READ THIS IF YOU'RE FEELING DISCOURAGED

We've all had the feeling.

You flop down with your laptop (or notebook), ready to write, excited to spill out your words onto paper.

Then, you reread what you last wrote. Or it just hits you out of nowhere. Am I even good enough?

The doubt sets in. The blank piece of paper, or that blinking cursor stares back at you as if asking, "What makes you think you're a writer?"

The pen slips from your grasp, breath comes in little gasps. This was stupid, you think. Whatever made me think I was a writer?

And you give up.

I've had it happened to me too. Not just at the beginning. A few months ago, it hit me so strong.

I was trying to write a short story I was hoping to enter an anthology. Page after page was ripped up in my efforts, sentence after sentence scribbled out. Finally, I gave up. I thought I was just having a bad day. I'd try again tomorrow.

Then, I remembered my conversation with God. I'd asked Him to show me if it was his will for me to be a writer. I gasped. My vision blurred slightly. My stomach flipped itself inside out and the twisted itself into a tight knot that wouldn't loosen. In fact, with each passing moment, I felt it cinch tighter, and tighter and tighter, 'till I could barely breath.

"Is this the end?" I whispered under my breath. "Is this God telling me to give up my dream? That it isn't right? That I'm not enough?"

I'll admit it—I cried over it. And I mean, ugly tears. I was on a bike ride with my family, and just opened up to my mom. The tears kept going. I was in a frazzle—what if I would never write again?

And my mom helped calmed me down. She told me I was an amazing writer, and that my talent was a gift from God. That it truly was just an off day. (Turns out that was because of a bad piece of writing advice that was gnawing away at my skull.)

And guess what I did? Then next morning, I woke up... and I wrote. It was literally three sentences—to tell the truth I don't even remember what they were. But I wrote. I knew I was enough, maybe not to the world, but to God. And that's all that matters.

If you are reading this right now and you feel this way, let me tell you something; and I want you to write it down on a post-it. Stick it on your bathroom mirror. Tell it to yourself until you believe every word of it. Are you ready?

You are a writer. You are a good writer.

God made you a writer for a reason.

He loves you.

You are enough.

You always will be, and always have been.

You might not believe it, but you are.

Okay? Even in the pain, the doubts, the believing you're not enough, He is still bigger. You will always be enough, because He made you.

I hope that encourages someone out there today. Y'all are always in my prayers. I Love y'all.