A Month of Giveaways: Week 2

I loved reading your comments about connection! It seems there are many common ways to feel connected but it was interesting to hear the little differences from person to person. The winner of the book The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea is "Just Me" who said: I feel connection when talking with someone who has walked a path similar to mine. 

Congratulations! Please email your address to christopherbethany@juno.com and I will contact Emily about getting you your book!

And now, for giveaway number two... but first, a story. 

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This year my blog will be ten years old. I've written 800 some posts since that humble little beginning in 2011 and although I've sent a few articles here and there, I've never published anything anywhere except in this little corner until last year. Last year, in August, I randomly sent a pitch to Daughter's of Promise, an Anabaptist based magazine for women. They put out a magazine quarterly and choose their content from pitches submitted by people from all over the country. I'd submitted a pitch before, and nothing had come of it; I fully expected the same thing to happen this time. 

Weeks later, when I received an email saying my pitch had been chosen, not for the magazine, but for a collection of bonus articles they were putting together, I could hardly believe my eyes! This came during a long stretch of silence for me; a long stretch of wondering if I'd ever write again. I had been asking the Lord a lot of questions about my blog and writing, and that email felt like a direct touch from Him. I still get a lump in my throat thinking about it. (Incidentally, it was shortly after that email that I received another email asking if I would want to write this article for the Calvary Messenger. Goosebumps.)

I think a lot of bloggers can identify with a strange conundrum in writing. The very fact that one likes to write is often indicative of a preference to remain out of the limelight. And yet, there is something within us that also secretly dreams of being seen -- why else do we write, after all? Well, Daughter's of Promise magazine is certainly a place to be seen! This is the place where the cool people's names appear; the place where you find the authors of popular blogs and noteworthy women. I would be lying if the idea of appearing in those ranks didn't go to my head just a little. We even expanded on the whole thing and asked about my daughter doing illustrations for my article -- she dreams of selling her artwork someday, and what better way to get her name out in the big wide world?

Writing for Daughter's of Promise is a long process of writing and working with an editor and tweaking and re-writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Adding the artwork was a bit stressful and complicated and I labored over writing a bio in third person that didn't sound like some woman I had never met before, but finally the deed was done. 

Then came the big day! I received an email from the editor of Daughter's of Promise magazine with a link to download the collection of bonus content for the Contentment issue. I opened the file, and right there was the table of contents with my article title and my name behind it. Wow. I scrolled quickly through, eager to find the finished work at last. And there it was -- the title, the article, the artwork -- and no name attached to it whatsoever. No name of the author, no credit to the artist, no third person bio. I scrolled quickly back and forth, confirming that every other article included those details and that really, no, mine did not. 

I looked at my daughter blankly, "You are not going to believe this! What do I even do now? Do I say something? It's digital content, I suppose they could go in and still fix it? Unbelievable!" And what did my daughter do? She started laughing. "So much for all the 'getting our names out there'!" She exclaimed. "But how can you say anything? Wouldn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of your article?" Slowly, what she was saying soaked in, and I could only shake my head and agree. What had I written about? Treasure in Heaven. 

Ahhh, the human-ness of my heart; writing about Treasure in Heaven while secretly trying to store up a stash here on earth. I hope I learned a lesson. 

I don't think it would have been wrong for me to bring it to the editor's attention -- obviously, I'm telling you about it now, so it is no longer a secret! But in the moment, it definitely felt like God saying, "Check your heart there, sister. I'll give you opportunities but it's not about you, honey."

This week I am giving away the latest issue of the Daughter's of Promise magazine. 

I know many of you may receive this magazine regularly. If you do, you're still eligible to enter this giveaway! This will be a free one that you can bless a friend with. To enter, leave a comment. If you share a "pride before a fall" story of your own, I'll enter your name twice.

If you are interested in the bonus content -- 9 articles about contentment -- including my name free one, you can download it for free right here.  My article is a very condensed version of the Treasure in Heaven series I shared here several years ago. 

**The winner must have a US address the magazine can be shipped to.