The Writing Dilemma

If you're reading this you're probably a writer, maybe a mother, more than likely working either at home or outside the home. In other words - you're busy. With a million chores and responsibilities calling you away from writing, it seems almost impossible to focus on putting word to page. Perhaps you're wondering if you should even try. After all, isn't your time better spent doing laundry, dishes, windows, and floors? Couldn't you make more money more quickly if you did what any rational person would and got a job (or a second job, or even a third one)? If you don't need the money, you surely need the time. More time for you, more time for your spouse, more time for kids, family, friends.

This is the writing dilemma. On the one hand, every writer I know believes writing is what she's meant to do. On the other, she believes that writing is secondary to the rest of her life.

So, how does a woman balance writing and life?

She doesn't.

Instead, she carves out time for writing and makes it as much of a priority as floors, laundry, and dishes. I know this is hard. I've lived it for a long time. My struggle is always this - I'm a Christian who believes my most important job is raising my children. How in the world does that coincide with writing books (which takes an inordinate amount of time and energy and perseverance). Both tasks are limitless, draining and difficult. Neither has a clear-cut end. After all, we will continue to be mothers long after our kid leave the house, and when we finish one book, there is always another to write.

How can one person possibly be called to do both?

The answer to that is as simple as it is complicated - God, in is His infinite wisdom and all-knowing power, has willed it to be so. He does not give more than we can handle, but He always gives more than we can handle alone. If this were easy, we wouldn't have to return again and again to the feet of the cross. If it were easy, we wouldn't have to lean ever more heavily on the shoulders that bore our sins and carried them away.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

But it isn't.

The task is for those strong enough to persevere, weak enough to know their limits, and wise enough to understand that God can and will give us what we need to be successful as He defines the term.

Perhaps that's the hardest task of all - knowing that what we define as success doesn't always match with God's vision and plan. If writing is our life, so is failure, disappointment, and disillusion. In that, we learn to be humble, to stretch beyond our comfort zones, and to rely not on the world's opinion, but on the peace that we achieve when we are working hard toward His vision for our life.