomes a way of noticing—not only what is happening around me, but what God may be quietly teaching me through it.
That is the writing process I have been using all along. I notice something. I wonder about it. I talk it half to death in my head. I turn it around a few times, laugh at myself somewhere along the way, and listen for what might be underneath it. Then I try to put it on paper without polishing all the life out of it.
So yes, there are conversations going on in my head. Quite a few, actually. But every now and then, one of them finds its way onto the page, and I discover that while I thought I was simply talking something through with myself, the Lord had been part of the conversation.
And He’s the Editor-in-Chief.
Which means the final question is not whether I have managed to say something clever, profound, or particularly memorable. It is whether what I have written honors Him. Writing is something God has placed in my hands, and like anything He entrusts to us, it ought to be used with Him in view.
That reaches far beyond writing. Whatever occupies our hands, our minds, our time, or our abilities can become an offering to God when His glory becomes the reason behind it. Scripture puts it much better than my editorial department ever could:
“And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” (Colossians 3:17)
In the end, that is the one editorial note worth keeping at the top of the page: Whatever I do, let it point back to Him.
If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.
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