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It’s Time To Break Up With Fear

September 21, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

 

Photo Credit: Intangible (Creative Commons)

 

Yay!!  I’m guest posting over at Unknown Jim today.  Below is an excerpt. To read the entire post, please visit Jim’s blog here: It’s time to break up with fear.

 

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile… initially scared me to death.  ~Betty Bender

All of us suffer from the paralysis of fear at one time or another.  It can keep us quiet when the world is dying to hear from us.  It keeps us in life draining relationships and dead end jobs.  Fear is the cause of gifts wasted, talents denied and potential unreached.

For those of you who have a perpetual love affair with fear; it’s time to end this abusive relationship.  Allowing fear to rule your life will assuredly guarantee a life that is normal, boring, and anything but impactful.

Having a Gideon Moment?

July 26, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

 

gideons army

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

 

Sometimes, when our walk with the Lord is strongest and we fervently seek his face like never before, it seems our resources are constantly being diluted, pilfered and taken away.  Every possible avenue for triumph is occluded by dead-end signs and blockades preventing any possible intrusion.  The clouds grow thicker, and the night seems darker than ever before.

The enemies of our victory are innumerable.  They camp along our path like sand on a sea shore in abundance.  Our soul can grow weary quickly from the impossible that lies in front of us.  God on our side doesn’t quite seem like enough when most of the resources we depend on are obliterated.

What we are left with couldn’t possibly see us through.  How can the modern day Midianites  of our lives be given into our hands when the cancer has progressed too far, our bank accounts have been stripped to bare bones, the house note is past due, the marriage has died, the job offers stopped coming, and everyone around you seems to have fallen away.

Maybe, just maybe, we are having a Gideon moment.

God has purposely stripped us of most our resources, weapons and army needed for war lest we boast over God and give our own hands the glory for our victory.  When it seems we are most ill prepared for the battle ahead, remember Gideon and the 300.  Remember how God can take a small trinket of men and defeat an entire nation of people.

Study the example of Gideon and let your faith take you where human possibility can’t go.

“…Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”  (Zechariah 4)

Want to Get Into Shape, Lose Weight and Make It Stick? Here’s How.

July 15, 2012 in Inspiration with 2 Comments

Lets face it, everyone is not meant to be a size 4 or even a 6 for that matter.  We make up many different shapes and sizes of beautiful and God designed it this way.  We should love the skin were in.

The problem is…many of us don’t and we want to do something about it.

So what is the key to shedding those extra pounds and taking control of your health and your body?

Stop complaining and do it!

That’s it.

No magic pill, detailed weight loss plan, or hip new workout that’s sweeping the nation.  None of those will work if you aren’t willing to to.

I hear people ALL the time saying they want to lose weight, tone or just get their endurance back, but then they make a million excuses as to why they haven’t done it.   Face it, some of us are just lazy!

I can hear you now…”shoot, I don’t know who she talking about, I’m not lazy!”  Well, prove it!

Stop making excuses!

Life will happen:  Kids will need attention, you work schedule will not permit, there won’t be enough money for a gym membership and everything  else that can get in the way…will.  What are you going to do about it?

When the DVD breaks and you can’t do your P90X session for the day are you going to just not do anything or think outside of the box and improvise.

When you work later than you were supposed to and missed your time at the gym are you going to just stop going or give yourself some grace and pick up where you left off the next day.

If you want control of your weight and health bad enough, none of those excuses will pan out or stop you.

Question is…do you want it bad enough?

Don’t just commit to starting; commit to finishing

Why do you think gym memberships skyrocket in the month of January but by April, it’s a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing in between the treadmills.  Those New Years resolutions to get in shape just don’t stick.  Many women want the quick way out and when they realize meeting their goals will be more work than they signed up for, they bail.  Don’t be one of those people.  Don’t bail out when the going gets tough, or the alarm goes off and you don’t want to get up, or that pint of butter pecan ice cream will NOT STOP calling your name.

Get in your head now that it will not be easy.  Push through when the desire to give up is at its peak, and commit to finishing; you’ll be amazed at the results.

