Take Courage

A blinking cursor can be a very discouraging thing.  Especially when you have been staring at it for two weeks.  Blink.  Blink.  Waiting for the words to come.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  You become entranced with the blinking.  It drains any valuable thought.  Minutes pass.  Blink.  Type, type.  Delete, delete, delete.  Blink.  Sigh.  And then someone is crying or needs attention or needs food and you reluctantly pull away, knowing that tomorrow you will return… to the same blinking.  One can only hope that the blinking will be fought back with inspiration.

Two weeks.  The book was begging to be written.  In my mind, it is already done, but there was some sort of traffic jam between head and fingers that was not letting anything come out on paper.  And I started feeling… discouraged.  Wondering.  Maybe this was not what I was supposed to be doing?  Dinnertime was catching me by surprise everyday.  Bathroom sinks were piling up with a thick film of toothpaste.  Laundry was anywhere but neatly folded in drawers.  Life was still beckoning and the cursor kept blinking, as if it was reminding me with each blink, “time is ticking.”

We have all been there- that moment when the idea fades from being great to intangible; the moment when you feel not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough; the moment when you settle for life as-is instead of could-be.  I have been hanging out in that mode for two weeks.  I have been praying and trying and pressing on, but struggling the whole way.  And I couldn’t quite figure out why I was feeling this way.  When I first started getting the book out on paper, I was functioning at maximum capacity and closing out the day with success and feeling on top of the world.  We’re talking- house cleaned, dinner cooked, laundry done, homeschooling completed, writing goals met everyday.  And then the slump hit and I couldn’t get anything but the bare necessities done.  It seemed that if I couldn’t write, I couldn’t do anything else.  I bounced from task to task feeling discouraged.

I’m a “why” kind of girl.  At the point where most toddlers grow out of that stage of asking why every two minutes, I got stuck.  I have been wondering why I have been feeling this way for two weeks and knew I couldn’t move forward until I pinpointed an answer.  Was I not really supposed to be writing a book?  Was it natural to have two weeks of writer’s block?  Was it because the kids had been sick and I was overtired?  Was it because I was having guilt about doing something outside of serving my family?  Was God trying to tell me something?

He was.  I heard it loud and clear today.  He told me that discouragement was not from Him.  If you are feeling discouraged, that does not come from God.  God is an encourager.  All through the Bible He is saying, “Yes you can!” while the Moses’s and Jonah’s and Peter’s are going, “I don’t know, God.  I don’t think I’m the guy for the job.”  So it suddenly became evident to me that if I was feeling discouraged, it was because another force did not want me to accomplish what I had set out to do.  And if he was trying to discourage me, it must be because he was afraid of what I might accomplish in God’s Name.  In other words, I must be doing something good!  If I was just spinning my wheels with no chance of bringing glory to God, he would not care to discourage me.  In fact, the devil does not waste his time on someone who is not walking in God’s Will because that is right where he wants you to be.  It is the ones who are actually following God that he wants to mislead.

So if you are feeling discouraged, consider it to be a sign that you are heading in the right direction!    “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”  Romans 5:2-5