Today I am beside myself with excitement! Have you ever known Jesus to move Heaven and Earth to help to use one of his children so that others can see God’s Glory? Isn’t it awe-inspiring when He does that? Kinda like what I spoke about in my last post.

I have just found out today that Lysa Terkeurst’s book, “Made to Crave” that I spoke about HERE has today been listed as apart of the New York Times Best Seller list at #14!!! Isn’t this incredible? I think I heard today that there have been only 3 other Christian Women Writers to have this kind of honor.

I know she is beside herself with excitement! She is such a humble and genuine gal that loves Jesus! God quickened her heart to see the real matter at hand and she wrote about it. In Made to Crave she wrote about the fact that all of us were created with a craving mechanism but so many times we get it all mixed up with things of this world and instead God wanted us to Crave HIM!

That book is all God and how he uses one woman’s story of seeking God’s face in the dilemma of trying to lose weight and be healthy. I am so excited that he used her so that HIS Glory could be revealed to so many! God …Here’s a high-five! 🙂

This is even better news….I have some 20 copies of the book “Made to Crave” that I hear is pretty scarce in this South Georgia town. Seems to be that the publishers were also blown out of their seats and are now printing LOTS MORE! If you would like a copy please comment below and let me know. I will do what I can to get one to you!

The webcast was also spectacular! If you missed it – don’t fear you will have another chance to tune in on next Monday night at 8:00pm-8:45pm and then again on Tuesday at noon. Click here for more details.

That is my story for today about things that are WRITTEN….

Now for the unwritten part!

I have known for 8 years that there was something that God wanted me to do but I felt like if the doors started to open then it would be just shy of a miracle!

Many people don’t sit on secrets like this one for this long… I like to drag my feet.

I am officially saying that… I want to be a writer. There…I said it!

I am not saying that tomorrow I will begin writing Chapter one of a book. I feel like I just have begun the process of learning about this new goal. This blog is step number one.

In December of 2007, I randomly found this website called Proverbs 31 (see link on the side bar) that mass emailed daily devotionals every day but also had conferences to train women in writing and speaking. I was drawn to their site. I knew all about the writers. They all had blogs. You could see their hearts for God without even reading their books.

I liked it so much that I wrote out my testimony and sent it to them. What?! Was I crazy? Huh? More like a shot in the dark that they would remotely even read my stuff. I am sure it is still sitting in a pile somewhere…*smile*

In August of 2008, I attended the She Speaks writer’s and speaker’s Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. What was I thinking?! This thought ran through my mind over and over.

In the opening ceremony for the conference they played a song over the loud-speaker as we found our seats, got settled, and met new friends. It caught my attention. Not sure if it caught anyone else’s attention in the room.

I even asked the others at my table if they had heard of it and knew who sang it. Everyone was clueless. Guess this was my magical moment!

Now…today… I even play this song once a week for good measure on my iPod! Just to make sure the calling is still there. It is! 🙂

The song is “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. I know many of you are laughing, some are scratching their heads saying “WHO?”, others are saying “Come on Amy, Get with the times!“ It is a secular song which is why I am not going to post the YouTube video of it. Hmmm. (You are on your own with this one.)

But God meant to show me a message he was trying to communicate to me that weekend. There are portions of this song that struck me when I really started listening to it from a christian girl’s perspective. Here is a selection of the words that really hit home with me in that conference room in Charlotte.

“Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins”

I knew God wanted me to learn to share His words. I had to realize that it was His Son that would illuminate the words that I could not quite find. I was scared to write. I was scared that others would think I was crazy.

But I knew that God had a message that others wanted to hear and would be encouraged by. Surely he wanted someone else to write it. Writing had never been my “thing” in school! Nope, God said he was going to hold my hand and walk with me through it. He has never left me this year as I have finally stepped out and begun to write.

The second paragraph is what struck me the hardest…
”Reaching for something in the distance,
so close you can almost taste it,
Release your inhibitions”.

I didn’t want the inhibitions to stop me from being what God had called me to do and be for His sake. I was reaching for something that seemed so far away from my grasp. But I wanted it just the same like I could taste it. It still seems that way. I just trust God that what he is teaching me will be used somehow for HIM.

I ponder on the scripture in Psalm 18:29, “With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.” No matter what the task is that He is telling me to do, I can do it because He helps me. I think we all can admit that scaling a wall could be difficult too but God gets me over those walls of Fear every time.

Inhibitions are things that stop us from reaching where God is wanting to take us.

I tend to fear the rejection of man…or better said, the world. God wants me to fear Him. It is in that awe and humility of knowing that He is able to do abundantly through me.

In Psalms 25:14 it says, “The Lord advises those who fear him. He reveals to them the intent of his promise.” I am not to be fearful of the unknown. I may not know the obstacles or even the many thousand of rejection letters that will accompany this task but if God sets me on this track then He will see me through it.

Another verse of the song that spoke to me was: “No one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in, no one else can speak the words on your lips…”

I am sure that the secular world had some other strange concoction of what these words are supposed to mean but they gave me a boost of confidence that day to realize that God was asking me to do something out of the ordinary and he was going to do something extraordinary with it.

It wasn’t up to me, it was up to God and he could do it but I had to be obedient to take the first step.

This writing thing is scary. Just putting out your heart out there for others to see is difficult but He must have a plan for someone to see or hear God’s message in my message! This is what the She Speaks Conference taught me.

Maybe God is telling you to step out and do something new…It is a new year with new resolutions…Either to study the Bible more, join a bible study, go to church, or even to begin to exercise. Work on scaling your walls!

Focus on the last words… “Live your life with arms wide open”…Embrace all God has for you to do. You never know where He will take you. Life is short – I know from personal experience. I want to teach my children to live in that way too.

“Today is where your book begins”…and all I have to say is “Amen Sister!” We each have a story to tell – we just need to be on look out for how He is writing that story today in our lives.

Amy