Think Permanent, not temporary

If you’re in it just to lose a couple of pounds , show off for a lil bit or fit into some certain dress and then resume your former lifestyle habits once you meet your goals, you’re in for a rude awakening.

I get a little irritated when I hear people say I’m naturally small or I can’t relate to their weight loss struggles because they look at the now.   Yeah I was thinner growing up but honestly 80% of us can look back at our high school pictures and say “man I was skinny back then.”

Genetics is only half, the other half is that after I had my first daughter I worked my arse off and disciplined myself to work out, eat right and lose the weight.  Contrary to what some might believe, it took two years and it was NOT easy.

Once I got the weight off I didn’t stop there.  I realized I would have to maintain and I changed my eating habits and activity level for the long term.  Now, even after two more pregnancies, it’s just a matter of maintaining and consistently employing the habits that got me here in the first place.

Be consistent

You go hard in the gym for about a week and then forget the gym exist for awhile and then decide you want to go hard again.  Keep this up and you will drive yourself insane and forever wonder why you’re not making progress.  The difference between the ones who meet their fitness goals and the ones who don’t is consistency.  Sadly, too many of us are in the “ones who don’t” category.  Choose to continue to show up even when you don’t feel like it, or don’t even care about shedding the pounds anymore.  Show up anyway.  Decide right now that you’re going to show up when you’re suppose to and do the work whether you feel like it or not.

Don’t just take advice and wisdom, put them to work

There have been a couple of times where I’ve literally spent hours putting together everything I’ve learned from my own weight loss journey and shared it with someone at their requests only to hear from them again, frustrated, wanting more advice.  When asked if they followed what I sent them to begin with…they never got around to it.  Blank stare!

How many times have you read an article or got some great advice from a trainer, got excited about it, shared it with others and just failed to follow it.  Those articles aren’t written or that advice is not given just because those people had nothing better to do.  It’s given for your benefit but if you don’t put it to use and then turn around and complain about your lack of progress is there any wonder why you’re still going around in circles?

So…

The guarantee to meeting your goals:

Stop complaining, ditch the excuses, commit to putting in the work, be consistent, and actually use the tools you are given and see if it doesn’t make a world of difference.

What are you waiting for…go get it!

Sing with the understanding

July 8, 2012 in Inspiration with 9 Comments

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Marianne Williamson

Another piece of me was liberated today.  As I sat in the presence of those shining their lights before men, they stripped me of every excuse not to do the same.

There are so many believers walking around wasting the talent and gifts they have been blessed with.

Why?

They fear what they’re good at won’t provide the lifestyle they desire, so they abandon their gift.  Or they continually doubt themselves and the fear of never being good enough imprisons them-so they don’t try.

The fear of rejection shuts them up and the fruit of their gift never has the chance to grow.  Or the use of their talent and gifts are misgoverned towards the desire for worldly gain and the pursuit of God’s glory is abandoned.

The common theme of fear is causing too many of us to neglect the gifts God has placed in us.

That’s why I was so excited to support the ministry placed on the heart of Tamika Morton, owner of Ministers of Music Inc.  I’m even more excited that despite the many obstacles, roadblocks and rebuttals from the enemy, she perseveres and charges ahead with what God has called her to do.

What does her ministry do?

She trains those gifted with song to “sing with the understanding.”  In other words, she trains them on the correct way to use and share their gift of singing with the world while putting God’s glory on display.

She recognizes her gifts of singing and teaching, uses them for God’s glory and trains and inspires others to do the same.  She is precisely what this droned out, hopeless, artistically deprived generation needs: someone to inspire them to stand up for their gift, fight for it, and snatch it back out of the control of the enemy.

I had the pleasure of attending her spring vocal recital this afternoon and while I thought I was just going to support a thriving ministry, I came away extremely blessed by the gifts that were displayed.  Singing is not my gift or my ministry but the recital put Gods power on display in ways that were definitely a blessing to me and anyone else who sat in attendance.  I came away with several revelations:

Our gifts are not given for our benefit

I can’t count how many times I have been blessed or inspired by someone’s writing, art, music, or testimony.  It is because they choose to share their gift with the world that I get to experience another encounter with God.

