When I first started blogging, I ended each post with a writing/reflection prompt, and continued that practice over the years. Most of the writing prompts were questions based on a particular blog post, but sometimes I would include a suggested writing exercise:
- What helps you rest from your work?
- Are your neighbours strangers, acquaintances, or a regular part of your life? In what way are you and I online neighbours even if we don’t actually live next door to one another?
- How have you benefited from mentors in your life? In what ways are you engaged in mentoring others?
- What seeds have you received that you’ve never planted? What visions have lain dormant that you’d like to grow?
- Choose a letter of the alphabet, and write your own paraphrase of Psalm 23.
Some readers have used these and other prompts for their own blogging. Some have shared a public comment at the end of a blog post, or responded privately for their eyes only in a personal journal, or thought about the question without writing a single word. Others quite likely have ignored them altogether.
So you may or may not have noticed that suddenly the writing/reflection prompts disappeared from my blog posts last fall. I’ve been so busy that I scarcely noticed that I had stopped adding them. But just as suddenly I missed them.
I missed ending with a prompt that invited further reflection and interaction. I missed the questions that reminded me that no piece of writing is ever really finished, for there are always more questions than answers and always something that could be added, subtracted, or refined in some way. I missed people responding back to me with comments and by email. I missed the prompts because somehow my blog articles seemed unfinished without them.
So I went back and added writing/reflection prompts for the last few months where they’ve been missing, and thought I’d list them here too:
- What place does faith have in your life?
- Who have been your companions in the darkness of doubt and difficulty?
- Do you have a star word or one word for this year? Why or why not?
- Where do you long for healing?
- List ten blessings from 2020.
- In this guest post, Charlotte Donlon writes, “I’ve become better at noticing how I experience connection and isolation.” How do you experience connection and isolation?
- What are you waiting for?
- In what ways do you find comfort in the “thoughts and prayers” of others?
- “Make haste to help him, O God.” These words from Psalm 38:22 welled up in me from deep within, in the King James Version that I had memorized long ago. What words or phrases of Scripture have been embedded in you?
- Do you read Scripture from a printed book or in digital format? Which do you prefer, and why?
- What times of “crisis” and “opportunity” can you identify in your own life?
I look forward to adding more writing/reflection prompts on future posts. If you find them helpful, I’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to add a link below, or send me a comment. But, of course, there’s absolutely no pressure, so feel free just to let them go if you wish. Either way, I’m glad to have them back!
Writing/Reflection Prompt: Choose one of the prompts included in this post.
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For more on writing and other acts of faith,
April Yamasaki 
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