A Cure for Writer's Block

Here is the text of a short story that I just submitted to a contest.  Hope you like it!  :o)

 

 

After twenty years as a writer, I’ve learned that inspiration can come at anytime and from anywhere.  And I do mean anywhere…

It was just after lunchtime when I pulled into the driveway at the lake house.  My stomach growled unhappily as a reminder.  The drive from Phoenix had only taken a little over an hour, but after a three-and-a-half hour flight from Tampa, it had been almost torturous.  I’ve never really enjoyed travel, though it’s a necessary part of my job. 

I turned off the ignition but couldn’t bring myself to open the door and get out.  This had all been my agent’s idea, and I really wasn’t thrilled about being stiff-armed into a time of rest and relaxation.  Something had been lacking in my writing lately, but I couldn’t see how spending a month at this lake house was going to solve my problems.

I looked around.  The landscaping on either side of the drive screamed Southwestern motif, with rocks and cactus scattered everywhere.  Not exactly inviting to a man used to sand and palm trees.  With a sigh I opened the door and made a mental note not to let my agent choose my next vacation spot.

As I approached the house, I noticed a man standing on the porch watching me.  He was dressed casually in blue jeans and a flannel shirt.  A crop of gray hair stuck out from underneath a purple baseball cap.  I couldn’t tell which team’s logo was on the cap, but I guessed from its colors that he was a Diamondbacks fan.  He stood at the top of the porch stairs with his hands in his pockets as if he had all the time in the world.  His expression was difficult to read, so I decided not to try. 

“You Mr. Porter?” he asked as I came near. 

“I sure am,” I replied. I climbed the stairs and extended my hand to him.  “You can call me Robert.”

“Will do.”  He squeezed my hand with a firm grip that made me wince slightly.  “I’m Donald.  Come on in and I’ll show you the place.” 

I followed him inside.  The whole cabin was a strange mix of Southwestern and rustic elements.  Indian patterned rugs covered the walls of the entry hallway while the great room was decorated from one corner to the other with stuffed animal heads.   I’ve never seen the appeal of decorating a house with animal carcasses, but it definitely fit the décor here.

“The bedrooms are upstairs,” Donald informed me as we crossed the room.  “You can pick whichever one you want.”  He pointed to his right.  “Bathroom’s there…garage, back door, kitchen…” 

We entered the kitchen and Donald crossed to the refrigerator.  “We’ve got it all stocked up for you,” he told me, opening the door and revealing the contents.  “If there’s anything in particular you decide you want, though, you’ll need to head back into town to get it.”

I nodded a few times and looked around the room.  I had no desire to drive thirty minutes back into town.  I would make do with what was in the fridge.

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” I assured him.

He opened one of the cabinets and pointed to a pegboard attached to the inside of the door.  There were at least a dozen keys hanging from hooks. 

“They’re all labeled,” he told me. “So, if you need to go somewhere you can lock everything up.  It’s a pretty safe neighborhood, but I’d rather you didn’t take any chances.”

I nodded again because I had no idea what else to say.

“Well,” he said after a few seconds of awkward silence, “if there isn’t anything else you need, I guess I’ll be on my way so you can get settled in.”

“Thank you so much,” I said as I followed him back to the front door.  “Is there a number where I can reach you if there are any problems?”

He told me the number was next to the phone in the kitchen, then left without looking back again.

I closed the door behind him.  For several seconds I simply stood in the center of the living room, uncertain what to do next.  My stomach grumbled again.  I still hadn’t eaten lunch, so I returned to the kitchen.  I needed to get to work on my novel, but my laptop was still in the rental car and I just didn’t feel like going back out to get it.

            After I finished my sandwich, I could no longer avoid the inevitable.  After retrieving my laptop and suitcase from the rental car, I set everything up in the master bedroom upstairs.  The room was furnished with an elegant six-drawer dresser, but I only needed two of the drawers.  I had packed light since most of my time would be spent here in the cabin.    

Crossing the room to the closet, I hoped that Donald and his wife had left behind some hangers.  I turned the knob on the closet door only to find that it was locked.  It caught me a little off guard since this door was the only possible option for a closet in the room.  I checked in the bathroom to see if I had missed something in there, but no. 

