Psalm 56:3 NRSVCE 

When I am afraid,

   I put my trust in you.

A few weeks ago, I was watching Claire’s Office Hours in our Praise Writers’ Community and something she said struck a deep chord with me. She told us that our smallness and hiddenness in our writing is a gift given to us by God to be able to practice our craft, to fall and get back up again, without facing severe public criticism. I felt myself breathe a deep sigh of relief, as I suddenly realized I had been holding onto a deep-seated fear of that very falling and getting back up again. 

Not so much because I was so worried about hurting myself, or even because I was worried of making a fool of myself. Rather, my greatest fear has been that in the wounds I know I am still healing from, I will unknowingly share something that will end up wounding others. My fear has been that in my falling, I will take others down with me.

But what if, like Claire reminded us to, I could simply trust in God’s hiding of me? What if, instead of hiding the talents I have been given, so frightened of hurting others, I could simply keep faithfully showing up each week to do what He is asking me to do: to invest the talents He has given me? What if I could take Him at His Word that He is the God who turns everything, including our falling and getting back up again, into good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes? 

When Claire then also mentioned how we, as mothers, can be tempted to lay down our creative charisms to be more present to our children, when God is in fact calling us to trust in His balancing of our time and devotion, both to our spouse and children, and to our creative calling, I felt more weight lifting off of me. Another reason I had been worried about investing in my writing was my concern that it would lead me to neglect my first calling: my husband and my children. 

Yet, when Claire said what she did, I realized I had placed my confidence in myself and not in my God. For, I was looking at my own inability to discern wisely, rather than looking to Jesus and choosing to trust in His ability to continue teaching and guiding me, also in and through my falling and getting back up again, to steward my time and talents wisely.

As I took these truths to heart, something beautiful unfolded. I began to reap fruit in my parenting through investing in my writing. For, as I began reading the blog posts other Praise Writers shared each Friday, to give them feedback, I not only got to learn from their unique writing styles and structures, but also from God's heart and wisdom speaking through their writing. 

Feeding on the truths they presented in love and grace began to bear spiritual fruit. Sometimes it was something simple they highlighted that led me to recognize sin where I hadn't been able to before, enabling me to go to confession and receive the grace I needed to respond differently than I had in the past. One example that comes to mind was Colleen's piece on forgiveness, where she spoke of the need to not just forgive others, but ourselves. Slowly, as her blog post kept coming to mind thereafter, I realized how I was repeatedly asking God for forgiveness, in prayer, for sins I had already received His forgiveness for in confession. 

When I took this unforgiveness to confession, the priest encouraged me to return to the joy of God's grace for me. Later, another priest reminded me that this joy can also spring up, when we offer up the pain we feel at having hurt God and others to Jesus, so that it might bear good fruit through His sacrifice on the Cross. So, now whenever my sins of the past come to mind, I begin to thank God for His grace and offer up my pain to Jesus as a gift to Him. This is not only bringing me such joy and peace, but is also shifting my focus from myself to God to others, whenever Satan calls my past to mind. Consequently, I am becoming more present to my family. Rather than being stuck in a cycle of self-condemnation, I am hearing and heeding the Holy Spirit's promptings to love my family members and others in specific and tangible ways. 

This, and the fruit coming from reading other blog posts, is also growing my trust in God. It is helping me to lay down my writing, even when I am in the middle of completing a post, to do what God is asking me to do. Whether that something is to give my husband and kids my undivided time and attention, or to complete a household chore. In this laying down, I am noticing how God inevitably prompts me to return to, edit and complete the writing task with fresh new insight in His perfect timing and grace.

So, you see, I was right in recognizing that I am still healing from the wounds of the past. But, I was wrong to magnify these unhealed wounds and in so doing deny God's grace for me and His calling of me to invest in my writing, so that He might magnify Himself, and reveal His grace, in and through me. Now, as I continue to read and give feedback to other writers each week, to invest in my writing in the way God has been inviting me to, I am continuing to reap a harvest of righteousness. It is not leading me to wound others or neglect my family, but instead to heal, be more present to my family and share God's healing grace with them, and with others, through my writing.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NRSVCE

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Anna Smit grew up as a missionary and pastor's kid, in love with Jesus and His Body, until trauma hit upon her return from the mission field. After a long healing journey, she followed the Holy Spirit's call into the Catholic faith and Church, where God has been fulfilling the deepest desires of her little eleven-year-old heart: to know Him in the depths of His grace.