image by simson petrol from Unsplash I'm so frustrated and discouraged with my writing right now. One rejection after another. Is it the formatting? Is it the enigma of the wrong match, the wrong editor for this specific piece, is the magic fit still out there, one submission away, three more submissions away? Is it just because those few pieces were poor quality? Should I have rewritten them one more time, changed the ending, tried a new genre/stayed in a familiar one? Am I just one of those countless nameless wannabes who ten years down the road will be smiling wryly and shaking my head at the naive me who was so convinced that this was "my field"--? Am I just lazy? There's no concrete definition for "hard enough." You could always work harder. You could always be more disciplined. You could always push yourself further. You could always write more, edit more, polish more. Kafka and Kenneth Graham worked fulltime bank jobs which they hated and then came home and wrote into the wee hours of the morning; I don't even come close to that level of dedication, do I deserve to have expectations then? Was I, all these years, simply deceiving myself? Scribbled on my phone notes, just a few months ago, these bleakly honest questions came at a moment when I was struggling with despair--to be more accurate, tired of struggling with discouragement, tired of trying to be hopeful, optimistic, tired of trying hard when there didn't seem to be any success. Tired of trying again, for the third time--for the tenth time. I think we're all familiar with the cliche of the aspiring writer, sending submissions desperately in hopes of finding that one-in-a-million-editor who will see potential in their work. I myself grew up accepting that these horror stories (that's really how they seemed to come across) as the inevitable reality of being a writer. After all, it seemed like every single famous writer had to be able to boast of ignominious beginnings. How many rejections. How many failures. How many editors turned them down. All the writing help books and advice for writers I read without fail included a section explaining to you that it was absolutely necessary to be turned down a hundred times, and I cheerfully accepted this as a formula almost. Hit one hundred rejection letters and you'd be bound to get accepted, somehow! With this mindset, I thought I was well prepared to take the leap and join the hordes of wistful aspiring writers trying to find takers for their armfuls of manuscripts. All the same, discouragement was inevitable, and I should have known it. The year is drawing to a close, the year which I had so confidently intended to be the first year I could *really* focus on writing, without school to distract me (hahaha I somehow never thought that work could be distracting too??) and I find myself without any clear indications of progress, no open doors--not even a toehold--no shadow of opportunities. Seemingly, I haven't moved forward since the beginning of this year, despite multiple submissions, new work, and different strategies. I thought I was mentally prepared for this, but the reality is that discouragement still hits. Hard. An editor sends a rejection email without knowing that it could be the tenth one you've received for that particular piece, or the second one you've gotten within a week. It's hard not to take it as an unequivocal judgment of your worth, and to maintain perspective. And for a while, I struggled with despair. Panic. I've been thinking of this, dreaming of this, working towards this, heck, building my whole identity on this--for my whole life. Now that it doesn't seem to be working out, what do I do? I prayed urgently, desperately, pleadingly. Please God, grant me some encouragement. Please give me some sign that yes, this is where I belong, this is what I ought to be doing. Please let me achieve this dream. Please give this to me--please. And in the wretchedness of my hurt dreams, like so many of us when we're conflicted, I questioned His goodness. A fragment of a sermon I heard recently spoke gently to me, right when restlessness and discouragement threatened to turn into bitterness. We were all born with desires. Many of them. This isn't necessary a bad thing either, contrary to what some people assume. But what we need to be careful of is when we turn these desires into needs. When we think we can't live without it. When we believe that our happiness and well-being is dependent on achieving it. When we feel that God cannot be good without first granting it to us. Though it varies between individuals and circumstances, the line between desires and needs is one that perhaps we haven't thought of examining more closely. Are our desires dictating our lives as if they were needs? Uncontrolled or excessive desires lead us to sin, though we may not like to think of it--or to acknowledge to ourselves that that's what it is. Instead, our real needs should be what we prioritize, what we plan our lives around, what we consider when we think of fulfilment, contentment, happiness. Our real needs--the most significant one of which is our need for God... ...to be continued
0 Comments
Photo by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. (2 Thessalonians 3:16) In my comfortable little first-world context, I did not understand the value of peace for the longest time. Why the Bible often described God as the God of peace, depicted peace as a gift to be desired and sought after. Love Joy and Peace, the trio you see every December on Christmas wreaths and tacky wrapping paper. It was only at a point in my life when I realized I repeatedly felt harassed, anxious, and inadequate. Exhausted from the endless struggle of trying to keep up while trying to do more. Wondering whether my time management was really that lousy or was it just because there simply wasn't enough time. Hurrying through devotions and feeling a sort of vague satisfaction that I'd managed to get that done, at least. Wondering why, when I tried to quiet myself to pray, it was so hard to keep myself focused, why God seemed so distant and passive. As I get older, I realize that how I respond to these feelings determines who I become--who I let myself become, rather. The sense of inadequacy, the anxiety, the stress, to use that all-encapsulating six-letter word that we use so generously everyday in every conversation. They don't magically fade away once you've graduated--gotten married--promoted--paid off that debt. Like the Hydra, new heads replace the ones we've cut off, leaving us with a perpetually unattainable delusion of rest "when we've finished this." Or, to use a more relevant metaphor, our lives become a frenetic mindless chase, like the snake in the classic handphone game; endlessly pursuing an endless trail of crumbs, a new one appearing every time we hit one. So telling ourselves that "I just need to get this done, get it off my mind; I'm too busy right now for any other strategy" isn't a good solution. Under these conditions, the importance of