Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Facing The Abyss




I hate Microsoft Word. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out why there was a big white space in the middle of my document that I could not make go away. I could not put any text in it, and when I tried every possible way of deleting it, it made the paragraph after it split into one sentence at a time on separate pages. In the end, I had to retype the paragraphs before and after the big white space, that gaping Abyss that nothing could remove, and then delete the old and copy the new. By the end of the day, I felt like I had been through the war. And that was just one problem on one page out of 400 I need to edit for my book. I want to be rich and able to hire someone to do this for me. I know this is greedy and totally unspiritual. I am sure that until I work through my lousy attitude, God will continue to send me to the Abyss. I hate editing my books! I like writing them, most of the time, but the editing is terrible, horrible agony.

I was desperate. I googled for solutions, and was surprised to find other people struggle with big blank white Abysses on their Word documents. However none of their suggested solutions worked for me. My Abyss was particularly difficult to cross.

Then I put a public plea out on Facebook. My sister must be a Word Doc expert because she gave a whole series of suggestions. None worked until finally, I retyped the sections on either side of the Abyss, and copied them into my document after deleting the old sections. That finally cleared the Abyss, but it was an arduous solution. Most of my day was spent on that one small section of editing. A day of frustration.

"Why do I do this!?" I moaned. Why do I try to write books, or blogs, or political posts? Why don't I just settle for scrubbing the toilets, doing the laundry, raising the last great kid at home and stop pretending I have anything worth writing?

Then, I noticed that a new review was up for one of my books on Amazon. I clicked on the review. Here is what it said:
Georgia Johnson (Ozark, AR United States) -
Amazon Verified Purchase
This review is from: I'm Listening With a Broken Ear (Kindle Edition)
"It had me chuckling while at a cancer center while waiting for a radiation treatment! I would definitely recommend this book."

Ok. I may not change the world. But I made one person who was facing cancer chuckle for a little while. If I must face the Abyss now and then, perhaps it is worth it after all. We just never know who or how we may impact the world. I think God was telling me, face the Abyss and don't lose heart.

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Therefore, having this service, even as we received compassion, we do not lose heart, (2 Corinthians 4:1 NASB)

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ (Matthew 25:40, 44, 45)






-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org
http://www.amazon.com/Vicky-Kaseorg/e/B006XJ2DWU

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