Convalescence

GCD Newsletter – Monday, August 1, 2022

I’m typically pretty healthy. I probably work out 5 times a week and don’t mind getting up early to work a part-time job before I go to work at our church. I’m thankful to God for this health.

But this last week, I haven’t done hardly anything; I’m recovering from a surgery I had to fix an athletic injury. In the spring I helped coach a local high school track team, and as fun as it was to run with the varsity athletes, the running (and the varsity athletes) kind of beat me up. So now I’m resting. Intentionally.

The older word for this kind of rest was convalescence, which is a word I don’t think we use much anymore, and I’m not sure why. But this experience of intentionally resting to recover back to health caused me to appreciate in deeper ways the excellent article from Erin Jones about her extended but unexpected time of recovery.

In the article, Jones tells her story of recovering from the condition commonly called “long Covid,” or “Post-Covid Syndrome” in clinical terms, which took hold of her life “with a debilitating grip.” I’m going to give away the final line to the article because I believe you’ll still want to go back and read the whole piece. “I may have entered that season bewildered and demoralized,” she writes, “but I have come through on the other side marveling at the love of God for me.”

Also on the website last week were helpful reflections from our staff writer, Lara d’Entremont. She wrote about the difference between repentance and self-hate. I would call the difference between the two something of a “continental divide”: whichever side your land toward—whether toward true repentance or toward self-hate—will lead you to a very different place.

Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com

The Difference Between Repentance and Self-Hate
— by Lara d’Entremont (laradentremont.com)

While beating us up for how awful we believe we are, self-hate also whispers to us that if we tried just a smidge harder, we could find the strength to obey on our own. But we can’t.

Hygge in the Long Night of Covid: My Story of Finding Hope in God’s Presence
— by Erin Jones (pencilanduke.com)

In our suffering, we often want to hear God’s voice say, “Fear not, for I will fix it and make it go away.” Instead, he offers something infinitely more precious: himself.

Writing for GCD

If you’d like to write for GCD, please send article pitches to me (Benjamin@GCDiscipleship.com).

For those new to writing for publication, basically an article pitch is a thumbnail sketch of what the article might look like, what themes you’ll cover, any key illustrations or metaphors, and why you think it would be a good fit for the GCD audience. It’s also helpful to have a line or two with your bio.

Sending article pitches tends to be less risky than submitting a whole article, which may or may not be accepted. The back-and-forth of pitches also allows an editor to give input to the shape of the article, which helps improve the final product and also increases the chances of publication because the editor already has buy-in.

We’ll take pitches on any articles that make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus—but I’ll mention here that this fall we hope to run a series of articles about “how God still changes people,” so any pitches on that theme will be especially helpful.

The GCD Writers’ Cohort

A few years ago I went through the GCD Writers’ Cohort. It’s a six-month program that offers private lectures from published evangelical authors, as well as putting you in contact with other like-minded writers. Our next cohort round begins in late September, but we’d love for you to sign up now! The twelve spots in the cohort typically fill up. You can read more about it here.

Thanks for reading,

Benjamin Vrbicek
Managing Editor for Gospel-Centered Discipleship