What Does It Take To Win The Lottery?

Doesn’t it sound so easy? 

Just go out and buy a small paper ticket for three dollars, hardly enough to buy a gallon of gas these days, then poof! 

I too could be a millionaire.

Except we all live in the real world where adulting needs to happen and really winning the lottery looks like this:

Feel God is calling me to write a book

Get mad at God about the ridiculousness of that notion because I have five kids. Five! Where would I find the time?

What. The. Heck.

Get stubborn and decide to prove God wrong, that I can’t write a book, and start writing a book.

Realize after four months of writing for two hours once a week that I am in fact writing a book.

Freak out.

Finish writing a book in about nine months. How did this happen?

Sit for two weeks feeling like I am THE American Ninja Writing Warrior-mom for writing a book.

          Take a brief glance at what it takes to publish my awesomeness.

           Freak out.

Start editing book while I absorb the fact the average new writer writes five manuscripts before they ever publish even one.

Still editing.

How much time does it really take to edit?

Two months later ask friends to help me edit.

Start begging for friends to help me edit.

Join a local writer’s critique group.

Eight readers and six months later realize my manuscript will now be rejected in 15 seconds rather than 10.

Go to my first writer’s conference.

Fast forward one year. Still sneaking moments to write and realizing just how much work goes into a winning ticket.

We all wish people would throw money at us, that instant success we didn’t really earn. In order to win the writers-life lottery I have to give up another more sacred dream than my dream of being a published author.  

 

My real dream is this: 

  

Success doesn’t take work.

I’m about to head off to what will be my fourth writer’s conference, the Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference, picking my way slowly toward my dream. By the law of averages I need to finish my two manuscripts-in-progress, and then start and finish another two manuscripts in the next four years before I maybe get that golden ticket: my first manuscript sale. The idea of the wait is daunting, but then so is the idea of the work involved.

These days with the shifting landscape of e-books, self-publishing, and print-on-demand writers can no longer afford to write the solitary novel while sitting in their introverted cave while dreaming up new universes.

These days being a writer means more than being a dreamer, it means being willing to work for a dream.

Being a writer means I have to go back to school, so to speak: The Writer’s Conference. Not just once. Nope. Again and again at $500-800 a pop.

Why? To learn to write better books. To learn how to edit my own work. To learn how to write 30 page reports on my books. To learn how sell myself. To learn how to turn my self and writing into a brand. To learn how to market. To learn…

To learn success isn’t instant and to decide if I am going to apply my stubborn strength to writing or give into my fears.

The easy path would be to sit at home and bemoan the entire writing industry that doesn’t recognize my obvious creative genius. 

Or I can take the road less traveled in walking miles of humility.

How much money has my family sacrificed for me to go back to writer’s schools? Five kids; for us that’s not extra money just lying around waiting for a use. Am I worth it? I’m scared to death of this next writers conference. Even after attending three conferences the idea of having my work critiqued makes my stomach drop and my hands shake. Will I take the extra steps to put myself out there despite my fear?

How patient am I? I have another 15 months of plodding along in my writing until my youngest is in kindergarten. We can’t afford day care for him, which is fine; I can work at enjoying what will be the only fourth year of life he will ever get and writing in stolen moments. Having two teenagers I know how fast this time of snuggles and belly laughs and tantrums and stomping his feet flies. Wait. Oh yeah, still living that last part with the olders.

Someday this time in my life of wanting to write more and not having the time will slowly melt into having the time and facing the discipline of daily writing. I’m sure I will look back with nostalgia at this year and think I had it easy.

Am I willing to give up my grass-is-greener lottery ticket mentality in order to face my future with courage?

Pray for me. I’ll let you know which path I chose after Blue Ridge.

What steps can you take in the next week to work toward your dream?

Finding Strength When You Have None

The Lord turned to him (Gideon) and said, “Go with the strength you have.”

~Judges chapter 6, verse 14, 

  the Bible (NAB)

Recently I've been struggling with stepping out in a new direction for my life.  Somehow I think that turning 39 tomorrow disqualifies me from starting a career writing.   

My best qualifications weren’t earned in a university or on the floor working at a major publisher or magazine.  

How exactly am I to find the strength to step in a new direction when I have none?

Hard to believe five bio children and an adoption of a teen from foster care are good for a biography.  Add “breast cancer and heart failure survivor in my 30s” to my resume.  Professional qualifications for sure.

During the Asheville Christian Writer’s Conference one of the speakers, Vonda Skelton, spoke on stepping out when God calls you in a new direction.  Many times when people speak of Gideon from the Bible book of Judges it’s to mock him for cowardice.  Vonda had a different persective.

She opened Gideon’s story with his history.  He lived during hard times; he had a hard life.  It wasn’t as if his family, indeed the entire people of Israel where hiding for nothing.  When the Midianites would come through they would raze everything, “They (the Midianites) came into the land to lay it waste. (Judges 6:5 NAB)”

When an angel from God came to talk with Gideon he was hiding for a good reason.  Starvation is a powerful motivator and Gideon was threshing his family’s wheat.  He had every reason to fear.  The entire nation of Israel could not find the strength to defeat Midian.

The angel greeted Gideon not with, “God is with you, mighty farmer!”  Or if God liked Gideon so much, “You rock, amazing thresher of wheat!”

But, “God is with you, mighty warrior,” or in some translations, “O Champion!” 

 

Uh, sorry?

