message matters most…

(I can’t decide whether I love an alliterative title or am irritated by them. Mine was accidental, but nonetheless, I’m sorry if you belong to the irritated gang. Thanks for not letting it put you off!)

Recently I entered a writing competition run by Sue Sutherland of www.leavingbethany.com. It’s not something I tend to do because – well – imposter syndrome. Basically, I don’t believe I’m that good a writer. I will accept that I may be better than the average person, but in competition against other writers? I don’t think so. Even in the books that I have published, I still struggle with an unescapable feeling that they could be so much better if I knew what I was doing. So I tend not to enter competitions, assuming that someone better and more deserving will inevitably win.

However this competition caught my eye for two reasons. One was the prize: a book about the women who led and ministered in the early Church: right up my proverbial street! The second reason was that the piece of writing to be submitted was a maximum of only 75 words! Nothing too taxing, surely?! I know: micro-writing requires great skill and can actually be more demanding than writing thousand-word pieces. But I figured overthinking 75 words would be less painful than overthinking hundreds or thousands more. So I had a look at the subject.

Hmmm. There are many Bible characters – female and male – who I identify with at different points in my life, so there wasn’t an immediate choice that sprang to mind. But as I considered it further, I thought of Abigail from 1 Samuel 25. Abigail is someone whose story I had read recently and who always inspires me. I scribbled down a few sentences, played around with them, and made sure they didn’t exceed the 75-word limit – and then ran out of time to do anything more so I sent it off, still thinking it wasn’t very good, and expecting someone else to win, but congratulating myself for at least not quitting before I started.

Imagine my total shock when I received a message from Sue saying I had won!!!

‘ll share my entry below so you can read it for yourself, but I wanted to also share what judge (who received the entries without the authors’ names attached) said about it – and what I gained from the experience, other than a lovely new book.

Judge Jean Perry (Suffolk artist) wrote, “For me, there was an easy winner as the writing stood out as meeting most of the criteria… The lady who wrote about Abigail made it personal, humorous and authentic. I felt her short summary was very well argued, giving both a critical view of the subject and a fresh way of looking at submission and courage from a woman’s perspective. Her writing inspired me to read the story again for myself and challenged me to have the faith and confidence to follow in Abigail’s footsteps.”

Well, that was encouraging – what a boost to the old confidence levels! It made me think again about imposter syndrome and that feeling of not being good enough, or as good as other “proper writers” (whatever that means). And it made me remember something I have resolved upon more than once already. Because excellence matters. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar matter. So do style, voice, flow… and all the other elements that are considered to be essential to good writing. And when I re-read my entry, I was horrified to spot errors in it. But that’s not all there is to a story. For it to be worth telling it has to carry a message. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, there is power in testimony. And that power does not come from the persuasiveness of the author, or how skillfully they tell the story. Sure, they need to have enough of a grasp of language to be able to communicate well, but what matters more is the message. As long as you or I can communicate well enough to make our point, that can be enough.

Those of us who are writing for God’s Kingdom are writing the true story of His goodness and transforming love. Yes we need to do our best to not trip the reader up with clunky syntax or poor spelling, so we need to get help from those in the writing community around us (more on that tomorrow). But if the heart of the message is God, then He Himself dwells in it. It doesn’t get better than that! Many of Jesus’ first disciples were not educated men (Acts 4:13), but they knew Him – and changed the world through their testimony. And personally speaking, I’d rather share a simple, unsophisticated story where Jesus’ love is the obvious focus than one where my style of writing gets the attention.

So that was my reminder to self. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point of thinking my writing is “good enough” or mistake-free, but I’ll try to keep reminding myself that ultimately it matters less than my subject. Give my substance over style, any day. I will give what I’ve got and trust God to use it. And if a few scribbled sentences can cause a competition judge to want to look at her Bible again, that’s more than a win for me!

So here it is, my super short, “not-very-good”, winning entry:

“I identify with Abigail.  Not because her husband was an idiot – mine isn’t. But because so much of traditional male-led Christianity still dictates that wives should prioritise submitting to their husbands, winning them over with their quiet godly conduct – making us responsible for men’s behaviour. It feels stifling, oppressive… impossible. Abigail was submitted and godly – yet praised for her wisdom in thinking for herself and refusing to submit to wrong. I love her.”