Before We Were Born by Emily Owen

Photo by Kateryna Shevchenko on Unsplash

On Wednesday afternoon, I was talking to students about communication.

I told them that I became deaf in 2000.

Then I looked around the room, realisation striking:

“You weren’t alive in 2000, were you?!”

They all shook their heads, and we laughed.

They were a great group: listening, and participating, and asking excellent questions.

The session added to equipping them for their future careers.

And they received that equipping from someone who’d been around before they were even born.

 

What about us as writers?

We, too, are equipped by Someone who was around before we were born.

Before anyone was born.

 

He (Jesus) is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:17

 

How might knowing that we have been - and are - equipped by Jesus Himself shape our writing?

 

Perhaps those students, in years to come, will be in a clinic situation that causes them to remember our session back on a rainy February afternoon in 2026.

And yes, perhaps that is wishful thinking!

But maybe they will, and maybe it will help them in their care of their patient, and maybe both will benefit from the fact that someone was around before the clinician was born.

 

Maybe, as we sit down (or stand, no excluding of those with sit-stand desks here) to write, we could be mindful of the fact that we are in a privileged position:

      Because we write!

      And because we are equipped by Jesus. Our writing – which falls into the ‘all things’ heading - is held together by Him. He knows the beginning from the end (Isaiah 46:10).

 

Maybe, as our blog/book/article is published, we could pray that readers will benefit from the fact that Someone was around before the writer was born.

 

How will remembering that we have been - and are - equipped and held together by Jesus Himself shape our writing?

 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139:9,10