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Topic: Peer Pressure (07/05/04)
TITLE: Bright, Like The Stars By Dori Knight 07/12/04 |
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Theirs is a talent that knows no bounds; talent perfectly balanced by a humility that is almost child-like in sincerity. Theirs is a talent that shares the common goal to change and to stretch the reader, not for personal glory, but for the glory of God.
There is my sister Cori, a heroic mother of five who finds time to write inspirational devotionals between peanut butter sandwiches; and there is my brother Glenn, an honorable man and involved dad, a man who reaches thousands through a myriad of ministries and who has perfected the fine art of one-liners.
Brother David is the family clown and we love to laugh at his antics, but he also has a serious side, an abiding love for God … and fifteen llamas of his very own. Sister Deb is impossibly good-natured, and always has a smile, a hug, and a word or two of encouragement offered in a charming accent from Down Under.
My sister Denise has faith of Biblical proportions, not in spite of excruciating trials, but because of them. My sister Whitney is full of youthful energy and an innocence that gives me hope for the future. My dear brother Dub exudes devotion and a boundless love for his bride, his sweetheart, the mysterious Miss P.
What would a day be like without my sister Roz’s fellowship and the antics of her backwards friend; or my brother James’ hilarity, and his ability to prove that God does, indeed, have a sense of humor? And though I know that I could live without my brother Michael’s principles and standards of ethics, I really wouldn’t want to.
I wouldn’t want to face a day without my brother Patrick’s wisdom, my sister Mary’s vulnerability and dog-eared tenacity, or my brother Dave’s honesty and his willingness to hug and make up.
These are the people who keep me up on my toes and down on my knees. These are the people who pressure me not to get comfortable with the writer I am, but rather the writer that God would have me be.
I belong to a family of faith, a family of writers, a family too big to number and name. They make me think, laugh, and cry. They run ahead as all siblings have since the beginning of time, making me run to keep up, for fear I might miss the fun.
Everywhere I turn, these brothers and sisters of mine pressure me to write better, bigger, brighter, like the stars that they are; the stars that they continuously prove themselves to be.
The law of physics says that a thing in motion tends to stay in motion, and this may be true, but it seems to me that without a little pressure, a thing would tend to stay quite still.
And since stillness never appealed to me, I welcome the pressure, and I thank God for the talented force behind it.