Remembering the keys Donald had pointed out before he left, I went to the kitchen to see if there was one for the closet door.  I chuckled as I looked over the pegboard. There were keys for the garage door, the door leading from the house to the garage, the front door, the side door, the storage shed, the laundry room, and several other doors that I hadn’t even realized needed keys, but nothing for the closet in the master bedroom.

Not a big deal, I told myself.  I would just iron the shirt and pants if a situation arose where I actually needed to wear them.  I went back upstairs and sat down in front of my laptop to get to work.

As I waited for the computer to boot up, I sat at the desk and looked out the window at the amazing view of the woods.  There was a glimpse of the lake peeking out invitingly from between the trees.  It only took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t going to get any work done, so I decided to go do a little exploring in the hopes that it would get my creative juices flowing.

            An hour and a half later, I returned from my walk.  The exposure to nature had done wonders for my outlook.  I even felt energized with a few ideas for the plot of my novel, which had stalled considerably in the last few months.  I sat down at the computer and wrote for the next hour. 

The novel I was working on was a period piece set in the Old West.  Since I had always been fascinated with cowboys and John Wayne movies, it seemed only logical that one day I would write a western of my own.  The story wasn’t flowing as smoothly as I would have liked, though.  Even with this most recent bit of inspiration, the novel just wasn’t coming together.

I stopped and re-read what I had just written.  It was acceptable, but not earth-shattering.  I sat and stared at the screen.  A few minutes passed, but the brief bout of inspiration was gone.  I read the scene a second time, but had no idea where to go next. 

My thoughts began to wonder, and eventually I found myself looking at the closet door again.  Why was the stupid thing locked?  What could possibly be in there?  What kind of person would even put a lock on a closet door anyway?

I crossed the room to the door and jiggled the knob again.  It was just a stall tactic to avoid facing my novel, but I didn’t care.  Pressing my ear up against the door, I held my breath and waited.  I’m not sure what I expected to hear, but it seemed like a logical thing to do at the time.  After a few seconds, I got down on my hands and knees, flattening my left ear against the carpet in an attempt to see under the door.  Not surprisingly, the closet was completely dark, so I set out to find a flashlight.

After several minutes of rummaging through drawers and looking in various cabinets, I finally found what I was looking for in the garage.  I brought it back upstairs and resumed my position on all fours in front of the door.  I felt hopeful as I squinted into the darkness behind the door, but the flashlight’s beam didn’t reveal anything. 

With a sigh I decided to call Donald and ask him about it in the morning.  I had already wasted close to an hour on this.  It was time to get back to work. 

 

********************

 

The next morning I awoke with the sun pouring through the large bay window.  I didn’t feel rested at all since I had spent most of the night thinking about the closet.  It was intriguing, and I decided it would make a good idea for a novel some other time.  In the present, though, I just wanted to know what was behind the door.

I got a banana from the kitchen downstairs and then sat down at the desk to get to work.  The words wouldn’t come.  Several times throughout the course of the morning I realized I was staring at the closet door again.  I hadn’t written more than a hundred words even though I had been at the computer for at least two hours. 

I carried my laptop across the room and settled in on the floor, sitting with my back against the closet door.  Maybe I wouldn’t be as distracted if I couldn’t see it. A draft blew against my backside from underneath the door, making it impossible to think about anything else.  Rather than working on my novel, I found myself brainstorming ideas of what could be in the closet.  More Southwestern-rustic décor? A safe? A dead body?  The possibilities were staggering.

Eventually it became clear that I wasn’t going to get any work done if I didn’t solve this mystery.  The solution was simple - I would have to break into the closet.  I could apologize to Donald later.  Surely I could come up with a plausible excuse by the end of my stay and, of course, I would be willing to pay for any repairs.  All that mattered now was getting into that room.

The garage provided an assortment of tools that could be useful for the job.  I selected a sledgehammer, but made a mental note of a large ax propped against the wall just in case this attempt didn’t succeed.

When I returned to the master bedroom, I stood in front of the closet and debated with myself for several minutes.  This sort of behavior bordered on manic and I knew it.  But I also knew that I wouldn’t make any progress on my novel until I found out what was so important that it needed to be kept in a locked closet.   I took a deep breath and swung the sledgehammer down at the doorknob with every ounce of strength I could muster.

