Is a word-picture worth a thousand words? Maybe. I suppose that it depends on the story. Strike that, it’s more about HOW the story is told. A good storyteller can make sorting paperclips sound interesting.

I love watching a room full of teens sitting bug-eyed on the edge of their seats, drinking in every word that falls off my gilded tongue. Unfortunately, it only seems to happen when I’m telling them a story. The rest of the time I’m speaking, they’re doing what teens do. They flirt, make spit wads or stare off into space, thinking about who knows what.

Finney, Calvin and Wesley will probably roll over in their graves when I say this, but I spend as much time thinking over my stories before a youth group meeting as I do researching my scripture text. Pretty sad, eh? Not really. I paint word-pictures that support the Word of God.

Several months ago, I had an epiphany. I do the same thing when I write my books. Every scene plants a critical element into the reader’s mind, one after another, until a full canvas appears and a light blinks on in the reader’s mind. They get it. A new perspective is born.

I destroyed all but maybe fifty copies of my ill-fated experiment in self publishing. Besides a crappy print quality, the book was light years away from being ready for publication. Still, it is nice to have received informative feedback from so many readers, even if I do get razzed about the typos.

Last Sunday, a young woman cornered me after church. She had in her hand one of those books that escaped incineration. It took all I could do to keep from tearing it from her fingertips and bolting for the door. But before I could execute my snatch and grab, she told me that she loved my book. She had me. I wasn’t going anywhere.

One by one, she recanted her favorite scenes, growing more animated as she went. “That scene where Caleb got set up by the Spaniard and had to fight...” she laughed her butt off. “Then I got so scared when he became a prisoner of the Nephilim, and...” she went on “...and what a love story...”

Then she looked me in the eye, as if she thought I could read her mind and said something that three-quarters of all my readers have told me. “It changed the way I see things...”

Yeah, my head is still swollen from the experience, but what can I say. You couldn’t slap this smile off my face. Still, it’s nice to know that the message wasn’t lost in telling the story.

If you will excuse me now, I will return to my gloating.