Praising God Through Poetry

I've been taxing my brain to think of a good title for the session I'm leading at the writer's conference at the end of April. I've also received several great suggestions from others. I decided this morning I would just it all "roll around" in my head and come up with something tonight (since the deadline is tomorrow!) I'm going to title my workshop, "Praising God Through Poetry". The theme of the conference is "Time to Testify" and I am speaking about poetry, so I think that's a suitable title.

Today at work, I read a short poem by Emily Dickinson that was printed and framed:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

I think this captures the heart of every poet - actually every writer. As a Christian writer, I would add that we have the desire to do these good deeds because of the gift of grace won for us by Christ. I will build my presentation on this poem and a couple of psalms. Haven't decided which ones yet.

I have also decided to change the focus of this blog a bit. I will continue to share my own writing journey, but I am going to focus more on offering encouragement to other writers. I'll add to the grammar helps I've posted on and off and expand it to including ways to deal with writer's block, and other writing challenges.

I feel God encouraging me to stretch and enlarge my ministry.