The word for you is ‘new’ - by Philippa Linton

What I drew in my journal

How many notebooks and journals do you have?   I keep several:

• My prayer journal, which I decorate with cards, pictures and inspirational thoughts.
• A journal in which I jot down my reflections as I read through a particular Christian book.
• Scrapbooks of art cards, holiday postcards and cards given to me by family and friends which hold a special meaning.
• Then, of course, there are my notebooks filled with writing ideas.

I was writing in one of my journals on a sunny afternoon in early May.  I was reading The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom by Christine Valters Paintner.  A Lectio Divina exercise at the end of chapter one required me to read through Isaiah 48: 6-7 and see which word the Holy Spirit highlighted.

'From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.  

They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today.
So you cannot say, "Yes, I knew of them."'

Isaiah 48: 6-7 (New International Version)

A word leapt out at me: ‘New’.   I drew it in my journal, and decorated the word with flowers, curling green leaves, sparkling rivers, a mountain range.

New horizons, new possibilities, new dreams, new hopes.  Jesus speaks of new wine (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39.)

This year has been, and continues to be, a hard, bitter year for so many.  So many have had their dreams and hopes placed on pause.  So many artists and creatives are currently living in anxious limbo, their livelihoods jeopardised.   Even as I pray about this suffering, and try to do what I can to help, I am aware of God calling me to a new season … even, perhaps, a new way of living.  I want to live, and write, in a way that brings others hope. 

The Spirit’s word for me that May afternoon was ‘new’. 

• What new thing is God doing through your writing?
• What new adventures in writing is He calling you to explore?

I know that I feel ‘on pause’ at the moment … my writing energies seem drained by the magnitude of the pandemic and its effects on my mind and soul.

Nonetheless, those energies are there.  And my writing is a calling. God created me to be creative and that secret spring of living water is there within me, waiting to be poured out, so that others can be refreshed.  

The word for us is ‘new’.

I wonder what new things we will all discover, as writers, as 2020 draws on.

Philippa Linton is a lay minister in the Anglican church.  Her day job is working in the education and learning department of the United Reformed Church.  She has written a devotional for the anthology 'Light for the Writer's Soul' published by Media Associates International, and her short story 'Magnificat' appears in the ACW Christmas anthology 'Merry Christmas Everyone'.