what a hundred lifeguards taught me about my calling

March 18, 2013

No matter how much I wish they didn’t, my children love to go to the indoor water park. I can’t think of a worse invention on planet earth. (Besides maybe anthropomorphic rats. And canned cheese).

I have an idea! Let’s build a bunch of slides in a huge, dark-ish gymnasium. Then let’s crank the heat up to 275 degrees and add lots and lots of water. 

indoor water park

For hour upon endless hour, we walk around in our bathing suit without even the perks that bathing suits usually offer. You can’t get a tan because you’re inside. You aren’t motivated to cool off because it’s the middle of winter and you’ve been cold for three months. Not only that, but you’ve just realized your suit is super snug because the last time you wore it was August and now it’s the end of winter and oh yea, I have skin and oh no, it’s white like paste.

The first time we went to one such place, I was all geared up for what they call “fun” – wore my suit, sported my whiteness, braved the Totem Towers. But half-way through standing in line on wet steps with my shivering children, I realized I was miserable. Not to mention the fact that the man behind me was exactly eye level to my be-hind.

As I tried to angle myself into the railing, (both to have some kind of covering from my line-mates behind me as well as to protect my frontal area from the giant bucket of water that emptied itself every sixty seconds), I caught a glimpse of the chair section over to my right.

That’s right, the chair section. Row upon endless row of lounge chairs.

That’s when I realized the secret to the indoor water park, the secret more experienced mothers obviously already knew: don’t wear your bathing suit to the water park.

It sounds lame and party pooper-ish. I know. But this might be one of those times where it is appropriate to pull out the whole I carried you for nine months inside of me so now Daddy has to take you down the water slide.

And so, on our second visit to water hell, I came armed with my new-found wisdom in the form of a Sarah Addison Allen novel and a pair of long pants. Even though it was 275 degrees with air thicker than a Low Country summer, I managed to enjoy myself.

But I couldn’t focus on my book. There was too much going on, too many people to watch. The most fascinating among them were the lifeguards.

For all the ways the indoor water park disappointed me, the lifeguards nearly made up for it. These were no whistle twirling, chair lounging, teenage flirting type of life guards. These people were serious and focused – more special ops, less High School Musical.

First, there were a ton of them. Second, they each had a whistle in their mouths – Popeye style – and an orange life raft tucked under their arm at all times.

But the most compelling thing about these lifeguards was the fact that they were not only always on their feet, they never stopped moving.

It was as if they were each assigned an eight foot length of the pool. No more and no less. They were responsible for those eight feet and anyone who swam within them. They paced their assigned distance back and forth on the edge of the pool, eyes never leaving the water.

It was impressive to watch, as much as I hated to admit anything impressed me at the water park.

Their job wasn’t to watch the whole pool – just their assigned corner. Besides, there were eight more lifeguards spaced out perfectly around the pool, each doing their job, responsible for their small section.

pool chairs

Possibility can be as overwhelming as it is inspiring. At first it can feel terribly exciting to imagine anything is possible. You pin adorable posters in super cute fonts to your dream board on Pinterest and actually believe some of them. Until you sprint flat into the wall of your own limits in the form of lack of time, lack of energy, comparison, competition, and distraction.

Could it be possible we have it wrong? That the gift isn’t in believing we can do anything but in knowing we can do nothing?

Could it be possible that your limits – those things you curse and hate and wish were different about yourself – are not holding you back but pointing you forward?

It seems to me when I finally recognize my inability is when Christ shows up able within me.

But he doesn’t equip me to do every job possible, he equips me to do the job meant for me.

If you’re willing to face your inability, you might see something you desperately need to carry on – your limits can be a gift, showing you what is outside your circle of influence and responsibility so that you may embrace and focus on the small part that belongs to you and only to you.

Could it be possible that the reason we are so overwhelmed is because we are focused on the whole pool, forgetting our eight-foot assignment?

As I watched those lifeguards, a phrase my dad often says came to mind - You just focus on your corner of the pool. 

I know what he means now - You have a job to do and it won’t look like mine or his or theirs. It looks like yours. It isn’t the whole pool, but it’s important. The fact that you can’t cover the whole pool at once doesn’t mean you are a failure, it just means you have the wrong goal. It also means you need other people  around you to do their job, too.

Do you know what is in your corner of the pool? Do you recognize your eight foot assignment?