The wood around the knob began to splinter with a loud cracking sound.  I felt exhilarated.  My second swing brought the sledgehammer against the knob with absolutely no hesitation on my part.  I was surprised by how flimsy the door had turned out to be.  Maybe the room’s contents weren’t as valuable as I had imagined.  It didn’t matter now.  The knob was already lying mangled on the floor and the door was pretty well demolished too.  There was no going back.

I pulled the door open carefully and peered inside.  The light from the room behind me did little to illuminate the space.  Reaching my hand in, I felt along the wall for a light switch. There wasn’t one.  So, I grabbed the flashlight from the desk where I had left it and clicked it on.

Cautiously, I stepped through the doorway.  The beam of light didn’t appear to make much difference in the darkness before me, so I took another tentative step into the room.  I shined the flashlight on the floor and the walls to my left and right, but saw nothing.  There wasn’t a wall anywhere in front of me either.  The closet was apparently deeper than I had anticipated.  I reached my hand out as far as I could but felt only open space.  Quickly reviewing what I remembered of the house’s dimensions, there was no way that this room could be any longer than a couple of feet.  Since the floor in front of me was clear, I took a few more steps into the darkness.

The beam of the flashlight still failed to reveal the back wall.  I looked over my shoulder and calculated that I had already crossed about five feet of floor space with at least that much illuminated in front of me by the flashlight.  Based on the house’s floor plans, I knew that was impossible.

I briefly considered the possibilities.  There was a good chance I was going crazy and this was all in my imagination.  I didn’t believe that, though.  I felt completely lucid.  Of course, I’ve always heard that crazy people don’t realize they’re crazy, so that wasn’t much of a consolation.  

Maybe the house was haunted or in some other way enchanted.  Since I’ve never believed in such things, I didn’t spend much time contemplating that option, either.  All the same, my author’s imagination wouldn’t allow me to completely dismiss the idea as I stepped farther into the room. 

Perhaps the house’s builder had discovered some way to stretch the rules of architectural design.  That option seemed like the most plausible one, and it also filled me with a sense of excitement and curiosity.  How could I pass up the chance to see where this passage might lead?  I simply had no choice but to continue into the darkness until I reached the end.

After several minutes of feeling my way along the wall to my left I glanced back over my shoulder.  The doorway and the bedroom beyond appeared to be about fifty feet away.  My pulse quickened at the prospect.  I continued through the darkness for a few more minutes before I noticed a glowing rectangle several feet ahead of me.  As I approached, it became clear that it was another door with some sort of light shining in around the edges. 

I heard sounds from the other side but couldn’t determine the source.  Placing my ear against the door didn’t help distinguish any of the sounds.  I reached for the knob and took a deep breath.  I had come this far.  It would be ridiculous to turn back now. 

To my surprise, the knob turned easily in my hand. 

I pushed the door open, but my eyes needed several seconds to adjust to the light all around me.  As they did, I was convinced that I actually had gone crazy and I had to resist the urge to run back up the corridor to the lake house.  Something made me stay. 

The scene around me was entirely in black and white, as if I had stepped onto the screen of an old western.  I was standing in the back of an old saloon.  To my left was a piano player plinking out tinny-sounding music and to my right was a bartender wiping down the counter of a long, wooden bar.  The tables around the room were surrounded by men in cowboy attire playing cards.  Several dancing girls were sitting on their laps or standing behind them.

No one seemed to notice me.  As I looked down at my clothes, I realized there was no reason why they should. My clothes were relatively nondescript for the time period – a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt with a cowboy hat to top off the look.  Plus, I was just as monochromatic as the scene around me. 

I looked at the door behind me, where only a few seconds before I had been walking through a dark corridor. The words “Men’s Lavatory” were stenciled in red paint.  I wasn’t certain how many saloons in the Old West actually had men’s rooms, but that research would have to wait until later. 

As fascinated as I was by the scene around me, I also wanted to do a little more exploring.  I slowly crossed the room toward the swinging double doors, being careful not to attract any attention.  I had nothing to worry about, though, since no one gave me a second look.  I pushed the doors apart and stepped out onto the sidewalk. 

