I’ve come back here, to this place, many times over the past few weeks. And I’ve sat and stared at a blank screen and felt a complete range of emotions. Exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, bored, lonely, fruitless.

I thought my little break was a chance to take a breather from the chaos of the striving and unwind a bit. To cocoon, if you will…give myself place to regenerate.

And then, one fine morning as I savored my coffee, my husband said I needed to get over it.

Get over what?

The feeling that it’s not worth it, not worth doing. Not worth writing.

Oh. That.

His words pierced a place I didn’t even know I was masking.

And the tears that projectile’d forth across the ottoman were proof that what started as a valid little break might have morphed into a foundation upon which I built a wall to hide behind.

Because the truth is, I haven’t felt like it’s been worth the effort. In most areas of my life, it feels like my efforts have brought forth so very little results. And so, like most times in my past, I gave up and ran away. I ran away from my own desires and heart and pathway to God.

Does anyone else do that too?

It’s funny, though, how God doesn’t let you quit though, even when you want to. How His whispers and inklings and nudges and prods interrupt your previously scheduled apathy and stir something inside of you.

– Like when your husband tells you to get over it and expects to see you have written something. Soon.

– Or a friend you haven’t met in person feels prompted to email you and conveys how much your writing has ministered to her and her Bible Study, and to be encouraged.

– Or another friend you haven’t meant in person prays for you and physically mails you a card with, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

And in three fell swoops, the quietly-erected wall crumbles and into a heap and the truth shines brightly despite tear-stained vision.

How can I not believe He is for me??

I’ve allowed the results to determine my success, not the process. And oh, the lies we believe when we focus only on the results! God doesn’t care about the butterfly flying as much as He cares about the transformation that takes it from a crawler to a flyer. And what charges Him about us is not the end result, but the transformation that takes us from dead to alive.

Because the reality is, results will happen eventually, anyway. Just His way. His timing. And…His definition of success.

It’s taken me the past few months and this process of trying and failing and cocooning to realize that my heart’s true desire is for the process. It’s the continual being in the process of that brings me closer to Him, more connected to Him, dependent on Him. And it’s been necessary for me to go through this quiet process — not so God knows where my heart is, but so that I can know it for myself.

So I’m committed to not quitting. To getting up and dusting myself off and coming out of hiding. To walking through another process with Him.

Oh, and writing again.

What about you? Do you need to get up and come out of hiding, too? I am committed to being the friend you’ve never met who will cheer you on and hold you up when you need it most. And I am believing in your transformation, wholeheartedly.

Here’s to flying freely, my friend.