69 Comments · Filed Under: vocation

one thing we’re waiting for (and why it’s time to stop)

January 24, 2013

Real talk. Last night I had a dream that the people in charge of the Women of Faith conference called (in my dream, they were called Women of Courage, but I’m going to go ahead and make an assumption) and they wanted me to join their lady tour.

And y’all? In my dream, I really wanted to do it. As in, I called up Jennie Allen and was all Wussup, girl?! Because I’m cool like that.

When I woke up and realized it was a dream (and also Women of Faith, not courage) I took a little time to figure that dream out.

I realize there’s a risk in telling you this dream because now I worry you all think I harbor a secret desire to speak in arenas.

I do not. But there was something about that dream that I couldn’t shake after I woke up.

I met someone once who is all dreamy (as in, she studies dreams, not that I want to date her) and she said the main thing to pay attention to in a dream isn’t so much every detail, but the overall feeling of the dream.

And so when I woke up after that Women of Faith dream I was struck with the feeling that lingered with me — it was the feeling of being picked.

Sometimes don’t we just want to be picked?

I know you think I’m gonna be all, But God picks you!

I’m not. I mean, God does pick you. He totally does. But there is sometimes a disconnect for me between God picking me as a child he loves and God empowering me to make an impact in the world around me.

My husband went to hear Seth Godin speak in Tribeca this past summer and you know what the theme of his talk was?

Pick yourself.

It’s an important message to me. Because even though I know as a believer that my identity is solid in Christ, if I don’t decide to believe it for myself then it won’t impact the way I love, the way I live, or the way I work.

This past year I’ve struggled through the writing process more than I’ve ever struggled before. I’ve been working through a lot of self- doubt and discouragement and it’s affected my writing voice – somewhat here on the blog, but more so in the book I’ve been working on.

Two years ago, Seth wrote a post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked:

“Once you understand that there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound. No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

When I filter that statement through the reality of my life in Christ, it becomes even stronger. Have I been given a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind? Yes? Then what else could I possibly be waiting for?

Last weekend, I wrote this for you in my weekend post:

Go ahead and take time off from your self-doubt for the weekend. May the break be so freeing that you decide to make it permanent.

You know why I wrote that? Because I desperately needed to hear it. And I took my own advice after that. I made it permanent.

I decided that the self-doubt isn’t really working for me.

I decided that this book I’m working on for you is important.

I decided to have courage because really, what have I got to lose?

I picked myself.

What about you?

77 Comments · Filed Under: lifestyle, vocation, writing

when full rooms make your knees shake

August 6, 2012

The room is packed to the corners with women, every round table nearly full with familiar faces. She introduces me quickly and I stand at the microphone, perusing the room.

Those girls were at our wedding. That one back there volunteers in our youth group. This one works at my kid’s school. There’s our pastor’s wife, my mother-in-law, the women who drove from Raleigh. There’s some friends who go to a different church, some girls I went to college with, a few women who work at LifeWay, college students home for summer. Surely they can’t be ready to graduate? Aren’t they still 16?

I begin to talk the way I do, hands moving too much, eyebrows raised to the ceiling, open. I am nothing if not open. And that is why I will later come home and close up in a ball, tightly sealed, quiet.

My hands shake remembering. I knew it would be a bit more difficult to speak in a room full of women I know. But I wasn’t prepared for the emotion of it. I didn’t cry, although a few times I felt like I might. It was a little like heaven, all those women gathered in one place, women I knew or used to know. Women I wished I knew better.

It also felt like something else, something of fear and self-awareness, of hiding under a big round table. Something of running away.

Three weeks ago I stood in front of a room filled with writers and speakers and strangers. I had fun there, felt sure of my calling there, spoke words and didn’t replay them.

But last week when I shared stories with a room made up of friends at my very own church in my very own neighborhood, well. I haven’t yet recovered. Being in the right place doesn’t always feel that great. Sometimes it feels terrifying, unsure, small. But small is a gift I haven’t stopped giving thanks for. I have tasted the miracles that come from weakness, from inadequacy, from a hard leaning into a source outside of myself.

This morning I read in the book of John, right there in the beginning, how the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. I know this Word is Jesus, that the Father was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Him and through Him. And then John 1:16 sings truth in black and white, lifts off the page and colors my whole kitchen with light.

“For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”

We aren’t the only ones who lean. This word grace means favor. A kindness. God, freely extending Himself to us, giving Himself away, leaning toward us. He leans toward us. 

