Serious Content: A Week or So Ago

You know, one of the most difficult challenges for many artist, whether he or she uses paints, pencils, pastels, or words is the blank. It can be a blank canvas where a masterpiece may go, or a painting which will be ruined and scrapped. It could be that blank sheet of drawing paper which could be a moving drawing...or trash. For a writer, or someone who hopes to write someday, a blank piece of paper seems to be a powerful amnesia, helping the writer forget all the brilliant things that were going to make a dazzling story.

Wanting to make a dazzling story is what I've been struggling with since I first realized that my overactive imagination could be shared in stories. 

So, for my first blank page I want to tell you story of something that changed in me a few weeks ago. As I said before I wanted to dazzle people. I wanted to write something that would be a statement controversial and remembered. I never would have admitted this before. I claimed I knew God wanted me to be a writer so I couldn't be anything else. I understood that I would need another job to support myself but I also pictured that I would write a book so wonderful I could support myself on writing alone in due time. I planned it all.

No big sudden event happen that all of a sudden changed my mind. Except one night I could not fall asleep. All I could think of was that I told a friend I was certain I would never be a missionary since God wanted me to be a writer. What my friend told me stuck in my mind. He said he was willing to go and be a missionary if God called him no matter what the cost... For him that meant changing his Dramatic Arts major to Youth Ministries. I saw a change in him that bugged me that one night. He had changed from a determined theater major who wanted to do everything, to a Youth Ministries major who had a goal; a heading for his life. 

Finally, I remembered a few years ago at camp, not just one time at camp, but for the previous few years at camp and at school where I promised God that I would go if He called me, no matter what the cost. I realized I had broken to promises by saying that I knew that God was planning for me to write books, for His glory of course, and become a beacon for others. I wanted to be the next Frank Peretti or Ted Dekker or C.S. Lewis. I wanted glory for myself.

I realized while I don't know if God is calling me to no longer write and to be a missionary to others, I needed to be willing and ready if He does. I promised Him.

You know one blank page many people may not have trouble filling (I'm talking about organized people here) is the page of a planner. Their whole days, weeks, and very possibly their months are filled out. In our minds we easily fill out a general planner for the rest of our lives. Go to school, get a job at that, get married then, be settled then, live here for that time, have that many kids, fill that blank page, fill that blank page, fill that blank page, and freak when God crosses stuff out and writes in there Himself.

But He always plans the best for me.

So while it may seem odd that I created a writing themed blog when I'm questioning if God will want me to write for my life I want to record the journey He will take me on to realize His plan. 

And to see what my blank page becomes :) 

P.S. I do plan on this blog being a bit more serious in tone but I hope to have another blog in the future with a lighter tone about....oh who knows what? Compilation of embarrassment?...perhaps :}


UPDATE: Don't need two blogs. One is fine. I'll keep this both humorous with serious mixed in.