When I started the third grade, we were assigned a story to write about how we spent our summer vacation. That happened to be the only summer vacation I had ever taken, to California with our cousins.
While we were there, we went to Seal Beach, where we found sea shells and made sand castles in the warm sand. I loved the water, but was also afraid of it. As the shallow water lapped my legs, I enjoyed the warmth, so I moved a little closer to the sea.
I felt the waves climbing higher and higher; first my waist, then my neck, then my mouth. I could taste the saltwater in my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe. The sun grew dimmer and dimmer. I was going to drown. The waves pulled me out to sea, but just as I was going under for the last time, the strong hands of the lifeguard dragged me back to shore.
However this was happening only in my mind. The gentle waves were too weak to even draw the seashells out to sea, only deep enough to wash the sand off my tiny feet. I had the feeling that I would drown, but my mother and aunts were keeping a close watch on us little ones.
That was the first story I wrote, but that experience stuck with me and I was encouraged to write poetry by a high school assignment. My senior year a poem I wrote in the form of a sonnet was published in the Oklahoma High School English Teachers Anthology.
I’ll never forget the moment that inspiration came to me, when I suddenly saw, really saw a one-way street sign, so that was the first devotional I ever wrote—that there is only one way to heaven, through Jesus Christ.
God has a great plan for us, and I’m so glad that I seemingly stumbled into God’s plan for my life—to be his writer.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 NIV.