Invisible sisters

You may have picked up that I had coffee with someone on Tuesday morning (after the elderly gentleman was intrigued with my working on the park bench).

Here we are - Geneva and I. We are part of a five member Christian international internet-based critique group (too many adjectives, I know). We each are writing different non-fiction things. Once a fortnight we can submit up to 2 000 words to the group for critique. It provides great and needed encouragement in the lonely business of writing. It is also a wonderful ministry to one another as well as to the readers of our work.

I am the baby. All the other ladies are old enough to be my mother! Our lives are very different. One lives in South Africa. The other three, including Geneva, in various corners of the US. And of course me, who sometimes lives here, sometimes lives there.

I've just had a Skype chat with my South African friend and we both realised that an interesting intimacy has grown within the group despite our diversity. Geneva is the only one I've met. The South African has met only one other member. We've never all been together. Even a Skype conference would be difficult as at any given time one member of the group is asleep, just about to go to sleep or just awoken.

We do, however, know a lot about each other through our writing. We've each written about difficult times in our lives; deaths, hospitalisations, transitions, cancer, romance difficulties, divorce etc. So, I shouldn't have worried about meeting Geneva on Tuesday. We had heaps we already knew about each other and stacks to talk about.

We also don't just critique each others work, we pray for one another and communicate at least weekly, although this week my Inbox has been full every morning with the communications going on (a lot happens on the other side of the world while I'm asleep).

So I am very grateful to this small group of women. They are fairly invisible in my life. I don't often talk about them or the work I do each month to help them or the help they give me, but they are an important part of my life. Oh yes, they also can take a lot of credit for how my writing has improved over the last three years and for the fact that I've had a number of things published in that time. They came into my life at a point where I was seeking the Lord's leading for the future. I'm thanking Him for them.