Thoughts on Being a Writer

This weekend I spent time catching up with a good friend. She is a wife, mother of 4, works and is studying to be a nurse. Talk about a full plate! Our lives could not be more different and I think part of the gift of our friendship is the pleasure we take in that difference. She is definitely someone I consider a “cheerleader” in my life and I’m always reminded of the Lord’s blessings when talking with her. I caught her up on my trip to Haiti and she oo’d and ahh’d over my pics just as I had hoped. We ate at one of our favorite spots and because it was the first day of fall I indulged in pumpkin pancakes, completely ruining my 2 mile run that morning.  
We played a game of back and forth, filling each other in on our lives, trying oh so hard to stretch the 2 hours we had together. This was her only free Saturday for the next few months and she needed to get back to her hubby. I was so blessed she shared her time with little old me and of course had to capture the moment with a pic.    
After a quick stop at the store to pick up a few items we lingered at my car soaking up our last bits of conversation. I shared about my journey in emotional healing and how much my writing has played into that. To which she replied that my journey in healing was inspiring her in her own. I was shocked. I never think about how my actions and me just living my life is influencing those around me. I only feel my own weaknesses and the difficulty to push forward. She only sees the progress. That, again, is why I like talking to her. So often I feel I am behind or struggling and then God uses others to help me see the success and the fruit. She called me a “writer” and chastised me for downplaying my writing. I explained I don’t think of myself as a “writer” b/c it wasn’t a calling or title I was chasing after. I pursued business and therefore that was the way I assumed God would use me. Writing was birthed out of the standstill in my career. It was fruit from the waiting. But I kept her words in mind and then when another person called me a “writer” shortly thereafter I had to turn that word over in my mind a few times. Am I a writer? Doesn’t it sound silly for a published author to ask such a question? But I must ask it because there is somewhere in my heart that I have not thought of myself that way. And if I have not then that means I am not fully seeing myself as I truly am.  

She and I parted ways and I went back to my fabulously full existence in this season and she went back to the grind of family, work, and school. My day was full of conversations like these with friends and family and it was so evident to me how God was bringing forth wholeness. After experiencing so many broken, unhealthy relationships ending in trauma it gets hard to believe I could have anything different. So often I feel the losses. But in the midst of those losses is the gain. The restoration. The overflow.

I have had such peace and joy since realizing I need His grace. I have been able to let go of the burden of unknowingly trying to earn my calling. I’m awakening to the truth that any gift He gives is undeserved and that is in fact the purpose of a gift. So how could I possibly work for His blessings? I can’t. He just gives them b/c of who He is.  

It’s not about me.

SHALOM