In the Quietness, I am Grateful...

One of the “good” things about having a hectic schedule is that when you finally get a short break, you want to make sure you use the time well.

Simply relaxing on the couch, or waking up from a cozy bed and to a quiet home in which I can rise and decide what I want to do that day—becomes a great blessing. I know that the tests and essay deadlines and concentration on Greek and Hebrew memorization will come again—for that, I need to make goals, lest I let the time dwindle away, and before I know it, I’m back to the hectic schedule again.

I tried getting back to writing my short stories yesterday. I faced great difficulty pushing the story forward, and once again, remember what it felt like to hate everything I write. I have a deadline pressing—and had promised my mentor in October that I would have this story done. I sit in front of the computer screen, and wonder again, whether I have it in me. Doubt takes over, as it often does. Have I forgotten what this story is about?

I had met with my mentor during reading week in the fall. He read my collection of four short stories, and had one general remark to make. To paraphrase him, he had said: “You create characters who want things, but it’s clear to the reader they can’t have it. But you make your characters try anyway. It’s perverse in a way, because they can’t have it, and yet it’s human nature to try and get it… It seems that the writer knows that she is antagonizing the reader, and it’s intriguing the way she tries… You make the characters suffer, but yet are sympathetic to your characters…” Later, my mentor had added, “The characters in your stories are struggling for something… but it seems that beyond the surface, they are struggling for something else, and yet you can’t pinpoint exactly what that is…”

I smile inside when he makes that last statement. Because I can answer that. It’s GOD. Even though I am in seminary, I try to be faithful to the characters—as challenging as it is. They must fail. They must sin. They must say what they need to say—whether the words are evil or good. I hope I don’t shove God in their faces simply because I’m the characters’ creator. But, deep inside the creator is the underlying belief that without God, there is no order, no design, no purpose, no hope. Yes—you live your life struggling, wanting something you don’t know that you want, or need, but it’s missing. I don’t come right out and say it, but that’s how I feel about my own life—and upon hearing my mentor’s statement, it was good that even at the subliminal level, he had felt it too.

So here I am, sitting in front of one of my stories again, which my mentor has encouraged me to take another stab at—and to stay focused on what the characters want and convey that. Maybe I’m suffering writer’s block because I’ve got to know what they want first before I can write it out.

It’s easy and hard to submit your writing time to God. Because you have to believe that when you whisper the prayer, you really are offering that time to God. Everything I do, Lord, is yours—may it bring glory to you. May I do it all for you… thank you for this break… thank you for this time… thank you, thank you, thank you.