I have always been a creative person, but I always have a hard time seeing myself as a professional creative person. I don’t know a lot of professional creative people personally. So I don’t know what that life looks like. As a kid, I took piano lessons and I thought maybe I’d end up like the guy in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” song, playing in a bar night after night. (I don’t know why, because I’d never been to a bar. I just thought that’s what musicians did.) But I didn’t really like to practice. I did just enough to get by. I liked the idea of being a pianist someday, but I wasn’t prepared to put in the work required to get there. And with the sweetest little old lady for a piano teacher, it didn’t take that much practice to win her praise. I also liked to draw and make word art for other people, I won several poster contests, and I had a dream of selling my art one day. But I didn’t think I was good enough. And I didn’t know how to go about it if I was good enough. And I liked to write short stories for fun. I always had the dream of being a writer tucked away deep inside of me. But I didn’t think I was good enough for that either. And I didn’t know how to go about it if I was good enough. Basically my whole life I’ve known what I was meant to do, but I didn’t think I was capable of doing it, and I didn’t want to put in the work to get better. I just wanted it to happen naturally, and if it didn’t, I could say it wasn’t meant to be. So I’ve fumbled around for the past 37 years, trying to figure out what ELSE to do, since I didn’t feel worthy of my callings. That explains a lot.
Piano didn’t last much past junior high. I stopped taking lessons after eighth grade, trading them in for sports, clubs, jobs, and boyfriends. I went to a couple band competitions and played a song but that was it. I got a piano a couple years into married life to keep me company while my husband was deployed, but mostly it was just a decorative piece of furniture. I had started college as a journalism major, but quickly switched it to teaching, which I thought was much more practical and would be easier to find a job. But I hated working in public schools even more than I hated attending them. Once I quit working to get ready for our first child, I decided to try to start an Etsy shop. I tried making different things, first it was going to be aprons, then embroidered pillows, then small purses, then mosaics…I was all over the place! Finally I started doing art on canvas and began finding my own style and niche. Meanwhile writing had completely gone off the list of things I enjoyed. It had become something I did for school and work, a requirement only.
But eventually I started to write again, to help sort out my thoughts and feelings and try to remember the profound lessons God was showing me through my struggles. Then one day we were trying to figure out how to make ends meet at our new duty station and I was going to start the process to become an English teacher online. We were trying to figure out when I could find time to teach kids in China and still homeschool our kids. And it all sounded terrible to me. Finally (as it always happens), I realized I had not asked God for his input in this decision. So I did. I asked for a sign of any kind, and then I said, whatever you want me to do, send it in my next e-mail. And the next e-mail I got was from a writing group I had considered joining before. I was shocked. I didn’t see that coming at all! And God was steering me in the direction of another “creative” arena with no guarantees of income, stability, or correct path. Suddenly I remembered that I had always wanted to be writer, and realized that my feelings of inadequacy and fear of the unknown had kept me from pursuing it. And with the faith I had gained over the past several years, I could see how God was preparing me for this daunting task. Tackling my demons and figuring out how to turn my trials into triumphs, how to lean on God during my darkest moments, how to stop worrying about what others think of me; all the difficult experiences I could not understand before started to make more sense through the lens of being able to help others who were going through the same things.
It has been a couple years now since God answered my prayer with that e-mail, and I have still been fumbling through my life, trying to figure out the right way to go. But time after time I have been given the right people, the right words, and the inspiration just when I needed it. So at this point, I still don’t know what I’m doing, but I know God does. I know that I can no longer allow my fear and self-doubt dictate my choices. I know that I love words. I know that I want to share my love of history to help kids love it too. I know that I want to bring hope to military families, and to those who have trouble accepting the decisions their loved ones make; I want to help bring healing to others who have struggled with boundaries, with saying no, with knowing themselves or knowing God, with bottling their feelings for the sake of others. I don’t always know what will come out when I start writing, but I do know that God will use it for good, and that fulfills all the dreams I’ve ever had.