Whom shall I send…..Here I am; send me. Isaiah 6:8 (NLT) 

A storm was brewing to the south and west of us. Forecasters had warned us for days that all the indicators were coming together to suggest a very rough night….but, how bad would it really be? We’d prepared our safe room by adding bottled water, non-perishable snacks, flashlights, batteries, a change of clothes for each of us, and a few important small things we didn’t want to lose. Our phones were fully charged. By late evening news time, our local forecaster said that the storm appeared to be weakening and was making some slight course corrections. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. A little complacency set in until that familiar shrill warning sound came screaming from my phone beside the bed! It was time to get into our safe room!

Not a bad beginning, but in order to make my point, let’s try that paragraph without capitals or punctuation, then imagine reading a three-hundred-page book that way.

(a storm was brewing to the south and west of us forecasters had warned us for days that all the indicators were coming together to suggest a very rough night but how bad would it really be wed prepared our safe room by adding bottled water nonperishable snacks flashlights batteries a change of clothes for each of us and a few important small things we didnt want to lose our phones were fully charged by late evening news time our local forecaster said that the storm appeared to be weakening and was making some slight course corrections maybe it wouldnt be so bad after all a little complacency set in until that familiar shrill warning sound came screaming from my phone beside the bed it was time to get into our safe room)

This illustration shows how simple writing tools add impact and clarification to a string of words that otherwise are very difficult to assimilate. A sentence ends with a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point, and a new sentence begins with a capital letter. You can also use CAPS to emphasize a point, as in a text, WHERE ARE U? And they also offer respect to the proper names of people and places.

A period simply indicates that a portion of the work has ended. A question mark is self-explanatory. An exclamation point indicates surprise, wonder, awe, or even fear. It is often preceded by the word “Wow!” And that can be good or bad. Quotation marks indicate a dialogue between two or more speakers, or they can attribute a quote, but I tend to use italics for my quotes. Apostrophes allow us to contract two words into one or to indicate possession. I often use a series of periods or a long hyphen—to indicate a break in my thoughts, a time period in between two thoughts, or a portion of a quote omitted. Parentheses did not appear in my sample paragraph, but I often use them for further clarification of a grammatically correct sentence. And then there is the comma, an indication to pause, an effective tool to separate words, phrases, and thoughts.

Let me tell you, on a computer, writing even a paragraph incorrectly, void of any capitalization or punctuation, is no easy feat. AI would not allow me to use the word I in the lower case, and it constantly corrected my many intentional errors. However, even though it wants to be a substitute for our creativity, we must check it thoroughly because no matter how hard it tries, it just can’t mimic the “human factor.”

And, as is typical of my messages, there is a purpose behind my rhetoric. You see, I believe that God uses capitalization and punctuation in every aspect of our lives. His many names are capitalized to recognize His ultimate authority. Sometimes, He places a period in our way, a hard stop, a warning to go no further. And then, He may leave us with a question to answer about our future, our blessing of free choice. Each morning, He provides the wonder of the sunrise and adds the sunset as the exclamation to our day. This teaches us about gratitude. He often provides very pregnant pauses between our requests….and His responses, a lesson in patience. And many times during our days, He inserts commas to offer us opportunities to pause, to think, and to reason, possibly to reconsider a course we’ve embarked upon or been tempted to take. Each of His punctuations is a reminder that He is always there and caring for us.

I love the phrase, “It gives me pause.” It makes a comma seem like a well-placed gift, an opportunity to do better, be better.

I think I’m facing a defeat or an end. But it’s only the Lord’s comma—a pause, not an end. (Pray a Word a Day from Guideposts