Every month or two I end up taking a week or so off - by which I mean, not work on writing or extra housework for a couple days when I'm actually home. Usually it happens when something goes wrong, like last week, when I had the little bit of a tummy bug my loving hubby shared with me, and then didn't sleep for three days, thanks to feeling yucky and that dratted full moon. Or because there's just too much going on and my introverted soul is burnt out. Anyway, regardless the cause, I'm learning to accept it as a good thing, rather than beat myself up and feel guilty, which has always been my go-to response in the past. Instead I'll painstakingly pick out a new book or book series on Kindle and binge read. I used to find a TV series to watch, but I've found that that doesn't really do anything other than pass time. Reading renews my imagination and heals my heart like watching movies never could. And taking time out to do that is so refreshing and necessary.
So last week, as I was saying, ended up being one of those recharging weeks, or part of it anyway. There were still a million projects going on, which have carried over into this week, keeping me way too busy for comfort. But in the in-between times I've been working my way through a new series I discovered: The Staff and the Sword by Patrick W. Carr. I just finished the last one yesterday.
This has been one of those book series that picks up my world off its foundations and then shatters it. Every once in a while one of those will come along, and usually it's when I'm not expecting it. I read the description of the first book, A Cast of Stones, and nothing about it shouted "You will be destroyed!" but here I am, reeling and wondering what hit me.
As a writer I can appreciate good writing, perhaps on a deeper level than most, since I understand what goes into it. As an intuitive personality type, where literally every thing I think about is connected to every other thing, all it takes at times is a spark of an idea to start that blaze going. Well, this book had more than a spark waiting for me. Its themes of sacrifice and service are so achingly and beautifully presented, over and over again, ideas and images and scenes building upon each other into a crescendo as sharp and powerful as a sword thrust... I think it has touched every area of thought for me, from life, to faith, to philosophy, to worldview, and more than anything else, my own writing. As if I'd been painting portraits with finger paints, and then one day someone showed me the work of Da Vinci or Michelangelo, and now suddenly I'm just like "What am I even doing here? I have no right to wield the tools of my craft."
I suppose every once in a while it's good for a writer to be humbled. To find something to strive toward. There have been other authors and other books that have humbled me. But why does it at times have to feel like being undone? It's hard to pick myself up after one of those times and move on, when I feel like the meaning and the reason behind my own writing has been completely obliterated. It sends me seeking. Digging deeper. Crying while I drive or staring off into space until Hubby thinks I've finally lost it. In the end, I suppose, it makes me stronger. It makes me ask questions of myself, as a writer and as a person. It leaves me unsatisfied with myself, striving for more. Those are all good things, I guess. But my goodness, why's it have to feel like being a bug splattered on a windshield?
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Minding Your Own Business: Creative Life Devotional Series
Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, "Lord, and what will this man do?"
Jesus saith unto him, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me."
John 21:21,22
In the last chapter of John, Jesus had a talk with Peter, telling him he would become a martyr. John was there as well, following, and that's when Peter turned around and saw him, and asked Jesus what his fate would be. Jesus basically tells Peter to mind his own business.
Ouch, right?
I don't know what Peter's motive was for asking about his friend, whether he was worried about him, or whether he was feeling a little bitter, being told that he'd die a martyr's death. After the episode just a couple chapters back where Peter denied Jesus, right after saying he'd be willing to die for Him, he's probably still pretty contrite, so it seems like a fair guess that Peter's motive for asking was well intentioned. Still, Jesus tells him bluntly not to worry about John, just worry about following Jesus.
When I question other people's lives and wonder how everything seems to come so easy to them, my motives aren't always that good.
I see fellow Christians, and it seems to me that they've been handed everything they need on a silver platter. I see them breeze through routine things that are a part of life, while I struggle and agonize over those same things. They probably think the same thing of me, of course. That I live a charmed life in a beautiful house with a great marriage, two cars in the garage, dogs, chickens, a garden, and a Kindle full of e-books. They haven't been inside my head to know the things that I cry over and struggle with, the things that are killing me inside. Things that they would just shrug off and say "Why is that a problem?" Meanwhile, while I'm internalizing everything, I look at them and think, how can you be so blind that you don't care?
The truth is, they can't see fully what's going on with me, all the ways God is working in my life, and I can't see their internal world, and what is truly going on below the surface with them. So to let myself be jealous, or to question when it seems like I carry burdens that no one else does, is to question God's grace. Why does so'n so get more than I do? Why is it so easy for them?
