Links, Files, Writing! Oh my!

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
~Scott Adams

In the world of writing there are many useful toys in our body of arsenal that we use on a daily basis. I myself like links! Links to many different writing sites to where I can stick them in my favorites file and thank goodness for a history link in my browser because if I begin something on Monday, surf through some sites, get busy doing something else by Wednesday, I can check my history and find the sites that I was perusing and all is right with the world.

Unless your a delete freak who deletes the history daily. Sure, deleting the history on a weekly basis keeps your machine running smoothly but does doing it daily really need to happen? I’m not as young as I used to be (well, are any of us really?) and by Wednesday, I forget where it was on the net that I was reading from and doing my research on. I need the history intact! I need the history button to let me know where on Monday I visited, to get information, so on Wednesday, I can finish what I started!

Now if you live in a household on a shared computer, I can see why when you accidentally type into the google search, Naked Asian Women, you might want to delete THAT, but seriously, you, the writer, need to inform the other users of the computer to leave your writing links history intact or you’re going to be faced with a challenge of a research do-over.

I started this post on Monday, all my links were deleted so I had no idea what I was researching. I often go to writing sites because I’ll be reading about the structure of a story, or outlining a novel, and I’ll start tapping at the keys with an idea for a blog post. But when the history is deleted, all my ideas went with it and I have to start over.

I was going to do a blog about this being National Audio book Month, but lo and behold, my links were deleted, I lost my train of thought of where I was going to take the post, and I wound up scrapping the idea altogether. We writers are not image searchers. We don’t surf through pages and pages of images in hopes we don’t get snagged by the nudity bug. We search through words! Writing words and anything to do with writing. Now I have fallen upon sites with picture writing prompts, but that is not for me. I am a woman of substance who hangs on the written word.

What am I trying to relay in this post? Hold onto your writing links for at least a week. Delete around them if you must; if you’re hiding something or unscrupulously doing nasty searches of the Geisha Girls on Mars, by all means delete them from the computer, because many-a-times along with the nasties, comes a virus or spy into your computer that eats all your hard work anyway! But the writing links, leave intact so you’re already fried brain knows exactly what it had in mind, and where it was going!

*DEEP SIGH* Did you get all that? Good. Now get back to writing, researching, and hold onto those links! They DO help you as a writer.

The Lord helps those...

... who help themselves.

Eph.2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
***

Boy I’ve heard some pretty grand arguments about this one. And yes to me they are arguments because when you try and insist on something to be true and as stated fact, you have now crossed the line into arguing a belief.

Can you imagine dying from cancer and sitting there with only this belief that if you don’t do anything that God isn’t going to help you? Because you know, if you don’t help yourself, God isn’t going to help you either?

Suppose you have terminal cancer, you do everything in mans power to be rid of this disease, and you’ve HELPED YOURSELF to try and get better, and you still die? Are your loved ones, (holding to this same belief) going to blame God? Because after all, He helps those who help themselves.

People go on and on about faith without works, to me, that has nothing to do with, the Lord helps those, if you are a person of faith, innately you help others, it is in your being as a spiritual person aligned with God. If you have faith in God and let everyone else do the works, then are you still a Christian? Does God measure your works?

I can not imagine a God who only helps those who help themselves. If this is true, then my faith is for naught, and I’d much rather be an atheist than believe that the God I have had faith in all my life, isn’t going to help me, unless I help myself. Only God knows what is deemed as works, in His eyes. No man has the power to JUDGE my works or your works.

I know of a homeless man. Brought down by drugs and alcohol wandering the streets for his next fix. He don’t seek help for his addiction and sees no problem with himself, he actually likes who he is. Many around him in his family have TRIED to help, but again, he sees no problem. So without seeking help, he remains on the streets squatting from one shelter to the other. But God, in His all powerful glorious love, has saved this man from DEATH on numerous occasions. God did not look the other way, he did not say, “Well when you begin to HELP YOURSELF that is when I will help you!”

Nope, my God has supplied the man food, given him shelter, led him to warmth, when He could have just let him die with the very first beating. Even after losing a digit due to drug use, even after being diagnosed with Hep C, this man is still alive. And God, is STILL helping him. Now I’m also sure that if this man sought help, God would STILL be there to move him forward. But God is also there when the man does NOTHING.

Let me say with all sincerity, God helps EVERYONE that places HIM in their heart. He does not discriminate, he holds no prejudices and He helps ALL. He isn’t holding out a measuring stick and thinking, “Hmm that just wasn’t enough works. Can’t help him/her/them.” Our faith IS NOT measured by our works. Salvation is not gotten by WORKS. GOD LOVES US ALL!!!!

The Lord helps those. Period!