Waaay back in 2004 I started work on my first novel. I'm a pantser so I didn't work with an outline, but I did have a good idea of how the story would begin and how it would end.
For a while, I wrote consistently and the words pretty much flowed from my head and onto the page. I was part of a monthly writing group that offered amazing feedback, encouragement, and support.
Then I got stuck. Hit a roadblock in the plot and didn't know where to go, what to write next. Somewhere along the way I also lost much of my work due to a computer snafu. Here's a fact I can endorse from experience: always, always back up your back-up.
A member of our writing group passed away after a years'-long battle with breast cancer. I hadn't realized how much of the glue she must have been because our group fell apart and has never regained its momentum.
I started a writing course with author J.A. McLachlan. Her feedback on my work was great but her gentle suggestions made it clear that I needed to pretty much start over.
Then Covid hit. My mom fell and moved in with us. My daughter boomeranged back home as well. And now my son has returned. While I'm happy to have a full house and to care for the people God's placed in my life, it's also meant setting my project aside for this season. We talked more about this in my August post.
So, in terms of strategies I'd normally suggest to someone who's stuck - take a break and work on writing something else, seek feedback from others and see if it generates new ideas or directions, ask yourself 'what if this?/what if that?' - none of those help me right now. I also find it difficult to get up any earlier in the morning or stay awake any later at night. The one thing I can do is read other people's books. As I said in the August post, "Reading
is an important activity for writers as we learn from both good and bad
writing and get ideas for subjects we might want to explore further
through our own work." All is not lost.
As I was scrolling through Facebook this morning, I found some encouragement on Jennifer Rothschild's page. She said:
Sometimes
we look at Psalm 37:4 as a blank check. We think that if we delight in
God, He will give us what we want. But the emphasis of the verse is on
delighting. When we delight in God, He places in us the desires He wants
us to have. “It is God who works in you,” Paul reminds us, “to will
and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). When our
delight is in God, we can trust that our desires will be what He wants
for us. That way we never settle for less!
Today instead of worrying about my set-aside project, wondering if it will ever get finished, I choose to focus on delighting on God. I want nothing less than His best for me, and that may mean forgetting the novel and all the years I poured into it. I know the time wasn't wasted as I improved my ability and skill.
God has good plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11) and for my writing. When the time is right, He will show me the next step(s). My trust and my hope are in Him and nothing else. Nothing is better than Him!
I confess that
I didn’t post last month. I was sick of the pandemic; sick of thinking, hearing
and reading about Covid; tired of wearing a mask whenever I had to go out; just
exhausted from the whole thing. It’s been a long two years, amen?
Saying that, it’s ironic that when I thought about what to write for today, Covid came to mind, at least as a springboard. Over the last 24 months, this too-long season of coronavirus, God has been bringing change. Largely cooped up, with pretty much nowhere to go but work and the grocery store, my husband and I were exposed to a wider variety of voices through reading and watching livestream sermons. Instead of just attending our own church, we watched services of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Emmaus Road, FirstBaptist in Atlanta, and others, learning from different teachers. We read Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher, Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James, Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers, all of which God used to transform our hearts and our thinking. We started asking questions we had never asked before, wondering why we were suddenly discovering things previously hidden (to us at least), and somewhat shocked out of our complacency.
The Holy Spirit gives us new life.
Jesus wants to
renew us. In Matthew 5:6, he said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness for they shall be filled.” In John 7:37, He said, “Let anyone who
is thirsty come to Me and drink.” We aren’t meant to get stagnant in our faith;
we are meant to be touched by living water.
Streams of water.
There is a
familiar saying – “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” It’s
possible that changes in our family circumstances over the last few years,
combined with the realities of life during a global upheaval, readied us to
receive new information and to allow the Holy Spirit to speak, giving us fresh
insight and understanding.
Jesus said that
it was better for Him to leave the disciples so that the Holy Spirit could come:
“But I tell you
the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the
Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) will
not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you [to be
in close fellowship with you].” ~John 16:7, AMP
He also said that
the “Holy Spirit…leads into all truth.” ~John 14:17
The Holy Spirit speaks through the pages of God's Word.
What does the
coming of the Holy Spirit mean to me personally, though? Well, it definitely
means having the best Teacher I could possibly have. As I ask the Spirit to
guide my understanding of the Word, He reveals things I wouldn’t otherwise see
or comprehend. It means I can uncover new riches in the treasure of God’s Word even
after reading the same verse or passage for the umpteenth time. His Word never
becomes stale but is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12). The coming of the Holy
Spirit also means being filled with Christ’s Spirit so that I have all that I
need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) - love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Am I perfect?
No, but the One who dwells within me is. He helps me in my weakness and intercedes
for me, convicting me when I’ve missed the mark in order to keep our fellowship
sweet.
I recently started reading Kim Walker-Smith’s Brave Surrender and
love this description of the Holy Spirit at work at a Jesus Culture concert some time ago:
"‘How He Loves’ was the last song in our set, and when we finally
reached it, I could feel the atmosphere change in the room. The presence of the
Holy Spirit became as tangible as the nose on my face. I could feel His love
filling the room like a heavy, warm blanket."
Kim goes on to share how desperately she “wanted to put words to
what was happening in the room” and how what flew out of her mouth was
completely unexpected (the complete video, found here, is worth watching). That’s often how it is when the Holy Spirit moves, isn’t
it? When He gives us the words, whether as worshippers, intercessors,
prophesiers, or writers, we know it’s from Him.
For various reasons my life hasn’t really been my own for the last
couple of years. The question is, should it be? If I belong to Him, and I do,
then my life is His and should have been His from that initial moment of
surrender. But just like my writing (when I get a chance to do it), I am a work
in progress. And so are you. And so are the authors and pastors we both admire.
As I’ve been growing as a worshipper this year, God keeps bringing
songs to my mind unbidden. This morning it was this one: Holy Spirit, another Jesus Culture song. Coincidence? I think not.
