Writing for HIM

You haven’t heard my voice in a few weeks. I’ve been busy with author features and book giveaways. It’s been an exhausting month. I’m looking forward to July, because I sense some peace on the horizon. Although I’ll be extremely busy at my day job and busier still with writing related things, I’ve been praying for God to give me that place of rest where the cares of this world won’t carry my joy away.

I’ve been pecking away at a couple of writing projects. Really, trying to hone in on one in particular that would wow my agent, my editor, and the reading public at large. At the same time I’ve been in this dry place, where God hasn’t been giving me direction about where he wants me to go and what he wants me to do with my writing. I’ve been feeling insecure about my first novel, going back through it with a fine tooth comb looking for the weaknesses and errors that I can still fix before my editor finds them. I’ve been re-reading craft books and skimming blogs about writing and finally, I’ve been immersed in reading and critiquing other people’s work. All this while I’ve been waiting for heaven to open up and say, “Okay, the next writing assignment is...” or so, that’s what I thought I was waiting for.

This past Saturday I attended a writing workshop. As always, I had childcare issues, so I arrived too late to eat my $14 meal, but right in time to get the food I really needed which I couldn’t have paid for, because it was priceless. The presenter, Anna DeStafano (http://www.annawrites.com/), President of the Georgia Romance Writers and award winning author, made a point that hit home and woke me up to my current reality. I’m not waiting for God. Jesus has already come and he left me a message about my writing many years ago, when I was wrestling with the decision whether to write secular fiction or Christian Fiction. The Lord spoke to me and said, “You can write whatever you want, but I’ll bless you more if you write for me.” Heaven opened up along time ago.

It’s a fundamental truth, at least in my world and in my relationship with Jesus, that he’s not a micromanager. The Lord gives us gifts and assignments and sends us on our merry way to get stuff done. HIS expectation is that we not bury the talent and that we not forget that he has called us to spread the Good News. Everything else in life from ministry to childrearing really revolves around those two charges. The details of how only require that we exercise excellence in getting it done.

So, the truth is I’ve been putting off the writing of the novel in the same way I put off dealing with anything in life that I don’t want to do. My dirty little secret is that procrastination is how I handle conflict and I have Anna to thank for pointing that out to me. But I’m a big girl; all grown up and I’ll fight my personal demon, take it by the horn and wrestle it down to the ground. I will go forth and get to doing the thing I was born to do and that’s write the Great American Novel. It may not be on the order of a Zora Neal Hurston or James Baldwin classic or even our modern day masters like Walter Mosley or the late BeBe Moore Campbell, but it will be my masterpiece…my divinely orchestrated work of art and my attempt to do what HE has graciously allowed me to do. Write for HIM. What an honor and a privilege.

Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings,

Rhonda

For a good post on keeping Jesus in your work, visit Dee Stewart at http://www.christianfiction.blogpost.com/ and read about writing vertically.