Delores Liesner
Activating Faith in everyday life
What If?
I stood in the grocery line behind a man 20 or more years my senior. The bent arch of his shoulders spoke of defeat and sadness. His dull eyes turned toward me, showing little hope. “Go ahead,” he said, “I’m retired and have nothing to do when I get home but watch TV.”
I was approaching my retirement with great anticipation and told him how I was eager to visit mission fields, to read all I could and to write about how God rescued me from myself.
What if those few words meant as much as they seemed? Did that little man actually stand straighter, as he shook his head at my enthusiasm while promising to read the little booklet I handed him?
What if God had me in that store, at that moment, not just to speak to this dear lonely man, but to hear him, and to hear God’s message for me in that moment to write this story for you?
What if is a question we should never stop asking. What if you write your stories too? You know you have had some strange, some wonderful, some tender, and some frightening experiences. What if you were to publish them in those free magazines available locally, and reach those who cannot afford to buy books?
What if you were to share them at your library? What if you wrote your stories electronically on a blog similar to this one? Or, what if, like Moses, (in Exodus 4:1) you cringed in fear and whined, “What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say?” What if you let fear stop you from writing your stories? What blessings could you miss?
What if is a question I like to ask every morning. What if God’s Word is true? What if God wants to make a difference in someone’s life through me today?
Go ahead – Be the Miracle! Write your stories. Be God’s hands and feet as you live out His story of The Good Samaritan. Be the voice from heaven as you share the difference His words and His love have made in your life.
“ So, go now and write all this down. Put it in a book…So that the record will be there to instruct the coming generations” Isaiah 30:8 (The Message)
God has placed you in a sphere of people that you can influence as I never could. As you go about your day today, I challenge you to wonder about the stories people have to tell…the clerk at the grocery store, the gas station attendant, the nurse’s assistant, the neighbor leaning over the fence or stoically shoveling mounds of snow. What if a story could give them hope?
What if a simple offer of a cool or warm drink could free their hearts to share their stories with you or to ask what is your story?
What if?
Be the Miracle! – with journaling pages
Delores Liesner: Author
American Christian Fiction Writers Association
Delores Liesner 