When I started writing for real the days were dark.
Each night I would come home from my teaching job to a husband who was awaiting a heart donor for a transplant. Sitting there on the sofa, right beside him, I pounded away. Word after word. Sentence after sentence.
With each new thought my soul opened up and released.
The words came easily back then. I go back and read those blog posts and actually don’t think they’re half bad. The words came from a deep place, and I feel that. It’s like they had a heart of their own.
At first my writing was cathartic and that was it. But then I thought maybe, just maybe, someone else could benefit from reading them too. Maybe there was life in my words passed just what they gave me.
As you can imagine, I was pretty angry at sin and this fallen world. and that sickness and heart transplants exist at all. Never was there a day that I got angry at God. I knew the enemy, and I became hell-bent-and-determined to not let him get the best of me whether John lived or died.
And so I prayed.
I told God that conceptually I didn’t understand what He was doing because I’m human, and that’s pretty much impossible. But I faithfully understood. I gave John over to Him and vowed that whatever happened He would get the glory for my stories – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Then my writing changed.
The next summer we were at the beach on vacation. I lounged in a chair next to my husband with his vertical war wound zigzagged down his chest. I held three writing magazines in my hand. I read them cover to cover, enjoying ever moment, determined to become a better writer.
And I wrote.
I wrote about life with a dying husband. I wrote about being a recovering single. I wrote about becoming a mom.
But that summer past, and somewhere along the way I started to resent writing. It became about mission statements and platforms and getting published and mastermind groups and being asked to join the “in crowd” and making pinnable images and even making money.
Comparison, jealousy, and striving got the best of me. Writing became a tool I tried to manipulate instead of a gift I offered back. It wasn’t life-giving. It wasn’t good.
No longer was I doing what God simply called me to do – what I promised Him I would do. No longer was I reflecting the glory that is His.
Isn’t this true for many feats we set out to do with the best intentions? Whether it’s writing or starting a new habit or forgiving someone or letting go of the past or focusing more on our family or releasing a dream or surrendering to God?
God simply tells us to do it, but we make it more. We focus on the how’s and why’s. We start looking to the right and to the left when His glory is in front.
“Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.” Proverbs 4:25-27
I’m tired. I’m tired of chasing every other writer. I’m tired of the right and the left. It’s lifeless.
I no longer have time for lifeless. I just want when writing used to be good. The time is now to just get to work with His glory out in front.
What is it that God has simply called you to do but instead you’ve started looking to the right and to the left?
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