I would still prefer to speak to a room filled with strangers. Isn’t it obvious why? It is easier to manage their opinions, to control what they see, to stay distant. To speak among friends is to risk rejection, fingers pointing, exposure. But this risk is worth it if we want to grow in community and be challenged to live what we say we believe. Is Christ really sufficient? Have you really received His fullness? Does grace really multiply?

My earthly eyes see full rooms that push me to my introverted knees. The Spirit begs me to see a different kind of full — fullness of heart, fullness of spirits made one with God, fullness of Emmanuel. We are not alone. Grace upon grace.

I close my Bible, consider the gifts, stare out the window three minutes too long. The words fullness and lean are still on my mind. I don’t have neat conclusions. I will carry these words with me into the day.

41 Comments · Filed Under: grace, imperfection, vocation

the day networking died

July 25, 2012

I attended my first professional conference when I worked for a local university in their Disability Services department. I was the sign language interpreter coordinator and I flew to Chicago to learn more about the craft and meet other interpreters around the country.

I was 12 weeks pregnant with the twins at the time so one of my most poignant memories of that conference was throwing up in the hotel bathroom and getting up early to walk to the Starbucks around the corner so I could have some orange juice with ice. But there are other things, too, and one of them was the pressure and anxiety I felt to make connections. Rub shoulders. Network.

I don’t remember any of the people I networked with. I remember my roommate Stacy who brought me tea when she knew I wasn’t feeling well. I remember cold orange juice. I remember lonely. I remember my husband on the other end of the phone, offering acceptance and comfort in the midst of a difficult week.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I felt anxious in the first place. It was a bunch of sign language interpreters, after all. But every profession has their own celebrities and none of us are immune, I guess.

Still, I couldn’t wait to get home.

This past weekend, I spent some time at a conference for writers and speakers called She Speaks. My editor and I led a session where we offered 12 truths to know before you write your next book. This is the fifth year I’ve attended this conference. The first year I went as an attendee. Every year after that, I’ve gone as a speaker.

I really love this conference – the women who run it and the women who attend it are lovely, kind, humble. Still, in environments like this, aren’t we always on our best behavior?

People ask questions like how to grow your readership and how to build your platform and I find myself wanting to offer a hug and also fling heavy objects across the room.

Here’s the thing: You are a person and I am too, and we desperately need each other. We eat tuna on rye and have bushy eyebrows and we hold our hearts together with smile-shaped band-aids and a handful of Oreo cookies.

Pass the milk, please. I can’t do this without you.

After writing on this blog for six years, having my first book published a year ago and preparing to launch my second book in six weeks (six weeks!), there is one thing I’ve learned about myself. I’m lousy at networking. It’s a corporate word and I’m not a corporate girl.

But I’m pretty good at making friends. And I’m an expert at being myself. After doing this for a while, I’m learning that’s really all people want anyway.

We can be professional without being stiff.

We can be influential without being preachy.

We can share our stories without being self-centered.

So let’s learn how to make friends, build trust, pray, listen. The world doesn’t need more networks.

How have the people in your life earned the right to influence you?

94 Comments · Filed Under: traditional publishing, vocation, writing

three truths to remember when envy tries to keep you quiet

June 20, 2012

When I walk, I leave everything behind. I used to take my camera with me, but now it only keeps me distracted. I wear a watch (remember those?) so I don’t have to bring my phone.

I’m learning how to walk like a believer, how to look ahead on the path rather than just at my feet. How to stop and touch the bark on that funny looking tree. How to see.

I found a leaf as big as my face, plucked it off the branch and brought it home to show the kids. They were delighted because I was. We teach them how to see, too.

Yesterday as I was perusing through my archives (I love doing that now. So easy!) I clicked on courage. Courage wasn’t a category on my blog until last week. But as I sat out to file away these words from the past six years, I began to notice some themes.

courage - chatting at the sky

I found a post I wrote last year called “Why is it so Hard to Call Yourself a Writer?” I linked up to it on Twitter because I’ve been thinking a lot about this, especially since Jeff Goins’ You Are a Writer ebook released.

It was confirming to read something I wrote and know Jeff is saying it, too.

But there was a time when that was terrifying. There was a time when I would read the inspiring words other people wrote and I would get a hole in my stomach. That hole was a drain where inspiration and courage swirled around like dirty water, faster and faster until they disappeared forever, leaving me alone and  dejected in a land where I am a loser with nothing to say.

When you have a message and you pack words around that message like clay on a wheel and someone else shows up with a finished pot? It can feel like dying a little bit. Every artist knows this. It’s why people stop making art.

What do you do when someone else is saying what you want to say and saying it better?

