by Cynthia Ruchti
Most weekends of their college days, two young friends of mine volunteered at an animal shelter. They bathed the dogs, walked them, played, exercised them, and more than anything let them know they were appreciated. Even the saddest cases received attention they wouldn't otherwise have known.
The shelter where the girls volunteered took great care to match abandoned animals with the right individual or family. Temperaments of both canine and humans helped inform the decisions. From the moment a dog arrived at the shelter, the goal became adoption--finding it a home. Not just any home. The right home.
In some ways, the writer's role is similar. We discover rescue-ideas as we walk through life, take them home, spiff them up, and then look for the perfect new home for the idea--one where it will be welcomed and add to the interactive experience between thought and heart.
II Timothy 2:2 urges us to take what we've learned from God's Word and from godly teachers and "entrust" those things to others who can benefit from them and communicate them to still others.
God is the ultimate economist and He invented the Rescue/Adoption principle. What we discover in His Word impacts our own lives. But it has the potential to reach beyond that moment or season to impact the lives of others as we watch for adoptive homes for those nuggets of truth.
The act of entrusting our discoveries to others opens our eyes to the depth and value of the truth. It's often in the process of sharing--matchmaking the idea, promise, comfort, encouragement, challenge with the one waiting for it--that we see its true worth.
November is National Adoption Month. Child adoption is the focus. But perhaps we novelists can gain from considering the parallels in searching for the right home for our ideas to land. Where is the reader who is a perfect fit? Who will fall in love with "that face" of truth within our stories?
Great thoughts, Cynthia. I find it fascinating how God gives each of us different paths to those stories. Some know the theme when they start out and others not until the end. Either way thought, I love the thought of adopting that idea for a story.
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