Quitting

I have been fighting it all week, finding no pleasure in writing. I knew what I wanted, I wanted to quit this November fiction writing project, but my commitment had been public and I wasn't sure that my reasons for wanting to quit were healthy. I wrote before about wanting to find some balance, giving myself weekends off, shortening my word goal when it felt necessary, but today I realized that those attempts at balance weren't enough. I'm quitting.

And I'm feeling all the shame and self criticism you can imagine about that.

The truth is I'm not in a healthy place right now. I've been digging into really hard spaces lately, core issues about how I see myself, how I treat myself, how I speak to myself. I hope that slowly God and I are making progress and things are changing, but right now I'm just sitting in a lot of muck.

In August and September God invited me to dig into some difficult places and really take another look at a number of past hurts. It was hard work, but it was also work that was accompanied by an overwhelming sense of Love. God's love for me. My place as the beloved. It was a rich and full season, though not at all easy.

In the past few weeks there has been a new invitation, to go deeper. So much deeper. And it has been terrifying what I've found. It's only been this past week that I feel like I've even started to put words to it all, but those words whispered to Bryan, cried to a friend, they were words I hope my daughter never utters. Heavy words. I need to sit with these things.

Writing bits of random fiction might be a good distraction for me, but right now, I don't think I need a distraction. I think I need to sit with these things. Sit with Jesus. And pray for healing. I'm not ready to really write about this space, but I'm also finding it hard to write disconnected fiction.

So, today I'm deciding it's ok. It's ok to press pause on this project. Maybe I'll come back to it later. Maybe not. For now, I need something different.

So, I'm quitting, and I'm trying to tell myself louder than my shame, that it's ok. And it is. It's ok.

Grace and peace, Bethany