1 . Your goal is not to make something new, your goal is to reimagine what already is.

Our imaginations are endless. You get to frame things in a way only you can, with a voice only you have. Sure, we may be framing the same thing, but we’ll do it differently. This takes the pressure off. I could write a whole thing on that, but Austin Kleon already did. Of course. Lifestyle photographer Kelly Sauer wrote about this recently too: I’m Not Orignal. Now What?

2. We live in a world of abundance, not scarcity.

I didn’t feel badly about pulling that leaf from the branch. The tree was full of them. There is enough to go around. There really is. Just because he is saying something you think you should say doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. If they do it, join them. If she says it, support her. They are not the enemy. If they are saying it too, all that means is that you’re on to something. This is a good thing. Use it.

3. We need you awake and alive.

Does the world need another book? Song? Painted living room? Not necessarily. But does the world need you to come alive? Absolutely. If writing books and songs and painting living rooms is what makes you come alive, then that’s what you’ll need to do. Maybe if we shift the focus from our work, our art and our insecurities, we will see a world to rub shoulders with, a world ready to receive what we have to offer.

 What do you do when someone else is doing the thing you want to be doing?

65 Comments · Filed Under: art, courage, vocation, writing

one thing that will make your soul explode

May 24, 2012

They announced the winner of American Idol last night and when they did, the winner did not jump up and down or fall down on his knees. He did not make number one signs with his hands or scream into the camera. He was almost nearly silent. Still. They gave him a guitar and asked him to sing. And he did, but he didn’t make it far. Because when the sparks started shooting out of the screen behind him and the confetti started to drop around him, it seemed nearly too much to take. You can watch it here if you didn’t see last night:

A sentence went through my head, one Jon Acuff said a few weeks ago during a backstage interview at Catalyst (I watched online). He quoted someone awesome whose name I can’t remember, but the quote has been rolling around in my head for weeks now.

“The human soul was not made for fame.”

You could see it, as he stood there overwhelmed with his own success and attention, like his soul was turning inside out and he didn’t know how to handle it. When he started to cry, all he could do was put his head down and walk straight into the arms of his family. He disappeared in them, like he was hiding in the comfort of his own smallness.

The crowd and the cameras were cramming importance into him by the truckload, but it seemed he didn’t want to receive it, couldn’t receive it.  How wise.

Only a fool would open up his arms, tip his head back to the heavens and take it all in, a place meant for God alone. And whether you watch the show or not, it is a fascinating study of how we mill about here on earth, putting our stars on certain people, lifting them up to places they never asked to be lifted up to.

They share their art and we want to hear it, but soon, if they get too big or too much attention, they become the object of our narrowed eyes and pointy fingers. If we can’t win, then neither can they. 

We do it with our athletes and our movie stars and our professional Christians, too. We know better than to worship them, but we put them up slightly higher than ordinary. We forget (or maybe we never really understood) that He holds all things together, all things that were created for him and through him. He is the firstborn over all creation. All. Creation.

Our souls were not made for fame. Our souls were made for the Famous One. O God, save us from ourselves.

129 Comments · Filed Under: art, faith, lifestyle, vocation

how to make fear work for you

April 9, 2012

Tyler, who has lived in Baltimore since 1967, has set almost all of her 19 novels in Charm City. Yet, she says, “when I answer questions about Baltimore, I feel like an impostor.” Somewhere, she suspects, “the grandmothers are whispering, ‘She doesn’t know a thing about Baltimore!’”

- Deirdre Donahue interviewing Anne Tyler for USA Today

After living in Baltimore for much of her life, writing 19 novels, and receiving the Pulitzer Prize (among other awards), Anne Tyler still feels like an impostor. She still wonders if someone might point out all she doesn’t know about the city she’s lived in and written about for 45 years.

I’ve not read her books, but I’m so glad her fear of someone pointing and laughing and telling her she’s wrong hasn’t kept her from writing anyway. Because watching and reading about the world’s Anne Tylers gives me courage, reminds me that even though it sometimes seems as though I’m standing in a circle of straight up fear, I do not stand there alone. That maybe that circle is for the brave ones, a prerequisite to beauty and influence.

We can let fear shut us up, or we can roll it up like a newspaper and shout life through the center like a megaphone. And even if someone’s already said it, or someone else could say it better, or if comes out all messy and wrong, we will still be breathing. The clock will still tick by another minute. The sun will still come up in the morning. Because the world spinning ’round does not actually depend upon my being right. Shocking, I know.