It was a warm day and the sun was shining brightly, though everything was still in black and white.  The street was busy with horse-drawn carriages and carts making their way through town, while an assortment of men, women, and children went about their business on the sidewalks.  Everything – the buildings, the clothing, the dirt-covered street – looked exactly as I had imagined they would.  The research I had conducted over the last several months had paid off.

I relaxed a little as I made my way down the sidewalk.  Strangely, I no longer felt a need to figure out what was happening to me.  I nodded and tipped my hat to a group of ladies walking in my direction.  They smiled politely in reply and passed by. 

As I approached a building with a large red sign reading “Wells Fargo”, I heard something in the street to my right that stopped me in my tracks and caused my heart to skip several beats.

“How can you leave me like this, Nathan?”

I turned and spotted a young couple hurrying past a carriage a few feet away from me.  The man was tall and neatly dressed, and the shiny metal star pinned to his vest caught the sunlight occasionally as he walked quickly past where I stood frozen to the sidewalk.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Rebecca,” the man said without slowing his pace.

The young woman was on his heels, taking three or four steps to each of his strides in an attempt to keep up.  She wore a flowered, polonaise dress that accented her graceful figure and drew appreciative looks from every man she passed, though she didn’t seem to notice.  Her long, dark hair, which was styled in flowing curls underneath a regency style bonnet, bounced as she hurried after the man. 

I knew that the dress was called a polonaise because I had recently conducted a significant amount of research on women’s fashions in the Old West for my novel.  I knew other things, too.  I knew that Rebecca had taken on the task of raising her younger brother and sister after her parents had died in a Comanche raid.  I also knew that this couple had only been married a few months.  Nathan had been appointed sheriff a few weeks after the wedding, and now a vicious band of outlaws was coming to kill him.  

I knew these things because I had written them only a few days earlier. 

The couple hurried past me and I decided to follow them.  Before I could move, though, they both suddenly stopped.  In fact, all motion in the street and on the sidewalks stopped as well. 

I only had a few seconds to process this information before a booming voice from somewhere overhead announced: “Rebecca refused to be dissuaded.  She hurried after Nathan with a determination that surprised even herself.”

I instantly recognized the words: It was the narrative I’d written for this very scene.  The narrator’s voice was familiar, but it took several seconds for me to recognize it as that of actor James Earl Jones.  I had never given much thought to who would narrate my novels, but this didn’t feel like the right choice for this story.

The scene on the street began to move again and I hurried to catch up with Nathan and Rebecca.  I was curious to see where the scene was going.  It was a crucial scene that would eventually move my characters toward the story’s climax, but I had been struggling to put it all together.  Maybe I could let the characters tell me where they needed to go next.

When the couple reached the sheriff’s office, Nathan climbed the first few steps and then turned to face his wife, towering over her.   

“There’s no need to discuss it further,” he told her. There was no anger in his expression, only concern and a hint of fear.  I know, because I had written it that way.  “You’re taking Beth and Jared and you’re getting out of town with the others before the Dalton gang rides in.  That’s final.”

Before Nathan had finished speaking, the peaceful scene on the street suddenly shifted.  People began frantically hurrying in and out of buildings, loading already stuffed carts and carriages with boxes and suitcases. The quiet lull of afternoon conversation I had noticed earlier was replaced with shouts, crying babies, and frightened pleas for loved ones to hurry. 

I was surprised by the sudden shift in the atmosphere around me and realized that my readers would have felt the same way.  I made a mental note: establish a more frantic feeling for the scene from the beginning.

“But where will I go?” Rebecca pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re my whole world.  I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

Again the scene stopped.  I waited for the narrator’s voice, but none came.  I was disappointed.  I needed guidance, and I had been hoping these characters would provide it. Something had felt wrong about this scene when I wrote it, but I just couldn’t put my finger on the problem.

I turned and looked at the couple in hopes that they would offer a solution.  Still I was stumped, so I moved closer.

