John

“People are going to criticize you… Don’t live in the criticism. Live in the calling,” John said.

Those words  spoke to me.

I have been living in the criticism of my writing, devastated by comments made by two writing contest judges. Their words cut so deeply that my only way of coping has been to put the whole thing aside. Right at the end of my final edit. I’ve been trying to get beyond questioning my abilities as a writer, wondering if I need to take writing classes before I try to do this again, and wondering if I should give up.

Death of the vision. 

My writing has been immobilized. Comatose. 

Identity crisis.

But an amazing thing has happened while my writing has been asleep. I have grown in my identity in Christ, seeing that as the source of my self worth, not my writing, not whether this book is ever published. In the past, I identified a little too closely with my writing, as if it were the most important thing about me. 

Then, I received a phone call from my editor. I shed tears as he affirmed my skill and the quality of my work in progress.

And now the calling is back, but it is cleaner. There is less of me in it.