I started writing this post in 2015. It was originally titled: “My Struggle to Speak”. haha. Pretty fitting title considering it’s 5 years later and I’m just now finishing it. 😉

My blog has been on again off again since 2013. When announcing my most recent return to it on Facebook I jokingly asked, “How many times am I going to do this?” The answer? As long as it takes.

I was created to write. How’d I figure that out? Here’s my story….

I started writing in high school, which means I kept a journal filled with angsty poetry. My senior year I took on some larger writing projects and realized writing came easy(er) for me. At that point, it wasn’t a dream and I had no idea what my calling was…or, if you would have asked me, it’d have been to get married at 18 and live off love. Ya, I’m serious.

While attending Bible college a few years later, I took a Journalism class which had never been offered and would never be offered again. My first article was about the MTV generation and I got an A (in case that question ever ends up on Jeopardy). This was where my sassy tone in writing started showing–like when I mentioned in one of my pieces how I imagined my guardian angel to be the type to have tattoos, smoke cigarettes and drive wood paneled station wagons. Actually, this is still pretty accurate.

My last semester there, Ezekiel 37 became my life calling/verse. If you don’t know the story off the top of your head, it’s where God tells Ezekiel to speak to the dry bones and command them to live again. Spoiler alert: THEY DO. I felt like God was telling me that I was going to be used to speak life. I wasn’t entirely sure what that would look like then. In many ways, I’m still figuring it out.

After Bible school I moved to Kansas to be a full time youth leader. Writing became more of a hobby during that season. I started a Xanga page, which was the cool social media platform back then. This was when Facebook was still only for college kids (that makes me feel old) and Xanga was a way for me to connect with the teens in my youth group. There was still no dream just a recognition that I enjoyed writing and people enjoyed reading what I wrote.

It wasn’t until I moved back to New York that I realized there was more to this writing thing than I thought. I was now unemployed and waiting to figure out my next step when I submitted an article to an online magazine on a whim. It was accepted and published and I was ecstatic. That happened a few more times and I decided I should probably get my writing degree. And that’s what I did.

Do you need a Writing degree to write? Absolutely not. haha

Fast forward to 2015 (when I first started writing this). I’m working as an administrator at a small church. It’s not a writing gig, and it won’t be making me a millionaire, but there’s some perks to the job. The biggest perk being that it’s paying my bills so I can write when I come home at night. My small studio apartment has a writing nook, which once held a kitchen table. Now I just eat dinner at my desk.

It’s now 2020 and most of that is still true. Still no kitchen table and I’m eating meals at my desk. Seems like what a die-hard writer would do. 🙂 I’m no longer working at the aforementioned church, but work from home which allows me the same flexibility I had before in regards to my writing.

So, what’s this mean for you? Why should YOU care about this?

I don’t think I’m the only one who has struggled to do what they were made to do. Knowing IS half the battle, but doing is no easy task either. At least in my experience. My advice is going to be simple and a repeated truth from the second paragraph. Keep doing it (or attempting to do it) as long as it takes.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to do– start a new business, learn to paint or create a YouTube channel. You may have tried a dozen times. Try again. If God put something on your heart to do please do it.

We need you to do it.