Frozen tears glistened in Rebecca’s eyes as if she had been sculpted out of wax.  As I stared at the desperate, pleading expression on her face, it hit me.  She was the problem! The character I had created was meant to be a fiery, independent frontier woman.  At this point in the novel, she had already saved her family’s farm after her parents were killed, she had begun to raise her younger brother and sister with the help of an elderly aunt, and she had survived a serious bout of pneumonia.  The words she had just uttered made no sense coming from the lips of the woman I had developed.

No sooner had I made this realization than the scene began to change again.  This time the characters all began to retrace their steps as if someone had hit a rewind button.  When the scene began to play again, the townspeople were frantically hurrying and packing to leave instead of strolling leisurely through town, and Nathan and Rebecca were back on the street coming toward me.

“How can you leave me like this, Nathan?” Rebecca asked again. This time there was no plaintive tone in her voice, only frustration and anger.  Her strides were slightly longer and definitely more determined than before. 

The narrator’s voice again broke in with my exposition, only this time the voice belonged to actor Morgan Freeman.  I nodded my head a few times and looked at the scene around me.  It fit.

Nathan delivered his lines as he had before, but this time Rebecca’s response was different.

“No, that is not final!” she declared, climbing a few steps in front of her husband so they were close to the same height.  She placed her hands on her hips, looked him square in the eyes, and said, “I’m sending Beth and Jared with Aunt Amy, but I’m staying here with you.  I’m as good a marksman as any man in this town and I will fight for the people I love! No gang of outlaws is going to run me out of town!”              

I felt goose bumps tingle up my arms.  This was the character I had envisioned when I created her! 

There was a short pause as Nathan considered his wife’s declaration.  I wasn’t sure exactly what he was thinking because this was uncharted territory in my story now.  I could figure it out later.  Nathan took Rebecca’s face in both of his hands and kissed her tenderly. 

As the couple stood embracing on the steps, I turned and hurried back up the sidewalk toward the saloon.  I had some serious work to do. 

I prayed the men’s lavatory would be unoccupied.                 

I am a writer

4 March 2012

            I want to be a writer.  I love to write, and it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. 

When I was in 5^th grade, my teacher, Mrs. Frost, challenged me to write a children’s book for the kindergarten students at our school. I accepted the challenge. The story was called “Catnapped” and it was about a cat that gets lost and his adventures trying to get home. Even though I didn’t finish the story that school year, I was hooked.   

Throughout my junior high years I kept writing.  I can remember staying up way later than I should have because the ideas were just flowing and I didn’t want to lose anything.  Before I graduated from high school I had written the better part of 2 novels, though I didn’t actually finish either one.  I still have the handwritten pages of both manuscripts in a box in my storage unit. Honestly, I don’t know that I’m brave enough to dig them out and look over them.  I’m concerned that I might be embarrassed for my teenage self.  Maybe one day I will, but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.

            Once I entered college, life became much more hectic and my recreational writing ground to a halt.  There were so many academic papers to be written that I just didn’t make the time to write for fun anymore.  Unfortunately, once you stop writing creatively, the ideas begin to dry up as well.  Then one day you sit down to write and you realize that you don’t know where to start, so you don’t.

Over the years, I’ve had a few ideas surface, but I haven’t mustered the energy or motivation or whatever else is needed to actually sit down and begin fleshing them out.  Maybe I was worried that I would again find myself writing into the wee hours of the morning for fear of stifling the inspiration.  I’ve come to very much value my hours of sleep, and honestly I don’t function well at all when I’m sleep-deprived.  Or maybe that’s just an excuse to keep me from admitting that I’m a little scared of what will happen if I really commit to writing.  If I never try to pursue a career as a writer, then there’s no danger of failing at it.  If you don’t write, then you don’t have anything to submit for publication, and consequently you have no chance of someone criticizing your writing.  Of course, you also have no chance of ever becoming a writer, which poses a problem for someone who claims to want to be a writer.

