A weird thing happened almost three years ago when I found myself in the neurological ICU as my wife was dying. People started reading my blog. Lots of people. Thousands of people. I’m still amazed at how God did that. All I was doing was letting people know how Stephanie was doing. I didn’t plan for Him to actually use my words for His good. But, He was determined.
Nearly ever since that time, God has been constantly reminding me that He wants me to do more with my writing. Countless people have suggested, encouraged, or even begged me to write a book. (They all expect autographed copies, of course.) Others are so encouraging whenever I write a blog post, saying it spoke to them. (Seriously, it’s not me that spoke to your heart! Please know that.) Every time I start to push those feelings and comments aside, He reminds me again that He’s asking me to do it. Whenever I think, “Nobody cares what I say” or “Who would want to read a book by me?” someone else comes along and says quite literally, “You should write a book.” And I can’t ignore it. I won’t ignore it. I just don’t know necessarily how to respond to that call.
Enter Jon Acuff and his START experiment, based on a book he wrote about going out and actually doing that thing you’ve always dreamed of doing. I recently joined this challenge and have made it my goal to get serious about defining what I want to write a book about. Along with that, I plan to blog at least twice a week for the next 3 weeks.
Frankly, I’m not sure what I’ll blog about, but I know that the more I write, the more I’m inspired to write. So I’m starting there. When we were in the hospital, it was “easy” to write. I was an emotional wreck at times, and so I spilled that all out onto the page as best I could. I had tons of material to work with. But I quickly moved away from that place where I was stuck in those emotions. I’m not content to live in the past. But with my blog, I wasn’t sure anybody cared so much about my present or my future. But regardless, God continues to point out the fact that I have lots I can say. I just have to figure out what those things are I should say.
So, here’s to hoping I do. Here’s to following His call and my dream. Here’s to writing about what He puts on my heart, even if nobody reads it. Here’s to trusting that the same God who put me and my family before the whole world with their hearts and prayers is the same God who will help me fulfill what He is asking me to do.