Well, it’s been a pretty long year so far. At least it’s felt like it.
If you’ve been following along with me on this new and exciting journey, you’ve probably noticed that I recently slowed down a bit.
I spent the last two years preparing for this moment. I resisted, I doubted, I came up with so many reasons to put it off. And then I stepped out in faith. I made a plan and put some momentum behind it; my heart swelled as I set my mind to seeing it through.
And then suddenly, it seemingly came to a crashing halt. I kicked and screamed – I cried. An unexpected physical affliction now commanded my time – the precious time I had devoted to following through on promises I made to myself and others. I tried to push through it, but I simply could not keep functioning at the pace I was moving. It took me a couple of weeks to admit I needed to slow down, and I’m struggling with it even now. Not for the sake of slowing down, but to divert my attention to healing and seeking what God wants to show me through this. I don't want to miss what He has in store for me. After all, when I began this endeavor, I prayed. I prayed hard for Him to show me His plans, for Him to direct my path. But this is showing me how attached I was to those same plans and how unwilling I was to let them go. I chuckle a little now when I think about it.
I'm still planning to write, and I'm still hoping to get two books out this year. But really, I leave that up to Him. I know that He is bigger than anything I am going through. I also know that I tend to become hyper-focused on goals, forsaking all else in an overwhelming, perfectionistic drive to meet expectations; this is something I had determined not to do from the beginning. The beauty of choosing to self-publish is that I have the freedom to give other aspects of my life priority and focus; I have time to enjoy writing. I think I somehow forgot that as I fully engaged this underlying character flaw motivating me to stay focused on my goals, despite experiencing something that desperately needed attention.
So here I go back to the beginning. I'm still writing those two stories, and I'm still pushing toward those goals. But I'm allowing God to dictate what happens next and reminding myself that it's ok to switch gears. It's a large part of the reason I chose this path in the first place, having some small understanding of my faults and desires. I choose to fully partake in this freedom, and in doing so, I hope to bring you richer, fuller stories filled with every drop of passion I had to give them.
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