            So, in August of last year, I committed to completing a novel.  An idea for one had been bouncing around in my head for awhile, so I decided to get to it.  I’ve been fairly diligent working on it over the last few months, and at this point I’d say I’m close to halfway done.  I was hoping to have it finished by the end of this school year, but that’s really just a self-imposed deadline.  The last couple of weeks, though, I’ve been slightly neglectful.  It hasn’t really been an issue of time.  I think it’s been more a question of purpose.  I’ve been plagued by questions and doubts about whether or not anyone will ever want to read it, and whether or not I’m any good at all at this thing that I love to do, and what are the odds that this will ever get published.  It’s pretty difficult to continue working on a piece under those conditions, so I’ve just been avoiding it altogether.

            Last weekend I went to a workshop about getting published.  I learned so much helpful information.  Obviously I’m nowhere close to pursuing a publishing path since the book isn’t even half finished.  The information presented was incredibly helpful, though, and I’m sure it will be an invaluable resource once I am ready to try and start that process.  I think the most valuable thing I took away from the workshop was a renewed energy for writing.  I’ve decided to put the novel aside for a little while and focus on some elements of technique – character development, plot, etc – and to just let myself write random bits and pieces (like a blog!) to help keep the creative juices flowing. 

            The primary conclusion that I’ve reached this weekend is that I just need to write.  I don’t need to put all of my hopes into this one novel and chase it and cling to it as if it’s the last chicken wing at an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I need to let myself enjoy writing again.  I need to remember how it felt to write simply for the sake of creating stories and characters, the way it was before research papers and all the other academic assignments made it something stressful. 

Most importantly, though, I need to remember that I am a writer, so I just need to write.  

Reflections 2011

            I celebrated my 38^th birthday a few months ago, and as I feel 40 quickly approaching, I think it’s only natural that I find myself examining my life.  Where I’ve been…where I’m going…what I’ve done…what I haven’t done.  A few years ago I would have thought that something like this was trite, or maudlin, but it seems natural to me now.

            My 20-year high school reunion is this coming May.  When I first began thinking about it, I really didn’t think I was going to go.  When I was in high school, I had really big ideas about how I wanted my life to be, and honestly, I am nowhere near where I thought I would be back then.  I had visions of myself as a famous writer or a missionary overseas, or at least something more glamorous than a French teacher in Deer Park, Texas. Honestly, I’m really not even that upset about the fact that I’m not married and don’t have any children, though if you would have told me when I was in high school that I would be 38 and still single, I would have either laughed at you or burst into tears.  On this end of things, though, it really isn’t that bad.  I’d like to get married, but I don’t feel like I have to.  It’s a desire of my heart, but it isn’t the desire of my heart.  What disturbs me more is the path my life has taken, or more specifically, has not taken, in other areas.  It would be an understatement to say that this isn’t how I imagined my life would be in my late thirties.

            As I was contemplating this fact a few months ago, at the same time as I began thinking about the reunion, I had a couple of thoughts that snapped me back into line, at least to some degree.  First, I felt God point out to me that it isn’t His fault I’m not a published author.  I haven’t written anything that he could possibly get published.  I truly believe He is a God of miracles, but I’m certain He doesn’t operate that way.  If I want to be published, I have to write, and actually finish something.  So, I committed to finishing a book by the end of this school year.  Now, I know that finishing a novel isn’t a guarantee that it will get published, but not finishing one is definitely a guarantee that it won’t happen.  I’m happy to say that I’ve made pretty good progress over the last few months, and I’m pleased with the direction the book is heading.  I also feel like the continued inspiration I keep receiving is confirmation that I’m on the right path at least, even if it never goes to print.

            The second thing that served as a wake-up call was a reminder of something God had shown me way back when I was a sophomore in high school.  At the time, I was wrestling with the idea of surrendering to a call to missions.  I felt like that was the direction God had for my life, but I was terrified of what it would require me to give up.  Like I said earlier, I had some really interesting ideas for what my life could be.  I wanted to be a mother and a wife, of course, and an author, like I said.  But there were also ideas of being a teacher and of singing on Broadway, and I can’t even remember what else.  To my way of thinking, surrendering to a life of missions would mean that I had to forget about all of the other things I wanted and resign myself to a life of living as a single woman in a grass hut in the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa.  At the age of sixteen, it just seemed like that was too much to ask of me.  One night as I was struggling with these thoughts, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me, “OK, Nita, you can go ahead and have whatever life you want.  Just pick the path that you think is best, and I’ll let you have it.  I’ll even let you be happy with the life you’ve chosen and have a good life.”  As I thought about that, I had an image come to my mind of myself in Heaven after my life was over, and of God pulling back a curtain to reveal a painting of the life I had lived.  It was a nice painting and I had in fact been happy with the life I had chosen.  Then, He pulled back the curtain on another painting, a painting of the life that He wanted me to have.  In this painting, to my amazement, I had gotten to be and do all of the things that I had imagined for myself back then, plus a few more things that my sixteen-year-old brain couldn’t even comprehend.  I would have robbed myself of so many wonderful things, simply because I couldn’t see past what I thought was best for me.

