THE READY WRITERS

We met by happenstance, these ladies and I, thrown together into an accountability group where we worked toward our writing goals. We called ourselves the Ready Writers after Psalm 45:1 – “My heart overflows with a good theme; I address my verses to the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”

What began as a sort of awkward and uncomfortable series of weekly meetings morphed into something more beautiful than we could have imagined.

Yes. We set goals, every week. We wrote in between meetings, and when we come back together we shared our progress. Some weeks reflected incredible leaps forward and big milestones achieved for sure … some weeks not so much.

Something way bigger and way better happened along the way though – God has knit us together in ways that are so surprising and lovely and almost beyond belief.

Together, one meeting at a time, we created a safe space. One person at a time, we began sharing things from the deep places in our hearts. And as we did, and as we responded to each other in love, trust happened. The meetings continued to help us move forward in our writing, there’s no doubt about it.

But the more important part turned out to be the connections we created, the safety we felt with each other, the love and support and encouragement that was shown over and over and over.

We shared laughter and we shared tears. We prayed, oh did we pray. I can’t think of a single time when we didn’t stop the meeting and seek the Lord together right then.

These ladies were by my side all through my cancer journey, and I have no doubt that I could call on any one of them today and they would come. While I was getting radiation, I made up a fun game with the techs … it was called “guess what color shirt I’m wearing today from looking at my earrings.” (I was always in a gown, of course.)

For 16 days we played this game, the techs and I, and by the end some of the ones who weren’t even on for my treatment that day wanted in on it. My favorite was the guy who guessed SO VERY wrong every time but never missed a chance. And do you know what happened? We connected. They connected with me, and with each other, and it was fun. I would guess their jobs are not always much fun, and it was so neat to find joy there.

Sixteen days means radiation went across three of the Ready Writers meetings – we all got a big kick out of the earring game.

But do you see?

These are the kinds of things we shared, the beautiful and the painful and everything in between.

It’s been one of the most precious and meaningful seasons of my life, but like all seasons do, it ended. The rest of my life is yelling at me, and I will happily give it my attention. But oh do I miss those meetings!

I’m so very grateful that God brought me together with Sheila, Joan, Ruth, Ellen, Susan, Davenia and Regina, and the others who have floated in and out of our little group during this time.

Most of them are still meeting together, which I love. And imagine my delight and surprise when I received two perfect sets of earrings from them – my Ready Writers. Love you all!

Angie