having a heart of peace is especially relevant as a Christian in today's culture. Why as a Christian? Because peace is the product of trusting God, relying on God despite changing situations and emotions. Having a "heart of peace" amidst the crazy, hectic rush of life indicates greater understanding of and intimacy with God. It's become a phrase that lies close to my heart for that reason. As I think more and more about it, I realize how much my life would change if I had that heart of peace, how it would manifest itself in so many different ways... calm and good cheer, not getting impatient or anxious or stressed or discouraged as easily, due to an applied understanding of God's timing and sovereignty, which gives more balance and perspective... being able to discern and maintain priorities even when other things are distracting... contentment, even as you make goals and pursue them--the type of deep-rooted, genuine contentment that is not reliant on success, not upended by troubles... comfort and stability during difficult times, and the same balance in happy ones, since you are not dependent on the fickleness of mere emotions... being able to not take things so personally, or be so hung up on other people's behaviour, because you do not need them to behave in a certain way in order to live your life well and be happy, and you don't have to relate to them on the grounds of those expectations... ...And the list goes on. Peace, that "surpasses all understanding", because we have so little of that peace in our lives. (continued in part 2) "Count your blessings, name them one by one...Count your many blessings, see what God has done." I grew up singing this song and was always slightly skeptical about how simple it made gratitude sound. Even at that age I knew there was a difference between knowing I had many things to be thankful for, and being thankful for them. Talk about counting, I could rattle off a list of blessings I had without necessarily feeling more grateful for them--like saying grace and knowing that though you were grudgingly 'thankful' for food so you didn't have to starve, you weren't thankful for oatmeal all the same. Thanksgiving, however, is something we are commanded to do in the Bible, because God knows it's something we need to do--something we have to be reminded to do, sometimes. It's hard to be thankful when your mind is full of things that need to be done. It's like trying to pray with a to-do list for the day in front of you. I've never seen the correlation between busyness and the challenge of gratefulness before, but looking at it in this way totally makes sense--having actually experienced how hard it is to do devotions with a hundred things on your mind. We always say that we have so many things to be grateful for (and we usually use the word 'blessings' when we say that) but the truth is that we struggle to actually feel this gratitude we talk so loudly about. Of the ten lepers Jesus healed in Luke 17, I find it interesting how they were healed halfway on their way to the high priest. Perhaps it was a test of faith, to see if they were willing to start on the journey even before they had been healed. At any rate, the actual healing happened when they had already left Christ. After the initial rejoicing died down, the nine were all focused on finishing the journey, following the right protocol and getting officially declared cleansed as soon as possible. Get to the temple, find high priest, and a hundred other things they wanted to do and could do now they were clean, was probably buzzing in their minds nonstop. Only one realized that he owed so much to the man they'd left behind, and that they hadn't even thanked Him. And that he might not get the chance again. He stopped. And he turned back. He stopped long enough to realize that though the official cleansing was important, and that his whole life had been given back to him, with all the possibilities and opportunities that meant, it could wait. He stopped to consider the implications, not just the consequences of the miracle which had just happened. Gratitude doesn't come in instant formulas, like noodles or coffee. Contrary to being achievement-oriented--even for the right things, as in this case--thankfulness requires that we stop and reflect. One of the reasons God knows that we need to be commanded to be thankful, reminded to be thankful; all too often we're headlong in our schedule, our goals, our duties and responsibilities, even our emotions. Thankfulness is realizing what we are, and who God is. 'And He gave them their request, but sent leaness into their souls.' Psalm 106:14-15 The Israelites lusted for better food to the point that they became unable to see anything beyond their desires. We know that food became their idol because we see how they became blind to God's promises and to the past proof of His power and providence; though the very manna that kept them alive and which they were complaining about ought to have reminded them of it. They were led into greed as well as unbelief. Even when God promised to give them their request--not just for one day, but for a whole month--they stockpiled far more than they needed, unable to understand that a God who was able to provide all this was also able to keep His word. Numbers 11:31-35 God gave them what they wanted. And it was the opposite of what they though it would be. Instead of fulfilment, 'leaness.' Instead of life, death. Aren't all idols the same? They are not what we need. They leave us, ultimately, unfulfilled and only hungrier for that vague something we yearn for, which we glimpse in glorious sunsets, in a strain of music, in the feelings evoked so intensely and confusedly by fleeting images. The danger of desires morphing into idols is that too easily we start to see them as the solution to all our problems; the lie that 'if only I had ___ I would be happy.' I write this wistfully because like you, I grapple with discontent, with unfulfilled dreams and desires that sometimes grip me till it aches. I wonder with some trepidation whether my dreams have become idols, if my ambitions are blinders. I write this without judging the Israelites because it frightens me how easily I too could have behaved in the same way, in my own version of their situation, however foolish theirs may seem now to me. 'Your gentleness has made me great.' I am still finding new ways to understand this fascinating phrase from Psalm 18:35. Perhaps sometimes this gentleness manifests itself when God denies us what we want, forcing us--so to speak--to seek a harder, more abstract, more complex, but more real satisfaction and fulfilment in Himself. The same lesson, learnt less poignantly through discontent perhaps, but with less emotional havoc than if it had been learnt through disappointment and disillusion. Perhaps one way He is gentle with us is when He keeps us from the destructiveness of our desires. |
a small voiceWe write to know ourselves. categories
All
Click to set custom HTML
archives
September 2021
|