We have no idea the impact the use of our gifts has on others.  I’m sure the singers up there today were nervous and unsure about singing to an audience for the first time.  But we were blessed, awakened and reminded of God’s love for us through their songs.  This world is starving for the display of our gifts because through God, they change the world.

There were many there today who needed a reminder of God’s grace, love, and benevolence; the release of fear and grasp of God’s guiding hand made that possible.

Whether we are teachers, singers, writers, carpenters, or doctors, our gifts and talents are the avenues through which people experience Gods love and provision.  When we extinguish the flame of our gift, we deprive the world of God’s glory.  When we prostitute the use of our gifts for our own selfish gain, God is not glorified and we are never satisfied.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (I Peter 4:10-11)

Perfection is not a prerequisite to be used by God

Perfectionists have a hard time producing anything because they rarely feel their work is good enough to debut to the world.  Instead we fret, redo, undo and contemplate over our work until we’ve talked ourselves right out of doing anything at all.

God doesn’t need perfect; he is perfect.  He needs faithful doers who operate in obedience and aren’t afraid to abide In his grace.  I saw a great display of obedience and faith as most of those singers took the stage today for the first time.  No, they hadn’t perfected their gift, there was great risk involved in getting on that stage but that didn’t stop them from sharing it with the world, and we were blessed because of it.  It is by using our talents that they grow.

We must nurture our gift and maintain it

At the conclusion of the recital, the students were admonished not to stop there, but to continue learning and nurturing their gift.

God doesn’t require perfection to start but that is no excuse not to strive for it.  Our gifts will not nurture themselves, we must sow into them, strengthen and grow them.  Gifts are like muscles-we use or lose.  We must constantly exercise our gifts to build them up.  Practice may not make perfect but it will guarantee proficiency.  If our gifts are to make a difference in this world, we must reject mediocrity, refuse to settle and continue to work towards God’s high calling.

The Ministers of Music encourages us all to stop operating in fear and let God be glorified through the display of our gifts.  There will be great opposition in the form of doubt, unbelief, procrastination and worry, but if we allow God to take control and realize his strength is made perfect in our weakness, we are unstoppable and our gifts will change the world.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  (John 15:16)

Another Journal Throwback – Knowledge Is Power Part II

July 5, 2012 in Inspiration with 2 Comments

Here is Part II of an unedited (only names have been changed to protect the guilty innocent) journal entry I wrote years ago.

August 9, 2006

If knowing is half the battle, taking action is definitely the other half. One cannot be successful without the other.

I’ve found even with myself that too often we excel in one but completely lack the other. Take one of my family members Sara for example. She has gone to school, classes, conferences and seminars on just about everything from insurance to real estate to childcare! She is a very smart lady and she is knowledgeable in many areas, heck she even has experience running her own successful business. So what’s the problem you say? She won’t get off her fanny and do anything with it. She has all these certificates and knowledge but when you ask her what she’s doing with it, she simply replies, she’s waiting on God to give her the opportunity. Well, keep waiting sister, because that’s exactly what you’ll be doing until Jesus comes!

Unless she decides to get off her fanny and do something, all that knowledge will go to waste!

Now take another family member Marie on the other hand. She is definately a doer. When she sees an opportunity or the mere hint of an opportunity, she’s off and running. Don’t try to ask her if it’s a good idea because when you turn around she’s already gone! She seizes every opportunity and her willingness to get up and move will make her a millionaire. But there’s just one problem. She refuses to look into anything before she does it. She takes too many things at face value. Instead of researching and learning all she can about a subject, she takes off running without giving it a second thought. This has cost her thousands and thousands of dollars and a consignment of insurmountable stress through the years. She takes the term “pay someone smarter than you to do it” to the extreme. While this is a smart idea, she doesn’t take the opportunity to learn or even learn about the person she’s leaving in charge.

