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A Chat with Charles
“In The Fullness Of Time”
“But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son “
This passage from Galatians has been rattling around in my head, especially since it seems like I am always behind on so many things! Time seems to be in short supply although we are all given the same twenty-four hours every day of life, to accomplish whatever we decide to spend our time on.
The choice of these words by Paul gives you a sense that Time was pregnant, waiting for the arrival of the promised savior. You can sense the anticipation, voiced by so many of God’s people who were looking for the arrival of the savior. Even Daniel, that holy man in captivity in Babylon, who got to see ahead of time, events that have not yet occurred and still to this day wait for the fulfillment, was told he would enter into rest and the rise for his allotted portion in the age to come. The age to come….
And then the right time came, the time of the Father’s choosing, , Jesus arrived. And he did not come with the pomp and circumstance you would expect from someone who wields the power of creation. Instead, he freely gave up those trappings and humbled himself, coming as one of us, and even as the meekest and lowly of us. A carpenter’s son, from a poor family, in a backland area, would cause the people of his time to say, “can anything good, come from Galilee?” And his life of about thirty-three years was short…but that life changed everything, and time took on a new meaning, and we all are given a glimpse of what eternity looks like.
So what does all this musing have to do with Scribblers Christian Writers Group?
I have pondered these truths and found peace in some of the lessons there.
Covid slowed things down for Scribblers. We went from adding new chapters every three to four months, to barely holding on to the folks who no longer could meet in person. We all learned about ZOOM, but even that technology could not hold together everyone who had been filling the meetings. We started meeting in person again, but Covid still is in the background and the in-person meetings have been smaller than before. And now the economy is slowing things down, as inflation explodes and we all struggle to figure out how to afford the driving we must do.
I have been hoping that my day job might become less by finally providing the resources to free up more of my time, so I can do more with Scribblers, but at this point, that event seems still to be in the unforeseen future. So, I need to rest in the knowledge that Jesus and not I, direct the times and events of my life. His timing is right although at times I must profess my impatience.
I need to accept that I must fulfill the demands of my day job and then do as much as I can with the time that remains. This caused me to miss the meetings in May when I got called to Alabama to handle a business situation that had occurred there. (Those Scribbler meetings went on without me, thanks to Mike Owens and Marlene Buchanan, and others who stepped up to continue the work of Scribblers.) It meant that last week I had to cancel the June Macon chapter meeting when my computer screwed up the Quick Books files and it took me two full days of work, to get the files back up. But the Lilburn Chapter met, even though the election forced the group from the library over to a Mexican restaurant (that just happens to be one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in Georgia.) I am always amazed at providence and the twist and turns of what we experience.
So there is a pile of Scribblers stuff still waiting for my attention, this newsletter being one of those. It was supposed to be out in June but now it will be July. But here is the really good news, even though I am behind, and even though things have slowed, things have not stopped, and amazingly many things are occurring without my need to be in everything! Also, I learned something stunning that I had missed with the craziness of the last two years.
While I had thought everything about Scribblers had slowed down, I missed the fact that the expressions of interest in the group had grown from 100 individuals to over 230 individuals. I learned this as I was grumbling about all of the work putting together the e-mail list for the group I have hired to set up Constant Contact and build the framework for our new newsletter going forward. So, if you are reading this note, realize that there are over 230 other individuals that have asked to be kept informed about what is happening with Scribblers. That fact amazed me, and also served as an incentive for me as well.
I even read through all of the short notes that came with the registrations and expressions of interest in the various meetings, and while I remembered some of the notes, taking hours to put the e-mail list together condensed those notes into something even more tangible. Several struck home, as they expressed their feelings of loneliness as a Christian author, and the need to be with like-minded people, while others expressed the sense that they were called to write. It reminded me of the reasons Scribblers started. That sense that I needed a group of like-minded individuals to share the journey with. It also cemented my belief that the motto of the group that I have been sharing is, what we are all about. “We All Have A Story To Tell, To The Glory Of God” on scribblersweb.com.
So thank you for your patience and thank you for your time in reading through the Newsletter. There truly is an amazing number of things occurring, and we have much to be grateful for. None of us get to choose the time we are born into. That is another part of God’s amazing providence. He put us together at this time, for His purpose to be fulfilled. This is His time shared with us, and I will rejoice and be glad in it, as I await His return and all that will mean for all of us. I do hope to see you at either one of the physical meetings or the monthly ZOOM meeting. Please keep me in prayer as I balance out all of the work that needs to be done. It is a great joy to be working with all of you.
Charles de Andrade
Scribblers Christian Writers Group
"We All Have A Story To Tell, To The Glory of God" on www.scribblersweb.com (http://www.scribblersweb.com)
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