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The following article was submitted by a FaithWriters member. Are you interested in seeing your writing here on the FaithWriters blog? Check out this link for more information.
The Writer
By Lynn Gipson
At sixty years old I suddenly decided I wanted to be a writer. When I was in high school, my teacher said I had the gift and told me I should consider becoming a writer.
“How does one become a writer?”
“Just start writing. Write anything you want to. Express your thoughts and feelings,” she said.
So I began writing for the school paper: simple little articles about the latest news around school.
After graduation, however, I had to get a real job as a computer clerk at a nearby company. I had no resources to continue my education, so I did what most girls in that situation did in the decade of the seventies: I got married and had a child. No time for writing. Just work and trying to be a dedicated wife and mother. I guess you could say life got in the way. Divorce followed after ten years and then life really took over.
Now at sixty years old I’m trying to be a writer. I do what my former English teacher told me to do. I write my thoughts and feelings. I put my fingers to the keyboard and out come the words. I am a recent cancer survivor, and I am intelligent enough to realize my life may not be as long as my female family predecessors. They lived to be on an average of eighty-five years old. So I am going to write, and write, and write, until I somehow get it right enough for someone to put one of my little articles in one of their faith-based magazines, because that’s what I have. Faith.
Writing gives me freedom, I’ve discovered. Freedom to just go with whatever I’m experiencing at the moment, and at this time in my life that kind of freedom is precious. I no longer fear rejection or most anything for that matter. All that matters now is living my life to the fullest and fulfilling dreams lost long ago. It’s never too late, you see. I also intend to start painting, because I’ve always wanted to be a painter. I can’t paint at all, but that is not going to stop me from trying.
So I will be writing many articles and stories from now on, and I will keep posting them for others to read. Because you see, I am no longer afraid to be who I want to be, and if my words don’t make sense to others, they definitely make sense to me. Hopefully they will inspire others to realize their dreams and act on them. It’s never too late, because from this moment on, I will think of myself as “The Writer.”
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Lynn Gipson is a 61 year old cancer survivor. She began writing a year ago and has finally found her purpose in life after all these years. She is now a published author of two short stories and two poems. She is a Christian and writes stories, poems and articles of a Christian or spiritual nature. She lives in Mississippi and has one wonderful son and two amazing granddaughters, ages 6 and 9.
5 Comments until now.
I love this, Lynn! Good luck with your writing.
Go, Lynn! Loved the article and your indomitable spirit. You’re not “trying,” you’re writing. I look forward to reading those articles and stories. 🙂
I don’t even know you yet I’m so proud of you I could pop…I suppose it’s how your biggest Fan and Father feels about you.
“if my words don’t make sense to others, they definitely make sense to me. Hopefully they will inspire others to realize their dreams and act on them. It’s never too late” — lovely.
Keep writing to an Audience of One and you’ll be able to say — I’ve fought a good fight and run a good race, I’ve finished my course — and you’ll be able to hear the Author and Finisher confirm “Well Done”
Powerful meanings born of being reborn, to your creative self. Thank you, Lynn.
However, your context is authoritative, substantially, because it can be too late, for any one of us. Too late to open our eyes to go there, or find that, or realize another. Yes, for much and many, it can be too late, even to try. Still, you remind us, it is also true that many of us fail ourselves, by believing it to be too late, too soon.
Thanks for the encouragment to write for the pleasure of writing. I also had an English teacher who encouraged me to write. “Capture the moment,” he told me. Well, life does get in the way and I spent the last thirty years raising a family and only writing occasionally. Now my family is telling me to write and your article gave me a good nudge too. Thanks for the encouragment and keep writing!