Hi, my name is Amanda Hamilton and I am the editor-in-chief for Mighty Strong Girls.
Once the school year gets rolling, my life is packed. I choose my
extra-curricular activities carefully because I don’t have time for much beyond
homework, work, and practicing my violin.
A recent graduate of Lincoln Land Community College with an associate degree in liberal arts, I will soon move to Millikin University where I will finish my bachelors, double majoring in music and English creative writing. I love to read a good book, go to symphony concerts, hang out with my grandparents on Sunday afternoons, and write music. I like to plan, schedule, and organize.
So where did I find time to be
editor-in-chief for Mighty Strong Girls?
I didn’t find the time. God did.
Honestly, I would have jumped at the chance to write for any
magazine. So when I heard about this new magazine my friend Amy Denney was
starting, I was excited. It was better than just “any magazine.” It was a
Christian magazine for teen girls and Amy planned on touching all the issues I
dealt with as a teen. This magazine was something I would have wanted to read
in high school. It was going to be challenging and informative, fun,
encouraging, and overall a great resource for more than just teen girls. I offered
to write freelance, suspecting I was forfeiting some sleep in the upcoming
semester. She suggested I consider being a columnist. Wow. Yes, I was definitely
forfeiting sleep in the upcoming semester. Goodbye, weekly hour of free time.
Then Amy offered the internship as editor-in-chief. It was the
perfect internship. It was not only writing, but editing experience, something
I’ve considered pursuing as a career when I finish college. And all of it was working
for a compassionate and passionate ministry for teen girls. But the time
involved was a huge brick wall. Goodbye sleep, goodbye free time, goodbye
social life, extra-curricular activities, and sanity. I wanted to do it more
than anything.
That’s when I started to see God happen. I crunched numbers and
realized my college savings would go farther than I thought, meaning that waiting
to find a job for a semester or two would not be stupid. I found I could get
college credit for this internship. It counts toward my major. I just happened
to have a class I could drop, leaving a perfect, three credit hour hole in my
schedule. Mighty Strong Girls fits
very nicely in that hole. If I had looked at Joshua and that whole Jericho
scenario in the Old Testament, maybe I would have remembered that destroying
brick walls is God’s specialty.
So here I am, interning as editor-in-chief of Mighty Strong Girls. I never expected to find an English internship
with a Christian ministry while going to a secular university. This magazine is
as much an opportunity for spiritual growth as it is a professional experience.
God is going to do some amazing things through Mighty Strong Girls. How incredible and humbling that he has chosen
for me to be part of it.
