Being Brave Enough to Say YES to God's Call

By Rachael Gilbert

God's Brave Women - Rachael's Story

I was making my grocery shopping list as I heard our guest speaker say, “If you want to be a leader, you need to know how to write.”

This speaker was also an author, and she had come to teach us about writing. Her session was one of six in the course I was enrolled in at our church called WILD: Women In Leadership Development.

I was all for developing my leadership skills, but I had no idea that meant I would need to work on speaking and writing. When I heard this session was on writing, I dismissed it because I never considered myself a writer. English was my weakest subject in high school, while I cleped out of my college math courses. The only writing this math brain had ever done was in my diary, and the only person who read that was my nosey older sister.

But I knew the Lord was calling me to be a leader.

The teacher explained that, as leaders, we may be called upon to write an article or create other resources. She suggested starting a blog to “work on our writing.” I put that in quotation marks because my first thought is the episode from Friends where Ross “works on his music.” If you haven’t seen it, imagine a teenage boy sitting on the stairs doing his best to play his keyboard while everyone else is putting their fingers in their ears because it’s so painful to listen.

Because I was determined to be obedient to this call of leadership in my life, I started my first blog called Life Outside the Shell. It was founded on 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given you a spirit of fear or timidity, but power, love, and a sound mind.” My shaky hands put together my first blog post, and much to my surprise, I enjoyed writing. I was even more shocked to learn that people loved to read my writing!

Fast forward seven years and as I write these words I am about to submit my first manuscript to my publishing house. That’s right! This “math mind” girl went from only having a diary to being a published author!