It isn’t somehow shocking Gideon is confused.  To whom exactly is the angel talking?  It’s not self-effacing for Gideon to say, “Yeah, not so much.  My family aren’t warriors and I’m the weakest member of my family.  Are you sure you have the right guy?”

Angelic suggestions aside, what was God thinking asking me to write?  If you find me at home during the day I have good reason to be there.  Hello, 5 children with one (adoption) on the way.  I’m not hiding.  Exactly.

It’s just that I don’t feel up for the task.  Oh sure, I love to write.  And yeah, I get really passionate about helping people.

But really, God, why aren’t you calling someone more qualified?  Someone stronger.  More put together.

But, “The Lord turned to him (Gideon) and said, ‘Go with the strength you have…It is I who send you.’”

Go with the strength I have.  

God sees me.  God sees that I have a weak heart and extensive scars from cancer.  God sees my life at home with the kids.  Jesus isn’t calling me out so I fall flat on my face.  

Jesus is calling me in love to step out of my comfort zone.  I know health issues and big family and laundry.  The world of writing?  Not so much.

God is okay with my weakness.  More than that, Jesus wants to use my weaknesses to show the world that he loves them.  In my weakness God is strong.  

Ask God for help when you are afraid.  Fear is a powerful motivator.  Courage can be hard to find.  The phrase “take courage” or “take heart” means we have to grab ahold of it.  Let anxiety bubble up so those bubbles can burst in the presence of Jesus who loves us while we are still a mess.

Let God call you out into an unknown adventure.  Go in the strength you have and let God handle the rest.

Where is God calling you to step out of your comfort zone?

The Other Mountain: Life After Cancer Diagnosis

The first part of any journey is taking the first step.  Right?  Maybe that’s the scariest step for most people.  Starting.  I know that I balked and got angry talking to God about starting another book.

I like to write.  Always have.  Like so many I have enjoyed a good story since I was little.  I used to come up with these crazy stories in my middle school years, most of which no one, not even my sister, has ever heard about.  I spent hours illustrating parts of them.

But I’ve never self-identified as a writer.  Even though I literally write something every day now.  Poems, fiction plots and blog ideas, talks I might give.  My conversations with God.

Writing my first book has been like climbing a very steep, very scary mountain.  When I first talked with God about following through on my book ideas it was so scary to me I got mad.  Anger seems safer than fear sometimes.   

Stepping out, I wrote a book outline.  It still seemed ridiculous.  Me writing a book.  A whole book.  Sure, I’ve started like 5 or 6, but how is a mother of 5 kiddos supposed to find time to write?  For real and not just for fun?

Isn’t it crazy?  Here I am, one year later having written an entire inspirational non-fiction manuscript in 1 and 2 hour chunks.  God meeting me in my broken days and redeeming my broken dreams.

One.  Small.  Problem.

Climbing to the top of this particular mountain has been a miracle.  Several miracles maybe: 1 – I’m alive to write; 2 – Each and every week that I was able to get out of the house to write for a few hours; 3 – God helping me organize my thoughts and providing the insights to record in a book.  In climbing this mountain there have been several points along the way I stopped to look back and admire the view, and then I was there!  At the top!

    
I had to climb through a bit of fog at times, common in climbing to such a high peak.  Foggy steps moving upward and closer to my goal were still energizing.  My feelings at the summit when I had written the final words.  Placed the final period.  Indescribable. 

    
Having been watching my feet through the fog so I wouldn’t miss a step, I finally looked up.

    
What. On. Earth?

   
This wasn’t the top at all.  How come I didn’t know that this wasn’t the top of the mountain?

I climbed a really long way.  It was an incredible journey.  But crap.  I thought this climb WAS the mountain. 

    
Yeah, I climbed from sea level to base camp. 

    
The climb up that mountain?  It begins from here.

    
It felt crazy to begin a book I knew I would finish.  Scary.  But I really didn’t know scary until I finished my climb to base camp.  Until I printed my manuscript and saw what I really needed to do to turn my manuscript into a book.

    
Getting to what I thought was the top but was really base camp, that realization of the largeness of the true climb, reminded me of when I finished treatment for breast cancer.  Only minus the whole chemo and surgery and radiation recovery thing.

    
Being diagnosed with cancer is like being invited to climb a mountain too.   Only it’s like THIS and you are running up a steep slope while being mauled by a mountain lion.  I have loved this post ever since I discovered it back during my own treatment.  The analogy is so apt, especially that part where at the end people are like, “Wow, you are finished!”  Only you stand there beaten and bleeding.

    
There is another mountain to climb.  The mountain of recovery from treatment for you and your family.  The mountain of daily living with horrible side effects from treatment.  The mountain of recovering your energy and stamina.  I think I lay at that base camp of ‘Thank God I finished and I don’t think I can take even one more step forward’ for 2 or 3 years.

    
At which point I was diagnosed with heart failure from my breast cancer treatment.  Which was helpful because it gave a name for the fatigue and general feeling of being mauled.  Not so helpful in actually getting me up that mountain peak.  That second summit called “Thriving After Cancer Treatment.”  Or something like that.

    
So here I am at base camp again.  Only for a book this time.  The initial journey was much more peaceful :).  But it’s still a place of recouping and looking up.  The mountain looks so, just, high from here.  I don’t know that I have what it takes to climb.  I’m afraid.  Afraid of starting out and failing.  Of falling.  I hate to fall.

    
Will God catch me when I fall?  Again?  I will only find out if I get off my cot, put on my big girl boots and climb.