when you're afraid to chase your dreams


I’ve made it my maxim.
It wasn’t a conscious choice; the concept from the words read in passing just imprinted onto my mind (funny how that happens sometimes).

"I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry.  You have always written before and you will write now.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.'  So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there” (Ernst Hemingway).

Words are a reality to me.
I love them (a lot).
I seem to loathe them (just as often).

I’ve started at blank pages (more like screens), and haven’t felt so much daunted at trying to transfer this multi-colored, thick flow of a cool stream into comprehensible words and thoughts on paper.  I’ve just felt at a loss of how to do it effectively.

True.

That’s what I always seem to unconsciously come back to.

Write the truest words you know how.

And, well, the truest words I know how to write at this moment is that I don’t exactly know this true.

I feel kind of incapable.

You see, when you’ve been told that you have a gift or that you’re good at something or have simply held a desire to do something (and by golly maybe even harbor a hope of success), you can start to doubt.  You can fear losing your talent (or sometimes even more deadly) losing the desire.

You see, I’m a little afraid to fail.  Cause if I fail at this which I decided should be such a big part of my life, what then?

What if my words fail?
What if I fail?

Are my words apart of my core or an expression of my core?
If I fail at them am I stripped of part of the essence of me?

What if I put them out there and they are rejected or just ignored?  They seems to be a very outpouring of the essence of me - and what would it be like to have that essence found faulty or invaluable?

You see, I don’t know how to proceed if my dreams are constantly out of reach and never actually fulfilled.
But you see, I can simply avoid facing the fact that they might never be in reach if I never actually try.
And this is also what I see: when you’re good at something, you don’t necessarily have to try.  You can get by without ever exerting that much of an effort.

It is safe to stay within those bounds of easy and never really branch out into the realms where the dreams will either be found to be in reach or found to be essentially out for the long term.

I haven’t wanted to admit the truth of this.
I haven’t wanted to have to actually buckle down and do the hard.

But I say oh well.

Yes, oh. well.

You see, I’ve tasted a piece of freedom: where you believe that you are in the land of the King of freedom and that you must simply step out into this land while letting go of insecurities, doubts, and questions by taking hold of His hand and trusting.

You cannot choose to keep thinking and rationalizing until everything seems right to step out.
You cannot even focus on the fact that you’re not as ready as you want to be or that you are simply inadequate - inadequately skilled and even inadequately full of pride and stubbornness.

And you cannot hold on to the fact that you’ve had it wrong in the past and done it with hands tinted by failure when you’ve tried before.

You must simply say oh well. because (oh well!) we’ve got a good God who has more grace than we can even fathom for our inadequacies and failures and simple imperfections.

You see, history has been written, and the story of our lives is being written.
Each day past is another one in the books, and the book (truth be told) is only so long.

So I’m committing to truth on a whole new level, for He is truth.

And it’s ultimately a commitment to Him
where truth (Jn. 14:6), life (Jn. 14:6), and freedom (Jn. 10:10) are unleashed in honestly inexpressible ways.

He’s true.  He’s good.

It’s true; true life is found in abandoning to Him.
Oh? Well, I’m living for that.
© 2016 Deborah Hope Shining

1 comments

I definitely don't want this to be a monologue. What are your thoughts? Questions? Ideas?