Well, A: It isn't necessarily easier for them. They have struggles and burdens I can't see. B: They might be struggling less because they're obsessing less. Or because they understand more. C: It's none of my business.
Who knows the mind of God? Who can listen to what He whispers into any heart but their own? That thing that you just can't forgive because What's-His-Name just doesn't seem repentant? Well, what "seems" to be going on in his head is none of your business. Your business is to do what Jesus asks of you, namely, forgive. When you gossip about that other friend because she went back to doing that, that's not helping her. That's just ruining someone else's good opinion of her, and who knows if that person to whom you whispered your gossip would have offered some encouragement to your friend that would have helped her, if they hadn't been turned off by your words?
All I'm saying here, is that you and I just don't know enough to make assumptions about whether God is treating someone else better or worse. What we know is what He's told us individually: Follow Me. Love each other, encourage each other, teach each other, even offer correction when necessary, but at the end of the day, you can't change them, and you can't change God, and sometimes questioning His designs for someone else can lead to bitterness and distrust.
On a side note, I've found this really true in my life on a professional basis, with juggling my writing career, waitress job, and homemaking responsibilities. I see other people who seem so much more successful ALL THE TIME, in all of those areas. They're better homemakers, better at pursuing a money making career, or they're living the creative life, publishing books and apparently holding their dreams in their hands.
Dwelling on other peoples' success ALWAYS makes me unhappy and dissatisfied with where I'm at. I wonder: 'What's wrong with me?' 'What am I even doing here?' I'm thirty years old and still a waitress at a small town restaurant. My mother-in-law (and pretty much everyone else) can run circles around me when it comes to keeping things organized, clean, planned, and put together. I read homemaking blogs about menu planning and it makes me see red. I have to remind myself that that's their life. They're living out their own struggles and callings, just like I am. And the things that I've gone through and the things that don't come easy for me, the dreams that I'm still longing for, they make me uniquely me. They make my relationship with my Lord unique. And that makes me a piece of God's puzzle that can't be replaced or duplicated. I'm not like everyone else, and no one else is like me, but we still fit together, and fill a hole no one else could.
Jesus saith unto him, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me."
John 21:21,22
In the last chapter of John, Jesus had a talk with Peter, telling him he would become a martyr. John was there as well, following, and that's when Peter turned around and saw him, and asked Jesus what his fate would be. Jesus basically tells Peter to mind his own business.
Ouch, right?
I don't know what Peter's motive was for asking about his friend, whether he was worried about him, or whether he was feeling a little bitter, being told that he'd die a martyr's death. After the episode just a couple chapters back where Peter denied Jesus, right after saying he'd be willing to die for Him, he's probably still pretty contrite, so it seems like a fair guess that Peter's motive for asking was well intentioned. Still, Jesus tells him bluntly not to worry about John, just worry about following Jesus.
When I question other people's lives and wonder how everything seems to come so easy to them, my motives aren't always that good.
I see fellow Christians, and it seems to me that they've been handed everything they need on a silver platter. I see them breeze through routine things that are a part of life, while I struggle and agonize over those same things. They probably think the same thing of me, of course. That I live a charmed life in a beautiful house with a great marriage, two cars in the garage, dogs, chickens, a garden, and a Kindle full of e-books. They haven't been inside my head to know the things that I cry over and struggle with, the things that are killing me inside. Things that they would just shrug off and say "Why is that a problem?" Meanwhile, while I'm internalizing everything, I look at them and think, how can you be so blind that you don't care?
The truth is, they can't see fully what's going on with me, all the ways God is working in my life, and I can't see their internal world, and what is truly going on below the surface with them. So to let myself be jealous, or to question when it seems like I carry burdens that no one else does, is to question God's grace. Why does so'n so get more than I do? Why is it so easy for them?
Well, A: It isn't necessarily easier for them. They have struggles and burdens I can't see. B: They might be struggling less because they're obsessing less. Or because they understand more. C: It's none of my business.
