“You used to write like…I don’t know, like you were writing for an episode of ‘Friends’ or something. A lot of quips and sarcasm. I noticed you don’t do that anymore.”
“Well, I did that because I felt I had to defend everything I wrote in advance. I don’t feel that way anymore.”
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The above exchange between my mom and I took place just a few weeks ago on one of our early morning walks around the neighborhood. Long has she said that I am “an old soul,” a personality that’s naturally on the quiet, reserved, and serious end of the spectrum. And she’s right. While I love to laugh, I also love to think. I like to step back and observe. I like to study. My favorite question has always been, and always will be, “Why?”
Ultimately, I want to understand the world and everything in it.
A lofty goal, and one I will never meet, because I am, of course, not God.
I know He gave me this brain, though. He gave me this drive to learn. More than that, He gave me the desire and the ability to teach. I can’t help it. If I discover something new, or at least something new to me, especially if it is about the Bible and theology, I have to go out and tell everyone I know. The teens in my church have gotten more free lessons in hermeneutics than they could ever possibly want.
Finding the Voice God Gave You
What does this have to do with finding your voice as a writer?
I can’t give you four easy steps. I won’t provide you with an outline. Finding your voice—the voice God gave you—is an organic, intimate process that takes place between you and your Creator. I can tell you that this begins with acknowledging that you, yourself, as you are today, are a writer. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never published a book. Doesn’t matter if you know nothing about how to put a website together. If you long to capture moments, to preserve what you observe, to share a message with the world through words, then you, my friend, are a writer.
Acknowledging this leads to understanding that you are not like everyone else. Those in the publishing world seek to find those who fit a particular mold. They are, in general, risk-averse. They focus on market demands and making money. God bless them for that; someone has to have some business sense, and it’s not me! This is incredibly frustrating for you and me, because we can easily wind up trying to fit ourselves into that mold, losing ourselves and our voices in the process.
In the past, I saw my uniqueness as a very negative thing. Thus, the defensiveness. The constant need to explain and validate my presence in the writing community. In no way am I your typical “woman writer.” I don’t have children; I can’t make a craft to save my life. If left to my own devices, I will eat popcorn for dinner rather than cooking a Pinterest-worthy meal. And if I see another novel set in Amish country, I will scream. (No dig on anyone who enjoys all the above!) My idea of a good time is reading Ezekiel and trying to imagine what he must have seen in his initial vision. He uses words such as “like,” which is a simile—meaning that he can’t quite describe what’s before his eyes.
And I love translating that good time into an article—something I no longer feel the need to defend or explain.
This acceptance of who God made me to be and the voice He’s given me has been a year-long process, still ongoing. In the last twelve months, He has done a real work of grace in my soul, opening my eyes to my role in this thing we call life. Again, I can’t give you a system or steps to follow. What I can do is encourage you to steal away and sit at Jesus’ feet. Allow the quiet to envelop you as you seek to listen for His voice. Ask Him to show you where you are deviating from His design. Ask Him to reveal the areas in which you feel defensive and constantly on guard.
Then ask yourself this question: Am I writing to please Him or to please others?
Because that’s the bottom line. If we’re trying to achieve recognition and success, we’ll lose our authentic voices. We’ll become echoes. We’ll settle for far less than the abundant life of love and secure identity that God provides.
As the meme says, “You do you.” It’s true! The world needs you to be you, and me to be me, and us together, united in our beautiful diversity.
So use the voice God gave you. Write the words only you can write, in the way only you can write them. In so doing, you bring Him glory and do others good.
More on the Craft of Writing
10 Things You Can Do When Writers Block Hits
Writing in a Journal as a Discipline
Marie, I so identified with you and your words! Thank you for sharing! I needed your encouragement today!
I love that snippet of convo between you and your Mom! And I love this piece in general. It’s more powerful and real- and thus more helpful- than a lot of what gets written by Christians for Christians. I think too many people in this segment (especially those in the spotlight who haven’t gone off the rails) are indeed worried what others think and trying to defend their writing (or speaking) in advance. Which is sad.
I spent years trying to be my heroes- spiritual, technical, literary, relational, whatever. I failed a lot. Why? Because I wasn’t them. If God wanted more of them, God would have made more. But God doesn’t tend to do things the same way twice. It turns out I’m the best me there is, even if I stink at being other people.
I am going to open a can of something. Let’s see if it’s worms! You wrote, “Then ask yourself this question: Am I writing to please Him or to please others?” I would contend that (at least in my fiction) writing to please God involves writing things that please me. About twenty years ago I was talking to God about how little writing I was doing, and all God said was, “Use it or lose it.” I prayed and prayed, and that was all I got. A few years later, my wife and I were praying for direction on what some would call a weightier matter. God’s consistent reply was, “What do *you* want to do?” That decimated some long held preconceptions!
We are created in God’s image. God is creative. We are creative. The desire to create wondrous things is in us, and I believe that- absent specific direction, which comes less often than we have been taught to insist upon- doing so in and of itself pleases God. I think God gets excited about what we create. If something needs to go in a certain direction, staying close means we’ll catch the nudge, the word, the nod, whatever God uses to guide us. But just as in some senses we are just along for the ride as God does something amazing, I find that God is similarly along for the ride while we do something amazing. Not that God needs us to do these things, but because God delights in creation doing what creation was made to do- which includes creating.
I welcome any and all thoughts on this!