Category: Brags and Hugs

A good critique can carry you for miles

I volunteered to write two devotions for the upcoming Advent booklet for my church.

Here are a few words I received back from the person who’s reviewing them.

I actually didn’t expect a review at all. I thought I’d turn it in, and that would be it. So getting a wonderful critique like this was extra special.

Your conversational tone draws readers right into Paul’s message — not only to understand it, but to feel it. Your reflection on the repetition in Philippians 4 is both fresh and pastoral. The encouragement to take “anything and everything” to God in prayer perfectly captures the heart of this passage — a reminder that joy and peace flow not from our control but from His nearness. The modern illustrations (like the “balcony” image) and the gentle humor make it wonderfully relatable while staying fully faithful to Scripture. It’s exactly the kind of writing that helps people connect deep theology with daily discipleship.

I received this critique on one of those mornings — filled with challenges and irritants and headaches — and it turned into a full-blown pity party (party of one!) that slid into questioning a lot of what I was trying to do.

And then I got this message, and it fed me. Such a great reminder that we are here to hold each other up.

Here’s the devotion. As soon as the book is ready, I’ll post the link.

Say it again and again: Rejoice!

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippian 4:4-7

The directive is so important, we get it twice:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

Sing it again. Say it louder. Once more for the balcony.

Rejoice!

And no wonder it’s repeated. It needs to sink in.

As one of those balcony-sitters who needs to hear it over and over, I confess that I tend to cherry-pick both my worries and my prayers.

You know what I mean: Fretting over lots of little things because they seem too trivial to take to God. Or limiting my prayers to big stuff: asking for overall help and guidance or giving thanks in a general (or generic?) way.

That’s not what he said, though.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Those “absolute” words (anything, everything) are what editors typically frown upon and psychologists caution to avoid in relational discussions.

But this is the Lord. We can take Him at His word. No worries: none, zero, nada, zip. Pray about it all: Every.Single.Thing in your heart.

The Lord is at hand. He’s ready for a conversation.

Rejoice!

Second verse same as the first: Rejoice!

I found one of my best characters by paying attention and taking notes

One of my readers once asked how I come up with the complex characters for my novels and give them their particular mannerisms. The answer is complex: a mixture of research, a study of traits and personalities, close observation of people, watching their habits and quirks.

Many articles and books and creative writing courses have been written about character development, and my initial thought was to refer to those sources.

But as I thought about the question, I realized I had a good short answer: I listened to my dad talk. Thoughout his life, Dad invariably found himself connecting with the most curious and remarkable characters and, being the fabulous storyteller that he was, he loved telling the stories of these people.

In a book I wrote with him – “If You Can’t Pay Attention, Take Notes,” a collection of his sea stories – one of the vignettes highlights Dad’s friendship with an undercover NIS agent, completely unaware of the agent’s identity.

I was so intrigued by this character that I put him in a series of novels I wrote (the “Para Team 1” series) that involve an agent with a special unit of Naval Intelligence.

Here’s Dad’s account of the inspiration for my character, as told in his sea stories (more info about the book here):

When I was stationed in Norfolk, I met a fellow who worked in the Beachmaster unit with me. Mike was a second class boatswain’s mate and had been for a long time. You could tell by the stripes up his arm that he’d been taking the first class test for a while and obviously hadn’t passed it yet. The boatswain’s mate first class test was hard to pass.

That didn’t seem to bother him, though. He was a nice, easy-going guy – loved to tell jokes and play cards and fish. We had a lot in common.

Mike was married and had two kids. We went fishing all the time, and he and his wife came over and played cards with me and Pat. Over the course of a year, we got to know them pretty well. We even went on vacation together.

One day two military police came to the door of our building. Mike was standing between them. The MPs asked to come in to talk to a particular chief who was on duty. I told them it was a secure building and I couldn’t let them in, but if they would wait there, I’d go get him.

I found the chief and took him to the door, and the MPs arrested him. The whole time Mike didn’t look at me. I was worried about what kind of trouble he was in.

I found out from some others in the building that the chief they arrested was suspected of selling answers to the first class test. Now I was really worried about Mike.

As soon as I got off duty, I went to his house to see his wife and let her know I was going to the brig to see Mike. But when I got there, the house was completely empty. All of it was gone – the furniture, their clothes, the food in the refrigerator. Nothing was left. No moving boxes, nothing in sight.

By this time I was thoroughly confused, but I made my way over to the brig and asked if I could see Mike.

He wasn’t there. In fact, they had no idea who I was talking about.

When I got home, I told Pat about it. She was shocked. She had just seen Mike’s wife in the commissary the day before.

When I got to work the next day, I found out that Mike had been working undercover with Naval Intelligence. They had known for a while that someone was selling secrets to the test, but they weren’t sure who it was. Mike – obviously not his real name – had been working on the case all that time.

Several years later I was stationed in Charleston. One day I was walking across the base, when I passed someone who looked familiar. I turned around; he turned around. We stared at each other for a moment.

It was Mike.

But he was no longer a second class boatswain’s mate. Now he was a chief engineman.

He looked surprised, like he didn’t know what to say, but then he extended his hand.

“John, how’s it going?” he asked.

“It’s going good,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to call him, so I hesitated. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m stationed on the Sierra,” he said.

I didn’t ask him why. I figured he probably couldn’t tell me, and whatever he did tell me wouldn’t be true.

So we talked about fishing. After about ten minutes, he went on his way and I went on mine.

About a week later, I heard about a drug bust on the U.S.S. Sierra. I wasn’t surprised at all.

I never did see Mike again. At least I don’t think I did. Might depend on whether he got good at disguises.