When you take Sara’s myriad of information and knowledge and Marie’s get up and do attitude you’ve got an undeniable success waiting to happen. Even in the spiritual realm, we have got to learn that learning without doing and doing without learning is detrimental. We can read the bible all day long and get every prophecy under the rainbow but if we don’t use the inertia God gave us we’re just water lillies waiting to be stumped. On the other hand if we jump at our own whimsicle and neglect to learn what God says about the matter, we too often dive head first into a self-made disaster!

Faith without works is dead: Knowledge without action is futile!

Faith or Foolishness

July 2, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

There’s a fine line between Godly faith;  faith like Abraham and David, to believe God to fulfill his Word even when worldly circumstances deem it impossible, and foolishness.

Some examples:

-Praying for God to restore your finances and believing he will bless you with a financial breakthrough; then going on a shopping spree instead of paying down debt.  Foolishness

-Believing God will heal your diabetes and completely restore your health.  You solicit prayer and speak healing and wholeness daily and then neglect to take your medicine and eat all the wrong things consistently.  Foolishness

-Waiting for your Godly man or woman.  Faithfully you wait and pray and believe God will send the one he has for you.  Then you continue to sleep around and present yourself as anything but a Godly mate.  Foolishness

-Faithfully believing God will bless you with strength and then going to the gym and attempting to lift 200lbs after not working out for years.  You’re just trying to kill yourself!

I see examples like the above all too often.   Unfortunately, I’m not exempt from this as I have found myself on the foolish side more times than I care to admit.

Having faith in God’s Word means first understanding it.  We must understand Gods character and what his promises are and how they apply to us before we can understand how to act on the faith we have.

Faith without works is dead, meaning if we truly believe what God says concerning our circumstances, our actions will be proof of that.

The devil didn’t do it.

When it seems we don’t get what we want or things don’t turn out the way we expect, sometimes it’s due to our actions, lack of action and/or our lack of understanding of God’s word.

We can’t blame the devil when we put ourselves in dangerous and compromising situations, refuse to use good judgment, and simply neglect to follow the word of God in the name of “faith”.

Do you know what you have faith in?

Understanding God’s word is so important because even when our faith and our actions line up and situations don’t turn out the way we expect, our faith in God helps us to understand that ultimately all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose.  He sees the bigger pictures and knows what we can handle and when we can handle it.

 

Actions speak louder than words.

The actions we take must display the confidence we have in God’s Word.  Whether it’s our health, finances, children, marriage, businesses or any other area of our lives, we can’t just do what we want and expect God to give us the desired result.

We truly believe something, not when we say it, but when our actions line up with what we say.

-Believing God will bless your finances and then consciously working on creating better spending habits and opting to pay your light bill instead of buying that new dress is faith.

-Believing God will heal your diabetes and restore your health and then changing your eating habits, taking better care of yourself and keeping your doctors appointments is faith.

-Waiting and believing for your Godly spouse and then refusing to put yourself in compromising situations and displaying the qualities you seek in a mate is faith.

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”   Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.  (James 2: 17-18)

Beautiful Rainbows

June 22, 2012 in Day to Day, Inspiration with 1 Comment

I saw a huge BEAUTIFUL rainbow out after yesterdays brief storms.  The sky was gorgeous shades of orange.

 

Everytime I see a rainbow I see a sign of Gods grace and mercy.  I am reminded of Genesis 9:12-15

12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

Everytime I see a rainbow I think God must be saying: Yall really showin out with your selfishness, greed, whining and complaining, and just plain lack of regard for my holiness. I’m gonna stop the rain though cause I keep my promises.  (lol, o.k. maybe not)

Every time I see a rainbow I see a beautiful reminder that God gave his Son the wrath and gave us the promise of salvation, IF we repent and turn back to him.

Happy Friday!