Would we always hide from wrong? Because maybe wrong carries a gift in his hands, reminding us of our smallness. Our need. Our humanity.

Pick up the pen, the needle, the dish, the fabric, the gardening shovel. Move to the rhythm of that thing that makes your heart come alive. And as the questions and taunting and mocking begin, as the voices say you don’t know a thing about Baltimore, smile. Agree. Be willing to learn. Open your eyes. And tell us what you know.

42 Comments · Filed Under: art, vocation, writing

using music to inspire your writing

February 9, 2012

Music is the regular man’s magic wand, the fairy dust of commoners, the heart surgeon for the broken masses. One minute you can be gray and lost, covered up in a thin film of your own questions and worries and self-focused mess. And then you turn on the music and all the world springs to life, anxieties crumble small to the ground, worry hangs his head in the presence of whimsy. (Those two can never hang out together.) When I’m writing and find myself in a dark, colorless corner of non-ideas, the right music can paint the world with hope.

In the acknowledgements section of my book, the last two people I thanked are two people I’ve never met. They have no idea who I am and honestly I’m not sure I could pick them out of a line up. But their voices? I’d know them anywhere. Ingrid Michaleson and Jon Foreman got me out of many a writing slump. I think I listened to the songs on Everybody at least 457 times while writing that book.

I was a piano major in college. Yes, I loved piano. No, I wasn’t that good. Which is why I dropped out and switched my major to the exact opposite of music – sign language interpreting. Maybe not the opposite, but isn’t that kind of funny? Still. Music more often than not is what unlocks inspiration. It lifts, moves, changes things.

Earlier this week when I was feeling uncreative in a dramatic sort of way, I started a conversation on Facebook about it. (Not something recommended by experts to get the the creativity moving – Facebook is where art goes to die, I’m sure.) But this time it worked out for me, as many of you asked some great questions that got me thinking. My friend Alisa emailed me and asked about music so I thought I’d share a bit of that here.

When I am working on something new to write, the music that inspires me most is music that, when I hear it, is orange-yellow in my mind. Yes, I see color in things that shouldn’t have color. We’ve talked about this before. Music like the Pride and Prejudice Soundtrack. Stunning. Calming. Nearly every song on this album is yellow-orange, with the occasional deep green-blue undertone. Track 16, Mrs. Darcy, is especially yellow. Another is Let Me Down by Kim Taylor – a bright, cheerful song that never fails to get my writing moving. I’ve also been known to do a little bouncing in my seat at Panera on this one.

Another particular color I mean sound I am drawn to when I write is anything with rich, jeweled undertones. Music that has some weight to it like Come Away With Me by Nora Jones. I know, it’s old school but the whole album is calming and dreamy. When the twins were babies and I was having a particularly rough time of it, I would put them in their car seats for their nap, go through the drive thru at Starbucks (the most brilliant invention for moms with babies) and drive around town listening to Nora Jones.

Another rich song is Hometown Glory by Adele. Really anything by Adele. I know that is so obvious. Her voice needs no explanation or summary. I mean, really. Upward Over the Mountain by Iron & Wine may cause you to want to gather up all those whom you love and stow away quick to the nearest field of trees, make a home beneath her branches, live in harmony with the land, and never let your son grow up. “So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten/Sons are like birds, flying always over the mountain.” Good stuff.

There are so very many more. But right now one of my favorite songs to inspire is Turn to Stone by Ingrid Michaelson. Seriously? Musically this is one of my favorite songs ever. Lyrics are good too, but the composition is simply magical. And then when Melanie and Marko danced to it last year on So You Think You Can Dance? That dance was pure worship. Those two brought to life fear and love and story. Why not just take a minute and fifty seven seconds and let this video move you to create something magical today?

What about you? Do you use music to inspire your creativity? What are some of your favorites? 

63 Comments · Filed Under: vocation, writing

making the most of creative time

February 8, 2012

You run from school to store to post office and finally back again. And when you get home, you realize you finally have hours to yourself. Hours. This does not happen often. There are many things you could do, many task-y important-ish things. But you long for more, to touch the invisible face of inspiration in some new and different way you haven’t quite been able to yet. You want to make the beautiful.

So here you are, Time finally looking happily your way, stretching out next to you with his hands tucked lazy behind his head. And you watch as he turns his face up to the sky, eyes closed to the warm sun, and asks what you’ll do with all of his present attention. You’re so baffled that he’s come, so amazed that you actually have the time to do something that all you can do is sit next to him in wonder.

