May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. – Colossians 1:11-13

There are so many aspects of my work as a writer that I love. I enjoy the process; I enjoy what I learn; I enjoy the way that writing feeds my soul; I even enjoy editing, reworking, and fine-tuning. Top to bottom, authoring is a great occupation!

It’s all good; but just about the very best is when my writing gives me the opportunity to connect with an entire community. That’s the beauty of having a regular “column.” In Florida I wrote weekly for The Tampa Tribune; here in North Carolina it’s “Reading Between the Lines,” at Wake Forest Today.

I still write monthly columns for The Christian Voice in Tampa, and FOCUS Magazine in Plant City, but Wake Forest is where my heart hangs out now, and – gradually – I’m beginning to feel that I’m building a relationship with our new home via my writing.

IMPORTANT! If you don’t read my local column – click here! – it would mean a lot to me if you’d give it a look. It is – in short – a key way I’m investing myself here, it’s my evolving interface with the town of Wake Forest.

So I’m going to draw your attention to two recent columns that – I believe – have shifted me from “an interesting writer” to someone who speaks to, and for, this community.

1. CHANGE: The first is yesterday’s piece: Fall, Life, and More Thoughts About Change. “Change is in the air,” I wrote; “there is a time, there is a season. God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3).

I talked about how change is an integral part of the definition of life, and how the fear of change can inhibit our growth as whole people. Read more by clicking here….

2. GRIEF: The second column – “Now we see through a glass, darkly” – was a hard one to write. But it turned out to be a watershed moment for me as I knew immediately that I was saying out loud exactly what the community was struggling to understand about death.

Wake Forest lost four teens in four tragic accidents over the span of two weeks. It left people reeling, and at a loss to know how to express the often contradictory emotions of faith, profound sadness, unbelief, and pain.

It’s a remarkable privilege to be able to put your finger on the pulse of a town, and to help articulate what a community needs to say.

WHY I WRITE: This is exactly why I write. I write so that God can use my gifts to reach inside the souls of other people, and help them experience faith, hope, promise, and goodness in new ways.

For this opportunity, I am grateful. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of Wake Forest, please log in every Thursday, read my column, and then let me know how I’m doing. There is always so much for me to learn.

Peace, hope, and the grace of promise – DEREK