Crystal A. Murray is a 43 year old, married (to David, the handsome guy in the picture,) Christian woman who writes, edits, teaches, counsels, speaks, learns, sings, ministers, and--above all else--constantly seeks a deeper and closer walk with God.

As a Christian, she believes she is a constant "work-in-progress" under the authoring and editing hand of her Creator and Redeemer. Crystal does not like religiosity or pretension and doesn't believe God does either. She also doesn't like anti-pretension to become an excuse for uncontrolled behavior.

As a writer, Crystal almost always has a work-in-progress (WIP). Her current WIP is a devotional compilation called Good Morning Christian Writer which will include 366 daily devotions written specifically for an audience of Christians who write. Each devotion will also be coupled with a writing exercise to help writers get their pens to paper (or fingers to keyboards) on a regular basis. To query as to whether Crystal is still accepting submissions to this book (or others planned for the series), send an e-mail to "morningwriter at gmail.com" (in the correct e-mail format with spaces removed and the "at" replaced by @ of course) and request guidelines and samples.

As a child of God, Crystal desires to be the best she can be for God, circumcised in heart toward Him while keeping her walk with Him simple as stated in Micah 6:6-8. She believes in personal integrity, which means she does her best to be honest, moral, ethical, giving, and sincere. Crystal believes everything in her life has some connection to God, whether He put it there or whether He is just walking her through whatever it is. She believes God is constantly by her side, walking and talking with her, and listening to her.

Finally, some of Crystal's suggestions to avoid setting a bad example for the name and/or cause of Christ (since she believes God pays the ultimate price for this) include the following:

Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength;

Don't be judgmental (but be discerning as God leads);

Avoid pride (but be confident in God);

Be humble (but not humiliated);

Be a peace-maker (though not necessarily a peace-keeper);

And as a final piece of advice, Crystal recommends that Christians of all people should avoid passing around untruths, hoaxes, man-made traditions, or urban legends. She says, "Verify everything you believe with God and His Holy Word." (In addition, when in doubt about something you "heard somewhere", Crystal recommends a visit to Snopes.com at http://www.snopes.com.)

P.S. Crystal is also always a student. In addition to learning more about editing through her current work-in-progress, she is learning medical coding and billing to increase her usefulness as the office assistant to a local chiropractor. If she ever seems to disappear from responding to her visitors here, she is probably either editing or studying ;-).