The Process

June 3, 2012 in Inspiration with 0 Comments

I am watching this documentary called Doctor Diaries at 4:30 this morning and it’s keeping me up as I write.  My husband thinks I have totally lost it by now.  After becoming totally obsessed with episodes of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix I ran across this documentary about a group of doctors that were followed through their time at Harvard Medical school and many years after.  I love knowing peoples process.  It’s amazing how unsure these doctors were of themselves, how much they felt like failures and how often they admitted they had no idea what they were doing.  All of them comment on how this journey is the hardest thing they have ever done.  They don’t sleep, they study several hours a day and time management is so crucial that literally each second has a purpose.  One of the doctors studies by a stop watch.  He studies six hours each day and when he takes a drink or uses the bathroom, he stops the watch so that each second of those six hours he is literally, physically studying.  Wow!  I am inspired by how scared, unsure, and “green” these doctors were coming in.  It means they are human and are filled with insecurities, and experience failure and uncertainty just like me.  Two of the fourth year residents are having a conversation in the OR after helping with a surgery.

Doctor 1: “Now that were fourth years, were doing a lot of stuff”.
Doctor2:  “You did great, you got that PA line, those are tough”.
Doctor1:  “Who would have dreamed last year that you’d be closing up and I’d be able to do the lines”.
Doctor2:  “Its really good”.
Doctor1:  “We’ve come a long way”.
Doctor2:  “I’ll say we have, we’ve had a lot of help too”.

I watched these same doctors just 10 minutes earlier in the documentary walk around the hospital totally clueless as to what they were doing, completely intimidated by the attendings and scared to death to listen to a patients heartbeat in a routine exam because they just knew they were doing it wrong.  They went from complete cluelessness to now operating and I am witnessing the process.  I am witnessing the hard work, the tears, the failures and the sacrifice which got them there.  It’s easy to think of doctors in terms of these smart people who just know what their doing but to see what is actually involved for ordinary people turning into brilliant doctors is more than inspiring. That’s why I love documentaries and biographies because you get to see the process.  You get to see that:

-Football great Jerry Rice was turned down by 15 teams because he was too slow so he practiced so hard that other players would get sick trying to keep up.

-Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four and teachers thought he was slow and mentally handicapped.  However slow, he kept going and eventually won the Nobel prize and changed the face of modern physics.  The slow kids name is now synonymous with “genius”.

-Thomas Edison was told he was too stupid to learn anything, fired from his first two jobs for not being productive and failed literally 1000 times at inventing the light bulb.  All those failures eventually lead to a success.

-Sidney Poitier was told “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something.”  Letting that be his motivation, he continued to work at his craft and went on to win an Oscar.

You get to see that men are great only if they are determined to be so.

The dedication it takes to go from one extreme to the other, especially at one of the top medical schools in the nation is almost unreal but they do it.   This not only inspires me but it helps to provide the fuel to get me where I’m going.  Watching documentaries like this throws all my excuses out the window.  Here are 7 doctors telling me with their actions that to get where I need to go, time, sacrifice, patience, practice and tears must be expended.  While being a writer is completely different from being a doctor, the process to going from ordinary to great is the same.  It takes work.  More work than ordinary people are used to.  More work than ordinary people are willing to do.  What inspires me about these doctors so much is that, no doctor in my eyes is an ordinary person.  Obtaining a medical degree is no ordinary feat.  Doctors are normally disciplined and accomplished in many areas of their lives because the personality traits that allow them to be this way is what allows them to be doctors in the first place.

Knowing the obstacles people have overcome to achieve great things inspires me.  It shows me that even though I have no idea what I’m doing now, one day I will as long as I go through the “process”.  It shows me that raw talent is no match for determination, persistence, sacrifice and practice.  So the reason I am up at 4:30a.m. on a weekend watching this documentary again is because it shows me the means to the end and inspires me to write when I really want to sleep.  There is a process with anything.  We don’t just wake up one day and say we want to start a business, lose weight, buy a house, become a missionary, run a marathon, become a doctor, become a writer and then one day, it just happens.  It takes more than just having the vision.  There are countless would be entrepreneurs, doctors, writers and world changers that will sadly settle for the vision of what they could do or become because they fail to realize the importance of putting in the work.  Too many believe some big break, miracle or happenstance is going to catapult them close to the finish line when the reality is success happens just one step at a time, and success won’t be realized until they take the first step and then keep going. I used to be one of those people.

