I have to confess…I should have been an actress.  Not because I want to be one but because I have the same insecurities and need for constant validation.  If an employer or boss tells me one day I’m doing a great job and the next day doesn’t - I start to doubt myself.

Even though my life long dream of having The Victor published occurred earlier this year (against all odds)…I still struggle with the feelings of being a “second class” author because I didn’t get published the “traditional” way. 

This week (the week of my 50th birthday) I was feeling especially low. I was having serious doubts about The Victor ever being anything more than just a good read for 2 hours. It was so bad I was just ready to give up.  All the “famous people” who had gotten copies of the book months ago have never contacted me nor do I know if they have or ever will read it.

These past few days I have also seriously begun to question my purpose in life.  Who am I to think that the Lord would need to use me (a nobody who didn’t even go to college) to write a book that would reach people  for Christ? 

For the first time in many years, God began to “communicate” with me in a fairly obvious way.  First on Friday (my lowest day) with a David Wilkerson Devotional.  The second was when I noticed that the scripture verse the organizers had chosen to print on all the take away bookmarks was the one the Lord gave me specifically for my book 30 years ago (Psalm 45:1).

Next Kathi Macias (the first keynote speaker and a good friend - who did not know what was going on in my life) spoke first about how Satan will use two methods (subversive and perversive) to destroy what God wants to do with the talents He has given us. BINGO. After her address, 3-time Christy Award winning author, Athol Dickson, came up and introduced himself to me and to ask me about The Victor.  I told him the basic premise of how I wanted it to be used as a long “gospel tract” to reach kids in public school and he commented on how he had been dissatisfied for the past several years at how, even though Christian fiction had improved a lot, it was still “preaching to the choir” and not reaching out to people who didn’t know Christ.

When Athol gave his talk it was like he talking specifically about what God wanted to do with my book. I just sat there and wept. It was the Lord reconfirming to me personally that The Victor was His idea, that he had a purpose for it and not to despair and give up. I gave Athol a copy of my book as a gift and wrote in it how much his talk had meant to me.

He contacted me the next day and offered his ears and prayers and has done much to get me back into the right frame of mind.

Thanks, Lord…I really needed that.

Tags: Authors, encouragement