Who knows the mind of God? Who can listen to what He whispers into any heart but their own? That thing that you just can't forgive because What's-His-Name just doesn't seem repentant? Well, what "seems" to be going on in his head is none of your business. Your business is to do what Jesus asks of you, namely, forgive. When you gossip about that other friend because she went back to doing that, that's not helping her. That's just ruining someone else's good opinion of her, and who knows if that person to whom you whispered your gossip would have offered some encouragement to your friend that would have helped her, if they hadn't been turned off by your words?
All I'm saying here, is that you and I just don't know enough to make assumptions about whether God is treating someone else better or worse. What we know is what He's told us individually: Follow Me. Love each other, encourage each other, teach each other, even offer correction when necessary, but at the end of the day, you can't change them, and you can't change God, and sometimes questioning His designs for someone else can lead to bitterness and distrust.
On a side note, I've found this really true in my life on a professional basis, with juggling my writing career, waitress job, and homemaking responsibilities. I see other people who seem so much more successful ALL THE TIME, in all of those areas. They're better homemakers, better at pursuing a money making career, or they're living the creative life, publishing books and apparently holding their dreams in their hands.
Dwelling on other peoples' success ALWAYS makes me unhappy and dissatisfied with where I'm at. I wonder: 'What's wrong with me?' 'What am I even doing here?' I'm thirty years old and still a waitress at a small town restaurant. My mother-in-law (and pretty much everyone else) can run circles around me when it comes to keeping things organized, clean, planned, and put together. I read homemaking blogs about menu planning and it makes me see red. I have to remind myself that that's their life. They're living out their own struggles and callings, just like I am. And the things that I've gone through and the things that don't come easy for me, the dreams that I'm still longing for, they make me uniquely me. They make my relationship with my Lord unique. And that makes me a piece of God's puzzle that can't be replaced or duplicated. I'm not like everyone else, and no one else is like me, but we still fit together, and fill a hole no one else could.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Summer Udates, and New Project
I realize it's been a couple weeks since I've posted anything, but considering it's now August, and garden and canning season is in full swing, I'd say I'm not doing too bad! LOL!
Seriously, there has been so much happening, from starting the year's stocking up on frozen, dehydrated, and canned goods from the garden and farmers' market, to working odd hours at the restaurant, to having three separate batches of chickens to take care of (don't ask!), the summer has been flying by like crazy.
We had a table at this year's Sidewalk Sales event in Honesdale, selling my book, where I was able to show off a first glimpse of my new project, Red Wolf Trilogy. Sadly, the event was pretty much a washout. With temperatures in the HIGH 90s (F) both days, not many people were out. It was disappointing, but still a learning experience. And I'm super excited about this new project. Take a peek at my 'Current Projects' page, where I talk a little more about what it is and how it came to be.
This isn't the official cover or anything, just some promo artwork I had Abby, my partner on Unseen Things, do for the event. Still, I'm pretty in love with it.
I'm aiming to be able to release the first book in the trilogy, Burn, this winter, and with that deadline in mind, I've been pushing really hard at getting through the first draft, which is the main reason blog posts have been slacking. There just isn't enough time to do it all! Still, now that the Sidewalk Sales are behind, and work is going back to normal (at least for the moment!), I'm hoping to get back on schedule. Starting now, of course! Lord willing, next week I'll be putting up the next post in my devotional series.
What kind of crazy things have you all been up to this summer? Any new opportunities?
Seriously, there has been so much happening, from starting the year's stocking up on frozen, dehydrated, and canned goods from the garden and farmers' market, to working odd hours at the restaurant, to having three separate batches of chickens to take care of (don't ask!), the summer has been flying by like crazy.
We had a table at this year's Sidewalk Sales event in Honesdale, selling my book, where I was able to show off a first glimpse of my new project, Red Wolf Trilogy. Sadly, the event was pretty much a washout. With temperatures in the HIGH 90s (F) both days, not many people were out. It was disappointing, but still a learning experience. And I'm super excited about this new project. Take a peek at my 'Current Projects' page, where I talk a little more about what it is and how it came to be.
I'm aiming to be able to release the first book in the trilogy, Burn, this winter, and with that deadline in mind, I've been pushing really hard at getting through the first draft, which is the main reason blog posts have been slacking. There just isn't enough time to do it all! Still, now that the Sidewalk Sales are behind, and work is going back to normal (at least for the moment!), I'm hoping to get back on schedule. Starting now, of course! Lord willing, next week I'll be putting up the next post in my devotional series.
What kind of crazy things have you all been up to this summer? Any new opportunities?
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