A fellow writer and friend died today--just a few hours ago, as a matter of fact--and I'm still absorbing the implications of all that. I knew it was coming, of course, as she had been fighting a valiant battle with cancer for several years, and when I saw her at ICRS in Denver last July, it was obvious she couldn't hold out much longer. And yet her face shone with the love and joy of Jesus, and that is how I and so many others will remember her.
Kathi Macias here, hoping you'll join me as we talk about writing and marketing--and putting it all into perspective.
Like the rest of you, I love what I do. If I didn't, I would have quit long ago because writing--if you happen to care that your writing gets published and sold and read--can be a daunting task. I've often wondered if we're all just a bunch of Pollyannas with a masochistic bent, and I've even come to the conclusion that it may very well be a requirement for this type of work. After all, how many people willingly sign up for something that we know will most certainly involve many more rejections and disappointments than acceptances and accolades?
Hmm... Well, Jesus did, didn't He? So there you go. If He did, and if He calls us to do the same, then we really have no choice, do we? At least, not if we want to stay smack-dab in the middle of His will for our lives. And though I've often kicked and screamed at the requirements of being in that place, there really isn't anywhere else I would rather be. As Peter said when Jesus asked him if he was going to abandon Him, "Where would we go, Lord? You have the words of life."
The words of life. Words He has committed to us to impart to a lost and hurting world. And so we write--and we learn how to market so that lost and hurting world can read and receive those words of life. That's it, folks, the bottom line. We do this because God has called us to deliver His words of life to those who walk in darkness.
There is a large flat stone on my front porch that says, "Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be." How true and precious are those words to those of us who know the Author and Finisher of life! But what a tragic deception to those who choose not to know or love Him. And how can they know if someone doesn't tell them? And so we write and we market because they need to know. We can't allow the seeming "worldliness" of marketing tinge the beauty of the words of life that we are privileged to write. So write on, fellow scribes, and learn the in's and out's of effective marketing so that as many as possible can hear your words.
And one day, like my precious friend, we will each slip away from this earth and into the arms of Jesus, where we will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
If anyone would like to view the pictorial tribute to my friend who died today, go to www.awsawomen.com and click on "In Memory" to see pictures at our July 2006 conference in Denver.
Posted by: Kathi Macias | February 16, 2007 at 09:47 PM