Today’s post has a two-fold goal.  1. To provide a quick glimpse at my past year, and 2. To exhort my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Year In Review

January: I finished the manuscript for A Mighty Fortress and sent it to the Women of Faith writing contest as well as the Injoy Publications contest.

February: On the ninth, I had officially been working at my part-time job for one year.

March: I was part of a musical ensemble for Easter at our church.  I played the flute.

April: I found out that I was a semi-finalist for the Injoy Publications contest.

May: The 22nd was my last day at Bible Study Fellowship for the year.  We had a very encouraging study in the book of Genesis.

June: Spring Chicken butchering at my uncle’s house with good fellowship with the family.

July: This month was by far the busiest of the year.  I housesat for my aunt from the end of June until July 5 at which time I went home to assist my family in taking care of four of my cousins.  All boys ages 1-8.  The following week I was chauffeur for my cousins and volunteer at VBS.  Very fun, but also extremely exhausting.

August: I was hard at work with the edits of draft 2 of my book.  On the 23rd, I sent the draft off to my beta-readers.

September: I researched marketing and publishing for my book.

October: A good writer friend (and fellow author) came over for my 23rd birthday.

November: This month should have the heading A Mighty Fortress.  I was inundated with it.  I finished the final edits, sent it to Aubrey Hansen for formatting, got the book cover finalized by Perry Elisabeth, ordered the proof, made a sight-unseen decision to do a matte cover rather than a glossy cover, and hardest of all, clicked the Publish button for my  book.  And it was published, on November 19, 2013.

December: Marketing, Christmas decorating, marketing, Christmas present wrapping, marketing, Christmas baking, marketing, writing, marketing.   Do you catch a theme here? 😉

And there is my year in review.  Now onto the toughest part of my post.

An Exhortation:

Dear friends,

Early this week, I was involved in a somewhat intense theological Facebook debate. Due to the nature of many of the comments, I was counseled by a friend that it might be best to delete the post since comments cannot be disabled. I warned that the post might get deleted if those involved in the debate didn’t settle down. In the meantime, things were said and posted that hurt at least two people that I know, including myself. I know it was not intentional, but it happened.

Those of you who are close to me know that I tend to let things roll off my back fairly well. It is hard to hurt me with careless words, but this really, really hurt. So much so that my family noticed it. I am usually also good at hiding what I am feeling. I finally decided to give a final warning that if the debate did not stop, I would delete the post. I honestly do not know what else was said. All I know is that my Dad told me to delete the post, so I had it deleted.

Why am I saying all of this? As a Christian, as a friend, and as a Facebook member who believes most (if not all) of her friends are also Christians, I would like to submit a plea to all those who get involved in any debates on any social media outlet. Especially when they are about politics and theology. I submit to you 3 rules to debate by:

1. Realize that you will never, ever convince someone else that you are correct.
2. Always use logic. This doesn’t mean you can never have an “emotional” response, but please do not use ad hominem attacks, circular reasoning, or any other logical fallacies. If you don’t know what those are, check out the book “Fallacy Detective” by Hans Bluedorn.
3. Pray about your comment before, during, and after writing it.

Three questions to ask before hitting enter:

Ask yourself:
1. “Could this comment potentially hurt someone due to the way it is worded?”
2. “Will what I say add to the debate or just fuel it?”
3. “Is what I said logical or just said out of anger, frustration, joy, _____ (fill in the emotion)?”

Thank you for reading this lengthy post and I pray that it made you think about how you approach any situation.

God bless you all and have a blessed New Year,

Faith