One of the doctors in the documentary says his therapist had this to say about getting through medical school:

“Medical training is a marathon, you just have to keep going, showing up every day and as soon as you get through one hurdle, there’s another one.”

Showing up every day.  That’s what gets you through the “process”.  Taking one step at a time and taking down those hurdles one by one.  Excuses have to be put to death and sacrifice must be born.

Show up every day and go through the process.  It’s what Jerry Rice did.  It’s what Albert Einstein did.  It’s what Thomas Edison did.  It’s what Sidney Poitier did.  It’s what you and I must do to make our dream a reality.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.  ~Thomas Edison

All I Have

May 18, 2012 in Grace, Inspiration, My life with 0 Comments

Just as I’m becoming comfortable with declaring I am a writer, determined to quench my fears, step out on faith and do the job I love, a terrible case of writers block swoops down on me.  Just as I’ve committed to writing something everyday, no matter what I do, for the last couple of days I can’t produce!  Actually, streams of words unable to form a coherent sentence win as the only work I’m getting out.  Isn’t that how it always works?  While I have a desire to resort to the old me and pout, get discouraged and give up-I don’t feel that happening this time.  I’ve been in this game for a quick minute and I’m getting sharper at recognizing opposition when it comes and if I have to write about the fact that I can’t think of anything to write then that’s enough.   As I go through this momentary bout of writers block and uncertainty of the next step, I think of 2 Corinthians 9:8 which says;  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.  Through his grace I have sufficiency in all things at all times even now, when the words won’t come and my next move is uncertain. The word sufficiency means: The condition or quality of being adequate or sufficient or having an adequate amount of something.  Even now God just asks for me to give all I have and this will be enough (sufficient).  I strive for the obedience to write something everyday and I’m certain he is able to take whatever I can give and produce mighty works.  I’ve witnessed him do it again and again in scripture.

I am reminded of Peter in Luke 5:1-7:

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

Despite his best efforts, Peter caught nothing.  However, his obedience to Jesus command to let down the nets, caused them to catch so many fish, the boats began to sink.  Despite his skepticism, he was willing to trust Jesus and the key to experiencing Gods power rest in those five words uttered by Peter.  “But because you say so.”  Obedience.

Even though my best efforts fail to create material, but because you say so, I will write something each day, even streams of words or to describe my fruitlessness, (spell check says fruitlessness is a word…really?) if that is all I can muster, I’ll give it and trust that what you produce from it Lord will be much greater than anything I could have produced on my own.

He is able take even my writers block and use it for my good, if I’m willing to be obedient and trust.  2 Corinthians 12:9 says that his grace is sufficient for me and his power is made perfect in my weakness. God’s power is strongest when I’m weak, or ineffective.  Romans 8:37 says in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  Not just conquerors but more than conquerors; this means God will not just cause me to overcome my writers block but I will be more inspired because of it.  Lord I am committed to showing up with whatever I have to offer.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

I Needed To Read This

May 14, 2012 in Inspiration, My life with 0 Comments

The Shocking Truth About Launching A Writing Career – Jeff Goins

So the most ignored secret to becoming a real writer, the shocking truth about turning pro, is this: You are when you say you are. Until you start believing in yourself, don’t expect others to.

As long as you keep accepting monikers like “wannabe” and “aspiring” you are preventing yourself from endeavoring to be a professional. And your work is suffering as a result.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a writer. A writer of books, a writer of poetry, a writer of any and everything I could think to write. I used to write essays for fun…now that’s sad. There haven’t been many constants in my life but the one thing I can remember wanting to do from very little is to write. I entered my first national poetry contest when I was seven or eight, I once wrote a poem in high school for which I received an initial F for fail because the teacher thought I stole it from a book and warned me about plagiarizing! But for years I told myself I wasn’t good enough to be “a writer”. Low self-esteem got the best of my talent. I would look at someone else’s work and think about how great it sounded, how creatively the thoughts were strung together, how perfect the choice of words were and think, there is no way I could do that. There is no way I could ever be that good. I would look at others work and then look at my own and instantly get depressed and think whelp that seals it, I’m obviously not a writer. (which I’m still guilty of sometimes)

