Getting unstuck

The title of this blog post is actually not quite the truth. As I write this, I still feel stuck. 

Very stuck.

In the past six months, I've started five new books, but finished nothing. In the past three weeks, I haven't managed to write even one new chapter of my current story. 

If I was a car, I'd be up to my axles in mud. Spinning my wheels. Digging myself deeper into the hole. Getting nowhere, and the harder I try, the more stuck I get.

Photo by the Henry Ford via Flickr

It's messy, frustrating, and no fun at all. 

Writing and releasing my first three published books in less than six months required that I put in a load of hours, but they were easy. I just did the work. Wrote the stories, sent them off to my editor and critique partner, did my edits and revisions, published the books. I'd been writing on and off all my life. This was just a lot more on, and very little off. I knew God wanted me to publish the books, and so I did it, with a single-minded focus.

Then, with book four, things went wrong. Real life got in the way of writing. My husband was ill, and needed my attention. A beloved pet died despite weeks of careful nursing and so much fervent prayer. I missed deadlines. Writing became a struggle. The book did release, eventually, but six weeks late. I lost all my preorders. Sales of all my books, which had done way better than expected, crashed. 

Angry with God, I forgot all about the deep spiritual lessons He'd made me teach my characters writing books two and three. Lessons about what truly loving others means. Lessons about putting Him first. Lessons about His purposes being far higher than our own plans. Lessons about what it means to truly trust in Him, and surrender to Him. 

God didn't forget. He had other ways to teach me those lessons.

From book 2: Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18 
God is teaching me that I wasn't truly living His love. He doesn't want me making writing the most important thing I do, giving it the biggest share of my time. He wants me to truly love the people He's placed in my life. To not just say I love them, but to show it, by giving them time, by listening, by putting their needs ahead of my writing and my to-do list and my own plans. 

From Book 2: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:29

I thought I trusted God, thought I wanted to do His will. The problem was, I still wanted to do it all myself. I wasn't leaning on Him or surrendering anything to Him.  I trusted in my own strength and my own plans. I had to be broken to let go of that, to truly allow Him to take my burdens and learn what it means to rest in Him. 

From Book 3: I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me. Psalm 57:2 ESV

God had to show me that He has other purposes for me besides writing. I write to share His love, but I need to live it, first. He is fulfilling His purpose for my life, in His way, and it's better than mine. 

From Book 4: And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart. Ezekiel 11:19 NLT

I never quite understood why God gave me this verse for this book. It fit my heroine, who had a hard heart, not trusting God or love at the start of the book, but the context of the verse is about choosing to worship God rather than worshipping idols. I'm only just coming to realise I'd made an idol of writing, of my business plan, of Amazon rankings and sales figures. 

God had an answer for that. Take away the sales, and my release schedules, and my earnings forecasts. Take away all my plans. That hurt. I felt such a failure. I cried, a lot. 

But now, I'm grateful. If the big plans I made last year for my writing career had worked, I never would have learned to trust God. I never would have handed my burdens over to Him. I never would have known His rest. I'd be truly stuck, trying to write a book every six or seven weeks, without a break. Eep! Instead, he taught me to look to Him and rely on Him.

It's funny. Last week, when I first asked God for guidance on what to blog about, just the title came to me. I figured I was supposed to write about overcoming writer's block, and researched a load of links on timed writing and the psychology of creative blocks. Instead, God wanted me to write a post about looking at being stuck in a different way. 

The owners of these boats could struggle to push their boats back into the water. It would be hard, but if they worked enough, they'd do it. Or they can simply wait for the tide to come back in and float the boats for them. 

Sometimes the answer to a block isn't to try harder, to push more, to beat ourselves up for not doing the work, or for giving in to resistance. Sometimes, maybe far more often than we realise, the answer is to look to God and wait on His timing.

Knowing that, suddenly I don't feel stuck at all!

But I stand silently before the Lord, waiting for him to rescue me. 

For salvation comes from him alone. 

Psalm 62:5