Doing Life Together

Tuesday’s Children, our writer’s critique group, held its first weekly meeting roughly 20 years ago. Its purpose was to sharpen our writing skills through critique and encouragement. We write in many different genres, span decades in our ages, and are of varying marital statuses. The one thing that binds our group of roughly seven women is that we all want to glorify God in our writing and our lives. When we first started meeting, we didn’t know we would become one another’s lifelines that would keep us afloat in life’s rough waters.

Every Tuesday morning we gather to share coffee, sometimes tears, and always laughter. We’ve gotten one another through problems with children, debilitating illnesses, financial stress, deaths of loved ones, marriage breakups, and mental illness. Our feelings have been hurt, shared, and soothed. We’ve laughed ‘til we cried at stories of our children and grandchildren, airport mix-ups, writer’s conference memories, and jokes played on each other. But most importantly, we are simply present in each others’ lives, no matter what.

Prayer is a part of every meeting and is as vital as the manuscript critiquing we do. It allows us to be vulnerable and share the tough spots in our lives, receive immediate prayer support, and leave knowing God is already at work on the problem.

This is life at its richest—sharing it with close friends who point you to God.

I pray you have such a friendship group. But whether you do or not, this blog is for you. We want you to share in the hope and encouragement we’ve found, not only in each other, but in God. We’ll share our joys and struggles and you can share yours. We’ll even update you on our writing projects as they come along. So if you’re feeling blue today or if you’re riding cloud nine, you’re not alone. Let’s connect through this blog and share the journey. C’mon. Let’s do life together!