And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision…

Habakkuk 2:2a (ESV)

My desire to be a writer began in grade school. I was about 11 or 12. I’m turning 64 next week and have yet to publish my first book. As you can figure out, this process has taken me over half a century, so far!

My attention has been focused on so many other things like raising children and working, that my passion for writing has only rekindled in the last five or six years. And now that I’m retired, I’m going full steam ahead. Mind you, I have always threaded writing throughout my life, just not in book form.

Right now, I have many teachers and I am absorbing oodles of information. Three things I’ve learned over these last two days, I wanted to share.

1. I am an author. I have written a book that is in editing right now. I have always felt comfortable calling myself a writer (like Jeff Goins teaches.) What I learned from Tonya Kubo was to own my title. Before, I thought I had to be published to call myself an author.

2. How I feel or what I think about what I have to give doesn’t dictate or limit God’s power to use me. This I learned from a 5-day devotional by Becky Keife. She pulls this from the telling of Jesus feeding the 5000.

3. “We would fight bravely and die quickly.” This quote is from Allen Arnold, as he uses a scene from The Mask of Zorro to illustrate what happens when we attempt to rush into doing something in our own strength.

All these lessons are helping me to be content and patient on my journey. It’s been a shock to me about how much goes into writing and publishing a novel. The excitement can start to wane as I invest my time and money into the process, but I’m adopting the perspective of anything worth doing is worth doing well. I want my finished book to reflect that.

I’ll leave you with this scripture:

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.

Colossians 3:23 (MEV)

Grace & Peace,

Sandy