Well, He is eager to give you His side of the story.
On many things . . . .
How much He loves you
Where to focus prayer
How He is ordering your day and your steps
AND, where He wants you to focus your time and energy during specific seasons
Such is the case with me this season after heading for the hills last year to “re-group, readjust, reassess.” The 3 R's.
And after I spent some time freeing my schedule, and slashing good things (notice GOOD things) from my calendar, I tried to lurch into the reassessing stage.
HOLD ON, NOT SO FAST! saith the Lord. The white correction ink had barely dried from the erasures on my calendar, when the phone fell silent. To wit: my days went from busy and long to silent and long. With those silent and long days came some anxiety, boredom, frustration (What is the deal here, Lord?), and I found myself wandering aimlessly around the house and then the streets. Suddenly on the way to the grocery store one day, I discovered a new treasure.
Peace.
I almost heard the Lord sigh as if to say, "Ah, now we can talk!"
My quest to peace didn't end there. Then and only then did the Lord talk to me about what He wanted me to do this season – write. “Your heart, your soul, your mind to your pen, and your pen to your paper.”
For those who know me, I have spent better than 50 years speaking my heart, my mind, and my soul. It took the Lord more than a few years to shut me up! Now that He has shut me up, He wants me to open up again, this time with the written word.
Isn't that just God though!!!
Now, I have no idea -- NONE -- as to what to write.
Starting this blog I believe was like sitting down to a piano after years of not playing -- practicing scales, stumbling over notes, establishing habits and patterns. Though it was spotty at best, I did manage to establish a rhythm and garner a few followers.
So thank you followers!
But when I signed up for a writer's class and a critique group last month for the first time in 20 years, and assignments started coming down, I realized that to write one's heart, one's mind, and one's soul takes what we resist in order to bear the fruit,
work and the time to do that work.
I've been resisting -- but when faced with my first writing assignment in a very long time, I realized that I have grown. I did not want to write what had begun to come more easily -- my blog, or my journals. I wanted to stretch!
So, I dusted off a novel which has been shelved for 20 years, rewrote parts of it, took a deep breath, and laid it upon the altar of the critique group to sock it to me!
I lived through it! Most of all I learned what I learned from waiting on God -- this is a process. He does want me to write, but why? Who knows!!! Every writer fears just about everything there is to fear in facing a blank page. And more. But I stepped over the comfort of familiar. And the unfamiliar -- when I took the first step, was whoa! OUT THERE!
So, for me, what is out there now, will not be out there six months from now if I continue "practicing." What I know now, is that God is with me in this venture, and if He wants me to write, then, I best do it. Fearful as I am, this round, I put my big girl pants on, and took a step to the next level of being a big girl. And for now,
that feels really good.
