Do you remember how you first discovered your passion for writing? Better yet, when did you realize writing is your God-given gift? Was it revealed to you all at once or was it more like piece by piece? Since the latter is usually the case, moments of reflection can often help you with retracing—and then connecting—the dots.
Perhaps, as far back as childhood, you can remember subtle signs or even some obvious hints. Maybe English was always your favorite subject in school. Maybe you always loved being around books. Maybe expanding your vocabulary provided you with sheer excitement. Nevertheless, if you can relate to any number of these next reliable signs or have experienced similar real-life moments, this top 10 countdown is sure to generate an affirmative head nod, an appreciative smile, or maybe even both!
Number 10: While growing up, math and science classes were always a struggle—or were extremely boring to you; however, your entire existence from the inside out lit up during your English classes, and you aced every grammar test you ever took.
Number 9: It was never a sibling, a friend, a coworker, or another human being; instead your journal has always been your “BFF” for sharing everything, including good and bad news, sentimental life moments, and your innermost thoughts and feelings.
Number 8: Your church and community organization families have interestingly created brand-new positions that center solely around you; as a new Editor-in-Chief and as a part of the new Editorial Ministry, all written materials must first be cleared by you to remedy negative comments previously received, regarding typos and misspelled words.
Number 7: During your annual performance reviews, the feedback from your supervisor often includes how they are impressed by your write-ups, because they flow “poetically” and provide a colorful visual of your accomplishments for the year.
Number 6: Your office colleagues regularly give you high-fives and kudos to express how well you eloquently recounted events and took office managers on a journey when simply presenting your drafted bullet points and status updates for team projects.
Number 5: Amongst family and friends, you are the go-to person for random written tasks, including book reports, resumes, college papers, notifications for excused absences, thank-you letters, and even love notes for significant others.
Number 4: As you read through daily e-mails, you meticulously identify and note all capitalization and grammatical errors with a keen eye; however, this includes and pertains to the e-mails that were sent to you as the recipient.
Number 3: Opportunities to use a dictionary and a thesaurus to confirm correct spellings, check definitions, and research alternative or big-sounding words provide you with secret thrills.
Number 2: You wholeheartedly care about the correct placement of every comma, semicolon, and period in each of your social media thoughts and cell phone text messages, and you will not hit “post” or “send” until everything is correct.
Number 1: Remarkably, life is constantly presenting you with situations and circumstances that often lead to some form of a written document being needed, as you have written numerous letters, e-mails, facsimiles, certified notices, brief descriptions, detailed summaries, written proposals, legal affidavits, and official complaints in just about every season of your adult life.
As you think back and further reflect, do any of these light-hearted yet indicative signs or possible real-life occurrences sound familiar to you? Collectively, do they help to jog some additional memories of your own—and along these same lines? Overall, it is simply amazing how the early signs and everyday hints tended to be deeply embedded within your journey since the beginning. They pointed you directly towards your gift of writing and seamlessly worked together to heavily influence what you strongly gravitated towards as a child, what became some of your favorite things to do as a teenager, and well-placed writing opportunities that always seemed to find and follow you right into adulthood.
Further, James 1:17 biblically tells us every good and perfect gift is from above; and Ephesians 2:10 tells of how we are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus to do the good works God prepared in advance for us to do. These foundational biblical scriptures make it even more fascinating when you can identify and spiritually recognize just how much the foretelling hints and signs were naturally woven into your everyday experiences.
In hindsight, it should not be viewed as a coincidence or come as any surprise—just how reliable the indicative signs turned out to be, as they existed and were evidenced during the different ages and stages throughout your life. This in itself is also a strong indication of how God, as the sovereign Gift-Giver, is always at work, lovingly and purposefully perfecting your gift with every step you take while on your path, as a writer. In the process, whether you’ve discovered your remarkable ability to tell colorful stories, navigate adventurous journeys, or provide educational experiences, God has been graciously molding, shaping, and fine-tuning what He has gifted and entrusted you with—your natural ability to choose and combine words to creatively influence, inspire, and empower while also creating a legacy, as the passionate and gifted writer you are today and were destined to become.
Cherie D. Trahan is a Christian author, poet, and inspirational speaker. It is simply her lifelong goal to use her powerful testimony and gift of writing to positively influence, engage, and inspire audiences with diverse backgrounds worldwide to help stimulate and build strong spiritual lives. Cherie has served as a featured guest for ministry events and Christian media outlets. Her literary works are deeply inspired by her strong spirituality and extraordinary real-life story of seven accumulated miracle blessings that speak to the power of faith.
