Erasing the Ugly Truth.

My book is at the publisher’s right now, waiting to be formatted for publishing. I feel like I’m waiting for my baby to be birthed and I have all the jitters of wondering how the birth will go. When I show the world, my baby, will they think it’s cute or ugly?

While I wait, I learn more about the book world. Yesterday I learned about Instagram. I already had an account, but I didn’t really understand how the Instagram world worked. My daughter Charity, noticed after two days that my website and blog were doing well. I already had 140 visitors. So she said, “Time for an Instagram account.” She’s my promoter and is always finding new ways to get my soon-to-be-released book, Beauty from Ashes, out there.

Every time she suggests something new my heart does a flip-flop. It all scares me! Panic in my chest sets in. I’m out of my comfort zone. Home is comfortable.

I’ve been a mom, teacher to my kids, caregiver and homemaker for twenty-seven years. I have minimal business experience on the back burner. On the days I need to learn something, people show up who can teach me. I’m starting to like learning. That wasn’t always true in my life.

In the past year, I have learned how to use Word and WordPress.com, wrote a book, and created a website with a blog. I didn’t have the skills for any of these tasks when I started. I’ve been learning this past year. Since my health was up and down, I was home most days and had time to grasp all these new ideas. At first, I wanted my kids to do it for me, but I could feel God asking me to lean on him, trusting him to help me when I needed it.

I had not done well in school and associated learning with failing. I was a busy, active child. Years ago, a school was not set up for kids like myself. We sat a lot. My body was always wanting to move with my brain. I could learn while being active, but as soon as I went still, the learning seemed to come to a stand-still.

I think back to the day that God asked me to write a book. We argued back and forth. I pleaded with him to not ask me to do this. I didn’t stick to projects. If they got hard, I bailed. Then I finally gave in and started writing at 4 am in the morning. I did this for six months before I told anyone. It’s incredible I sat long enough to write a whole book.

Vance was the first one to know, and he was surprised. He kept wondering why I was sitting on the front porch on my computer each day in the summer of 2016. Plus I was getting behind in the laundry and housework. Finally, I thought I better tell him, in case he thought I was having an online affair.

We went out for Sushi, and I shared my secret. He looked surprised, almost like he thought I was kidding. Then he was excited for me! Now I could write in his office without looking over my shoulder to hit the “save” button on my Word document before he saw it.

I kept writing each day. Then August came, and there was a part of the story I didn’t want to write…. I stalled for a month.

Then I woke me up one morning and knew I had to put on my big-girl pants and go write the rest of the story! I dragged myself to my computer, with my cup of coffee and I started writing.

It brought healing.

You see, God had a plan to heal my heart during this whole process. I wrote all my resentment, furiously typing it all out, remembering people who had said hurtful words. The book looked like a gossip magazine!

You see, I had learned to love God, but I had not been willing to forgive some people in my life.

One day I started erasing. I hit that backspace button so often, it’s a wonder it’s not broken! As I deleted all the bitterness and resentment, my story began to take a beautiful turn. The ugliness of it was being washed away. Then I would give the story to my husband Vance, or my daughter Charity to proofread. They’d tell me to take out another bitter part. But Vance always allowed me to keep the pieces about him in the book.

My heart began to heal as I backspaced. I didn’t feel the hurt I had felt before. It was starting to fade into the background.

God wanted me to write it all out because he knew something that I didn’t realize: writing can bring healing. Just putting down our thoughts, somehow pulls them out of our mind and heart, and puts them before our very eyes, to see in a different light. I read them and thought about the pain it caused me. Then I deleted them … and I let them go. God gave me a beautiful gift. The gift of forgiveness.

We are still working on this together … daily letting go.

I won’t pretend to not be scared. I have no clue what will happen with Beauty From Ashes. I am hoping it brings healing to others who are on a journey to petition God to listen to them. I finally quit talking and started looking to him instead, that’s when he was able to equip me for learning … I think I may grow to love it.

Someone showed me a new healing tool yesterday. It’s a site that keeps your secret thoughts and gives you rewards for writing 750 words a day. It was fun! It kept track of my countdown to the 750 word finish line. Give it a try you might find you feel better, or you may even write your own story.

Here’s the link:

750words

In the meantime, I’m nervously waiting for my baby to be born … I hope it’s beautiful💗

*This is one of my first posts, and I can see how far I have come in my writing since then. I’m going to leave it here as a reminder of how far God can bring a person if they put their trust in HIM.