When I got older, I never told anyone but my husband that I wanted to write because I thought in order to want to be a writer, you have to KNOW how to be a writer. I thought in order for me to call myself a writer I had to have a degree in English or books that were published, or something to prove to people that I was a writer. The other day, I was talking to my sister-in-law and I was telling her my heart wasn’t in being an accountant and I desired to do what I loved for a living. When she asked what it was I completely chickened out, I couldn’t bring myself to say I wanted to be a writer because I thought by saying it, I would have to validate somehow that I was a writer so I chickened out and said “I don’t know, I’ve always wanted to be an editor or something, after all, I love reading.” LIAR!!! I know she was probably thinking, you’re passion is to be a what?? I wanted to say I am a writer and I want to write for a living and always have. Even though the word writer was in my brain and traveled as far as my lips, that’s as far as it got. The word never left my lips, instead, I hesitated and the word editor came out! I resigned myself to the notion that I wanted to be an editor or publisher because I loved to read but the truth was that I was too much of a coward to believe that I actually owned the talent to write. I was too much of a coward to face the criticism of my work by others, fearing what people would think so I just decided I would show no one at all.

For years I didn’t think I had what it took so for a while I stopped writing completely and I became an accountant. An accountant! The opposite of all things creative! In fact, when my co-workers joke about accountants hating to write and not being the greatest spellers I nervously laugh along quietly feeling like the only fraud in the room. I want to stand up and shout and say “I’m not one of you people, I can do accounting and do it well, but I’m not an accountant, I don’t like accounting.” An accountant once told me he couldn’t think of anything in the world he’d rather do than be an accountant. Again, him knowing I was an accountant the nervous laugh kicked in and I nodded like yeah me too, but I was really thinking, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing but writing, but I’m an accountant instead! I’m glad somebody’s doing what they were designed to do.

I’ve told myself for years that I’m just not creative enough or just not good enough so I just stopped writing altogether. I pushed the desire to write as far back in my being as it would go. When I did start writing again, it was so hard to even string a cohesive sentence together I thought God was punishing me for not writing anything for all those years. He placed the desire back in my heart some years ago and since then I’ve been writing but no one, other than my husband knows, or has seen any of it. I haven’t even really shared this site with anyone because once again the fear of criticism AND the fear of someone actually liking it scares me. I have been afraid to identify myself as a writer because I don’t just want to be a mediocre writer or just another writer, I want to be a writer that transforms lives by the words that are written so the fear of not achieving that scares me into not identifying with who I am at all. So I have to get used to calling myself a writer, letting others know that I am a writer and identifying with the fact that I am a writer.

-I have to believe that the Lord will perfect that which concerns me (Psalms 138:8)

-I have a gift and I want to use it to serve others as a good steward of God’s varied grace (1 Peter 4:10)

-I know that in everything I am enriched by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge. (1 Cor 1:5)

I realize that in becoming the writer God knows that I can be, more work is involved than just simply calling myself a writer. That is just step one. Anyone who knows me knows that I genuinely value, believe in, and honor hard work. I believe in rolling up your sleeves and putting in twice as much work as expected in order to do whatever it is that you do; well. I used to tell my daughter when she was learning to tie her shoes that practice makes perfect. If she wanted to learn, she had to practice and practice often. I told her if she applied this to everything in life…it would serve her well. I have not always done this myself but this principle has been validated over and over again. While it’s true some people are just born with the raw ability to write well, I’m not one of those people. I have to work at it. I realize to get to where God knows I can be, I need to practice. I can do ALL things through Christ which strengtheneth me, including getting through the days that bring no inspiration, writing even when I can’t think of a darned thing to say, (this was one of those days), fighting through all the fears and failures and deliberately making the time to practice and practice often.

Amy Carroll paints a beautiful illustration of combining faith in God with hard work here.

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