            That was a very powerful reminder, but I think one of the reasons I had forgotten it is because my life right now doesn’t seem to be turning out like the second painting.  What’s even worse is that I didn’t get to have the first painting either!  That’s where I think the disappointment had begun to creep in.  I wasn’t getting the life I had wanted, and the life I was getting wasn’t all that impressive.  I found myself pouting like a spoiled child who hadn’t gotten her way, and accusing God of being unfair and withholding good things from me while doling those very same good things out to everyone else around me.  Of course, another thing I had forgotten is that I can’t see into other people’s hearts. I really don’t know how happy they are. I also don’t know what effect those things have had on them, or more specifically on their walk with God.  You see, I had also forgotten that more than anything else in my life, I want to have a vibrant, passionate, personal relationship with my Creator.  I want God, not just the things He can give me.  He is my treasure, not the rewards that are “supposed” to come from seeking after Him.  If He tells me that I can’t have something, I know Him well enough that I have to believe that He has a really, really good reason for not letting me have it, and that He has something else, something better planned for me.  When all I can see are the things that I want for my life or what I think will bring me happiness, I’m never going to be able to surrender anything to Him.  Just like a small child at the doctor or an animal at the vet, how on earth can I imagine that I could even begin to comprehend what’s really best for me?  It may seem unpleasant to me at the time, but I have to trust that he knows what He’s doing.   

            Something else to consider, as I thought about that second painting and the fact that my life right now doesn’t really seem to look very much like it at all, I felt God remind me, “You aren’t dead yet.”  :o)

            Looking back over the last 20 years, I don’t really see how things could have gone too differently, though, if I’m honest with myself.  I feel like God has directed my path, and that events have led me to the place where I am now.  Does that mean that I don’t think I’ve made any mistakes or that if I could go back I wouldn’t do some things differently?  Of course it doesn’t mean that.  I think there are always things that we humans would like to do differently if we could.  Would I classify these things as regrets?  Not really, because I believe that God has used everything to make me into the woman I am today, and I believe he will continue to grow me until I reach His goal for me…Christlikeness.  There is a whole lot of Nita that needs to be cleared away before that goal can be reached, and I’m so thankful that He is faithful to the process, no matter how unpleasant it may seem at times.

I think the ultimate conclusion that I’ve reached through all of this reflecting is that any reasonable adult who has spent time around a child should be able to recognize that children shouldn’t be allowed to always have their own way.  That makes for very unruly and disrespectful teenagers, which then leads to unpleasant and ridiculous adults.  If we can see the truth of this in the physical world with the children we encounter, it only makes sense that the same truth would apply to us in the spiritual realm.  God has adopted us into His family and we are His children.  He is a loving Father who wants the best for us, His best for us. Would it make any sense for Him to make poor parenting decisions simply to alleviate our momentary discomfort and get us to stop whining?  How ridiculous! The most un-loving thing He could do would be to give in to us and let us have what we think we want when He knows that what we want isn’t ultimately what’s best for us. 

I also imagine that it hurts Him so much when we act like He can’t be trusted.  I have never had any doubt in my entire life that my earthly father loved me and that he only wanted the best for me.  It would have broken his heart if I had acted like he couldn’t be trusted to make good decisions for me.  Why would I ever believe that my Heavenly Father, the God of the universe who set the worlds in motion and keeps it all spinning still, who orchestrates the events of all of human history to bring about His will, can’t be trusted with the details of my life?  I pray that He will continue to be faithful to always remind me that I can trust Him, even when I don’t understand or I don’t like what’s happening