My Mom died of cancer when I was 4 years old. While my Dad was an amazing father and took very good care of my sister and me, there was always something missing in my life, and that was female affirmation. Any female teacher that I had became a substitute mother and I did everything possible to get that person’s approval.

One of the things I loved to do was write, and in grade 2, I would write pages and pages of stories every day and hand them to Miss Barnett (not her real name), to read and tell me how good I was. I must have completely overwhelmed the poor woman because one day she told me to stop writing because I was not good.

I was devastated, and for the next 33 years of my life, I would only write when I had to!

But…

God doesn’t forget the gifts that He places within us, and at the age of 40, He put me in a position where I had a tough decision to make. For a long time, I had wanted my own website to encourage people who work from home, but they were so expensive, and I didn’t have the skills to do it myself.

One of my mentors had an exclusive deal where his company would set up a website, and a blog and the price was what I could afford. I was so happy; it was a like a dream come true. There was only one problem; I had no clue what a blog was and when I found out, my heart sank so low because the first thought was, “I am not a good writer, I am going to have to give this up.”

But…

God wanted me to step out in faith and that still, small voice said to me, “You have so much knowledge to share, just try one blog post. You can’t quit now. If you write it and people don’t like it, you can stop, knowing that at least you tried.” I wavered back and forth for quite a while, but I finally decided I would write one blog post.

Three days later and after about 40 restarts, I had a half-page blog post. With fear and trembling, I posted it to my site and had a few people read it (including my husband) whom I trusted to tell me the truth. Guess what? They liked it, so I started to write more.

But…

God was not done with me yet. About 18 months later, He required another big step. Writing a book. Writing blog posts was ok, but ME write a book? I am not good enough to do that. The Holy Spirit inside of me just wouldn’t quit. Every day, He gently showed me that I could do it and so began my year-long process of trying to figure out how to write a book.

It wasn’t easy, and there were some major hindrances that almost stopped me completely, but God was faithful, and as I sought Him out, the solutions came. Once the first book was finished, the next two came in less than a year and I haven’t stopped since.

But…

God had even more. In 2015 my son was getting married. Things were tight financially as we had to replace two vehicles that year, but I wanted to make my son’s wedding the best I could. One day, I was on a freelancer site, looking for someone to do some graphic work for me and the thought came, “I wonder what people pay for writing jobs?” and so I checked it out and could not believe how much people were willing to fork out.

Again, I had to fight myself because I knew I could write my own books, but was I good enough to write for others? God spoke to my heart and said, “I have gifted you from the time you were small to be a writer, and now I want you to help others live their dreams of getting their messages down on paper.” And so I started applying for jobs, and got one right away, and since then I have completed 20 books for others and am currently working on another five.

The moral of this story is: it is never too late to start walking in the gifts that God has given to you. It is never too late to make a difference. Will it be hard? Sometimes.

But…

God will use what you give Him with an open hand, and you will be amazed at how great it feels when those gifts that have laid dormant finally bear fruit. You will never regret the things you work on for the Lord, only the things you don’t!!!

~ By Kim Thompson-Pinder

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