Trust

Pillars 3Trust—in yourself and in your calling and in God—is the fourth pillar of the writing life.

Years ago, my wife and I planned to drive from Rhode Island to Fort Worth, Texas so we acquired Trip Tics from AAA. These booklets plotted out every mile of the drive. When we moved to Fort Worth, one of the first items we bought was a Mapsco book of street maps. Now we have Google Maps and Map Quest and GPS systems built right into our cars.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Awhile back, I had a revelation about the similarities between God and a Garmin GPS. Each has a plan to get us somewhere, but they only reveal it one step at a time. With God, I think it’s because, if we saw his whole plan laid out before us, we would run the other way.map 1

So we need to trust. First we need to trust in our own writing. We must recognize that our writing isn’t perfect and it never will be. We also need to acknowledge that it doesn’t stink.

It needs to improve and it can get better when we seek out others to give us feedback. For me, being very insecure and easily derailed by negative comments, this meant learning to trust critique groups and developing close relationships with my five writing partners.

I had to trust God and his plan for me. I had to trust he would bring the right mentor and writing partners across my path to guide me into being the best writer I can be.

I learned to believe I can do this—I can write—even when I’m sure I can’t. When it feels like I’ve lost the ability to put two sentences together never mind a 100,000 word novel. Even when I question whether I ever had the ability to put two sentences together. (And this only happens on days that end in d-a-y now.)

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Trusting my writing and my calling is an every day decision. Even on days when I want to throw a pity party every ten minutes. Even on days I look up to heaven sand say, “Remember, this was your idea.”

His response is usually along the lines of, “Yeah, and your point?”

At this stage in my writing career, I know that I know that I know I am called to the writing life. I will never be satisfied or happy doing anything else.

It’s one day, one step, at a time. And it’s a step of faith in him and his plan and in what he has gifted me with. It’s a journey I don’t want to miss one single day of.

When did you know you were called to write? What confirmed it for you?

 

2 Responses to Trust

  1. Darlene L. Turner April 8, 2015 at 8:44 pm #

    Henry, you have to stop reading my mind! 😉 Lately I’ve been having a hard time putting trust in my own writing. I get discouraged easily and I need to stop (I can hear DiAnn in my head telling me this). haha! Why is it that we’re so hard on ourselves? Could it be because the devil wants to trick God’s servants into believing lies so they will quit doing what God has called them to do? I think so. I say “Get thee behind me, Satan!”.

    Are you with me? Thanks for your encouraging words. Let’s press on and keep writing for Him!

    Darlene 🙂

  2. Henry April 8, 2015 at 9:35 pm #

    You’re so right, Darlene. The devil will use every trick in his book to get us off God’s plan, to get us to quit. James 4:7 tells us to resist the devil and he must flee. Let’s stand together in resistance to Satan, stand on our the call we’ve received and on God’s strength and wisdom to guide us through.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *