I am a teacher, and one of the great privileges of my life is teaching young writers to express themselves better on paper. I am deeply humbled by this privilege, for I know that there are far better writers out there than me, and I know that all of us can be better writers than we are. However, watching a few of my students wake up to their potential and to the glory of taking one's thoughts to the keyboard or the pen and capturing them... refining them... perfecting them to communicate just what you want them to... It is glorious work indeed.
Very soon their "writer's notebooks," which they've used every week for this school year to practice the art of writing well--whether writing descriptively, writing in different points of view, or writing using different tenses--will shift from being solely places of "assigned writing" and "writing prompts" and will move into being the writing of journals. They will be forced, by assignment, to write a first-person journal entry to the Lord. They will be forced to capture their daily thoughts and feelings in love letters to God.
My goal, of course, is that this forced habit will be continued long after our class is over, just like the daily reading for pleasure, and the Scripture memory, and the blogging, and the writing and memorizing and reading of poetry... My prayer for them is that they will be blessed daily by all these things, and by communion with the Lord through written journal writing. Whether that comes to pass, of course, remains with them!
"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes." - William Makepeace Thackery
*Entry 3, March - The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge
Very soon their "writer's notebooks," which they've used every week for this school year to practice the art of writing well--whether writing descriptively, writing in different points of view, or writing using different tenses--will shift from being solely places of "assigned writing" and "writing prompts" and will move into being the writing of journals. They will be forced, by assignment, to write a first-person journal entry to the Lord. They will be forced to capture their daily thoughts and feelings in love letters to God.
My goal, of course, is that this forced habit will be continued long after our class is over, just like the daily reading for pleasure, and the Scripture memory, and the blogging, and the writing and memorizing and reading of poetry... My prayer for them is that they will be blessed daily by all these things, and by communion with the Lord through written journal writing. Whether that comes to pass, of course, remains with them!
"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes." - William Makepeace Thackery
*Entry 3, March - The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge
