Hello, friends, and Merry Christmas! First, I would like to express my deepest apologies for my prolonged absence over the past few months. I don’t really have any excuses other than that life took me by storm… from studying philosophy to finishing up draft 4 of my current WIP, I have been outrageously busy. But I’m so excited to get back into blogging, because I’ve been having a lot of bloggable thoughts recently. In light of Advent and our close proximity to Christmas, let me share my favorite.
It takes a long time to write a book. I love each and every stage, but some are more encouraging than others. There’s that first spurt of inspiration followed by frantic writing as my brain tries to get everything down and my heart dissolves in the story. Following this is that slightly less fun stage where I evaluate the story’s strengths and weaknesses, and start trying to fix the weaknesses. There’s that horrid feeling of burnout when I just don’t feel like writing. And the lovely return when I reread the story and fall in love all over again. Then there’s more editing, until eventually everything stops being a mess and really is comparable to my original vision for it. It’s a process.
Or take house-building. The first, exciting stage when blueprints are drawn and the vision is birthed. Then there’s that period of time that seems to last for YEARS when they just move dirt around. Pretty soon there’s a boring (but important) concrete foundation, then skeletony wooden frame, and eventually real walls. Then all the ugly is painted over with real paint and people choose the house and decorate it and make it their own. But it’s a process.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on waiting for growth and beauty. The past few months have been wonderful, but they’ve been messy. So messy. And sometimes, it’s hard to find the beauty in that. I often question, “How am I growing?” And when all I see is a tangle of plot points and chapters that haven’t been edited yet, I get discouraged.
But the Lord is helping me view it differently.
One of my favorite journals I’ve ever been given is pale pink. It zips up (!!), has a ribbon inside, and a heart made of roses on the cover. Above the roses is a simple phrase. Life is beautiful.
I used other journals this year (six, in fact), so I didn’t use the aforementioned one. And I’m glad I didn’t, because the time wasn’t right yet. I was still caught up in the messy. I was living in the house before it had been painted. Reading the story before it had been edited. And I still am. But I’m seeing with a lot more clarity now.
Beauty is a process. And nothing is going to be fully and completely beautiful when it is unfinished. Even as its growing, even as its becoming more and more beautiful, it isn’t the finished product yet. Sometimes as something, whether its a story, a house, or me, is growing, it gets uglier before it gets better. But that’s okay, because the ugly isn’t the end product.
I was thinking a little while ago about Advent, and what it all means. We celebrate Christmas to remember that God sent His Son Jesus into the world to rescue those He loves. The point of Advent isn’t just to celebrate the first coming of Christ, but to look forward to the second. The day when Christ will fix everything broken. The day He will make all things new. The day when everything will be beautiful again.
Until then, we have to wait. We have to wait in the growth and the messy as the world and the people in it slowly become beautiful. We will not be complete until that great day when Christ returns. But we can take little steps toward beauty while we wait.
I started that new journal today. And I’m looking forward to the next season of my life, whether I look back and see growth, or see messy. But it is a choice. I’m choosing to look forward to the messy, look forward to the brokenness, embrace the pain and celebrate the beauty when it shines through. To let the messy show me how beautiful my God is, and to let Him make me beautiful in His perfect timing.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11a
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