I glanced at the grade on the top of the paper

    and my heart sank again. In discouragement I stuffed it into my folder

    and walked back to my dormitory on the western New York campus.

It seemed no matter how hard I tried to write a good paper for my English professor

  he stilled covered the pages with red marks.

Guess I wasn’t cut out to be a writer.

Wrong

But that was what I believed for many years.

It wasn’t until years later

   when I experienced God’s gracious healing in my life

   that I

        on impulse

       wrote an article and

       mailed it to a Christian publication.

Even after I dropped the manuscript in the mail

  I questioned myself

   and felt ridiculously foolish and blushed.

No one was more surprised than I to hear back from the editor

that they were paying me to use the article

and wanted me to write more.

Me, a writer?

My belief had been ‘no’

  but God’s plan was something different.

He chose to use my simple writings to bless and encourage others.

His working through me.

Today I have had published more than 500 articles, devotionals and short stories.

I have stories in Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul,

                                                   Chicken Soup Thanks Dad

                                                       and many others.

My heart praises the One Who so lovingly

         Has chosen to use my offerings and to make them serve His Purposes.

So what’s in your hand today?

Any skill that maybe you thought years ago was inferior

      or unworthy of use. Or maybe you didn’t even think about it.

Could it be that our Lord sees it differently than you?

Could it be that He longs to see you step out in faith and do it anyway?

He loves to do what seems Impossible to us.

But nothing is impossible.

Nothing is beyond His power to infuse with new life

                                                                          raise up

                                                                           and transform.

    as we turn it all over to Him.

Nothing.

Don’t you just love Him?