Those of us who have been creating for any amount of time have read the books and know the ropes on how to maximize our environments for creativity. If you want to create something new, don’t check your incoming while you’re trying to do it. (shut off email, Facebook, twitter and the like.) Don’t try to be an editor and a creator at the same time. Refuse to be your own interruption. Fight the resistance. Quiet the inner critics. Write like a mad woman.

But what about when you do all these things, you’ve set the environment up just right, and still you are met with an impenetrable wall of discouragement? Yesterday I was sure my creative days were over and any chance of me ever having anything worth saying again was not only lost but killed flat dead on the ground, limp and lifeless and puny. You know how that goes. When you long for time to write or create, you have exactly 47 billion things to say. And then when the time finally comes, you sit and push out all distractions and you got…nothing. Again, it isn’t that I didn’t have any work to do. I have plenty. But my galleys for book number two won’t arrive until next week and a few other things I have going are at a stopping place for now.

There is so much talk of productivity, of focus and make your art! and don’t waste time! There is pressure, and not a small dose of it, to take the time you have been given and make the most of it. Or find the time you don’t have and beat it into submission. I have done this. I know how to boss time around. I know how to do the work.

But maybe it isn’t a bad thing to let yourself lay back on the wide green earth with Time by your side, stare up at the same bright sky, and let yourself be. There is every temptation to strangle him into productivity and make him work for you since you have so much of him right there. But some days he doesn’t bend easily. You might do well to relax and give up the fight. And to reconsider what make the most of it means anyway.

33 Comments · Filed Under: art, vocation, writing

for when you want to change your art

September 15, 2011

We talk a lot about finding your passion and doing your art. And I love it all. I love to see your eyes light up when you are finally honest about what you really want to do. And then, when you realize that’s what you were made to do? Shaped and formed by the Maker Himself? Oh, the blessed gift of it all!

But living the art doesn’t come out like riding on the back of a unicorn in gold-dipped shoes and galloping softly down a rainbow. It comes with grit. Exposure. Risk. Fear. Humility. And sometimes humiliation. Over the past two years, I have wished so many times that my passion was food. Oh, to write about tomato soup and eating around the table with family and making scones. I visit cooking blogs and make recipes and I feel safe and inspired. But those things don’t make me come alive from the inside out.

Shannan wrote a post yesterday about sitting around with new friends some years ago, answering light-hearted questions about favorite foods and pet peeves. Easy stuff. And then somebody asked what her biggest fear was and she quickly answered, “Being wrong.” Here’s what happened next:

“Everyone stopped talking, the game wasn’t fun anymore, and maybe the world stopped turning for a beat or two. I wanted to reach out and grab those two stupid words and stuff them right back in. I had spent my life being right. Admitting that I was afraid of being wrong was absolutely not right.

Why didn’t I just say “falling backwards off a steep cliff?” Why didn’t I say snakes? Speeding tickets? Slow drains? Camper toilets? … It’s funny how the truth takes new shape when it moves from your secret heart to the wide open air that you breathe. It becomes even bigger. It floats around and catches the light. It becomes a thing.”

Shannan, Flower Patch Farm Girl

It isn’t exactly parallel, but writing Grace for the Good Girl was one long why-didn’t-I-just-say-snakes experience. Why do I have to be passionate about something that is just so personal and exposing? Why do I feel compelled to splay my weaknesses in a book that is now sitting on bookstore shelves, bedside tables, car front seats, couch arms? Why can’t I just write about food? Animals? The weather?

I know the answer and I’m learning to receive it: talking about the grace of God makes me come alive. It’s deep and it’s serious and it’s sometimes heavy. It’s awkward to hold and it’s too long for an elevator pitch and it doesn’t look great in a tagline. It’s hard to market, difficult to summarize, cumbersome to share in the carpool line. But when I look into your eyes and I see you get it too, when we can talk about the secret things and the mystery of this hope of glory — it’s like someone turned on the music.

Have you ever wanted to change your art, to adopt some skill or gift that you think would be easier to live with? What makes it worth it?

***

The blog hop/tour/visitation/review/giveaway fun continues this week with one of my favorite bloggers, Shannan at Flower Patch Farm Girl and one of my favorite authors, Mary DeMuth. They both are giving away copies of the book this week and would love to have you stop by! Check out the blog tour schedule under Grace for the Good Girl in the navigation bar to learn more.

47 Comments · Filed Under: Grace for the Good Girl, vocation
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