Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt



Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the
publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you
to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame,
any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world
view.



A homemade gift

A candy-apple red sports car

Dish towels




Write the Vision Wednesday ~ Memorial Day

 My dad was in the army, a veteran of the Korean conflict. He remained part of the National Guard and served his country for forty years, from the fifties until the early nineties, and then he received retirement papers the same week he received orders to report for duty in Operation Desert Storm. He was a little disappointed when he didn’t have to deploy.
Guard duty took one weekend a month, and I would always know that weekend was approaching because he’d take out the shoe polish –the paste in a can—and his black lace-up combat boots and start working on them. I always loved to watch the process. He shined the shoes with great care. And...I always wanted to help, so maybe it was natural that as I grew older, the task of boot duty fell to me.
Wednesdays before guard duty, he’d bring me his boots, black paste polish, and stiff bristled brush. Month after month, year after year, those boots came back dull and dirty. Sometimes they needed more cleaning than others.
Each month they had to pass inspection—my dad’s inspection, and when they didn’t, my dad gave me “the look.” I knew my job hadn’t been up to par, and he was going to have to fix my shoddy work. With a dejected spirit, I’d surrender the polish, brush, and boots into his capable hands. He would buff and brush until he could see his reflection. My dad held me to a high standard and never wavered. Sometimes I’d insist those boots just couldn’t hold a shine anymore, but he’d always prove me wrong.
Now the years have passed, and there are no more boots to shine. How I miss them.
As I look back I realize my dad wasn’t just teaching me how to polish combat boots, he was teaching me about life. Although at times we get dirty and dull, there is never a time when we can’t be polished. Sometimes it takes a bit of work and extra effort, but like those combat boots, no matter how dull, we can still hold a shine. And sometimes we just have to surrender ourselves to the Hands of our Heavenly Father who buffs and polishes until our lives reflect His image.
I still miss the clean scent of leather and the feel of the brush in my hand, and the knowledge that I had done a decent job in the eyes of my father. My dad wasn’t a man who spoke a lot, he instructed by deeds and actions. With a simple task my father taught me a great deal not only about shining boots, but also about Christian life.

But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Job 23:10


Make-A-Story™ - Monday's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

Flying a kite
Children playing with pinwheels
A friendly German shepherd dog

Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.
 
Handel's Hallelujah Chorus being sung by a flash mob in a public place
A life-size gingerbread-look house (not actually made of gingerbread)
An orange tabby cat
 

Guest Post: Anne Greene -- The Crash

The huge four by four double cab truck took the blow on the passenger side where my lovely thirteen-year old granddaughter sat. In the back seat my tiny blonde granddaughter screamed. My handsome son at the wheel yelled, “Hold on tight.”

The sixty-mile impact from the car that T-boned them sent the truck into three side-over-side rolls, then screeching down the pavement driver’s side down until it finally stopped twenty-five yards down the road in the opposite lane.

Were they dead? If they lived, would they be injured and side-lined for the rest of their lives? Earlier in the year, their middle sister who was at a Birthday party and not inside the crashed truck, mourned a tragedy when her best friend and the best friend’s siblings died in a similar crash.

With the driver’s side smashed against the road and the passenger side crushed in by the outlaw vehicle, firemen and police arrived within minutes. They pulled the tiny blonde out through the shattered back window. My son unhooked his seat belt which allowed him to stand on the driver’s window. He reached across to his daughter hanging by her seat belt and released her. Firemen pulled her to safety through the only way out, across the second seat and through the small back window. Then my son wedged himself out that shattered back window. The truck was toast.

They were all alive and had sustained no major injuries.

How different that could have been. If they had not worn seat belts they could have been thrown from the vehicle as were my son’s glasses, his cell phone, and my granddaughter’s shoe.

Seat belts helped save their lives as did the strong truck my son had purchased that week with the express purpose of keeping his children safe.

As wonderful as seat belts and strong built trucks proved, we are all convinced God’s angels held each of those three lives in protective hands. God has a plan and purpose for each of us. God didn’t intend for last Friday’s crash to cripple or end any of those precious lives. Perhaps he wanted to point out to those involved in that deadly crash, that life is fragile and easily lost. Perhaps He had another reason. Probably He had many reasons. I do know that it was not God’s time for them to die.

No one inside the truck saw the on-coming vehicle that could have spelled death. The impact was completely unexpected. We do not know when death or pain will hit us, but we do know that in this life we will experience pain, and we will die. How do we live with that knowledge?

God tells us in his Word in Hebrews 1:14, Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

I know my son and my two granddaughters were safe in the hand of God when the truck in which they rode was demolished. There is no safer place then inside the hand of God. John 10:28 – My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

___________________
 
 Award-winning author, Anne Greene, graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BA in Literary Studies. Marriage by Arrangement is her fourth published book. Anne loves to travel and has visited twenty-five foreign countries and every state in the US. Many of her books resulted from fascinating places she’s visited. She delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won the New England Reader Choice award, the Laurel Wreath Award, and the Heart of Excellence Award. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement released November 6, 2013.  A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. She makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Tim LaHaye led her to the Lord when she was twenty-one and Chuck Swindoll is her Pastor. View Anne’s travel pictures and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch the reader’s heart to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books at http://www.PelicanBookGroup.com.

Visit http://www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com for information on writing an award-winning novel.

Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world
view.

A field of flowers

A boat

An antique sewing machine