Dora Hiers
Change…love it or leave it?
Sure, I’d managed to crank out five romances, but they’d all been written in advance, and individually contracted and published with Pelican Book Group. For me, that meant writing a story, submitting it, and then waiting, praying and hoping for a contract. I dreamed of snagging a contract for a series that I hadn’t written yet…to know that the story I was laboring over would have a home when I finished. But, in order for that to happen, I needed to force myself to learn how to plot, so that I could submit a proposal based on a synopsis or summary for three stories that hadn’t been written yet.
Change…it never gets easier, does it?
But that fall, this confirmed pantser finally determined to become a plotter. You can read my tips on how I made the transition here and how I organized myself here. Trust me when I say there was plenty of weeping and pulling hair involved, especially when I plunged into simultaneously plotting out five books, two independents and three for a series.
I’m nearing the end of my timeline, and I’m thrilled to report that this week I completed my fifth plotted book in just a short~ or long, depending on how you look at it~ eighteen months.
What’s the most difficult change you’ve experienced lately?
Doubt…or Trust?
“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Mt 28:16-17 NIV
Jesus had warned his disciples all that would happen surrounding his crucifixion. They’d been hanging around with him for three years and had witnessed countless miracles, so many they weren’t all recorded in the Bible (Jn 21:25). You’d think that they would have believed him, right?
Not.
Everything happened exactly as Jesus predicted. One of his own disciples turned him over to the authorities in exchange for trinkets of silver. Jesus was beaten, whipped, and then nailed to a cross until his last breath. A heavy stone was rolled across the entry to where his broken body lay, and guards were posted outside the tomb.
All events he’d told them about ahead of time, happened exactly as he’d said. To the last detail.
Seriously? The disciples doubted?
Men that had followed Jesus around for three years? Soaking in his words, watching him perform miracles, witnessing the compassion in his eyes as he looked upon his children?
Doubt.
What a nasty, five letter word that sometimes slithers in to my life. Whether it’s in my marriage, my writing, my faith…
Why do I struggle with it so?
Because doubt is a lie of the enemy, an all out frontal attack by the devil to rob us of joy, of peace that passes understanding. The enemy tosses out those tiny nuggets of doubt, and if we let allow them to take root, they blossom into full-fledged fear.
I can sometimes picture him, with an outstretched arm, glancing down at me with warm eyes, full of compassion, and in a loving voice, saying, “Oh, Dora, where’s your faith? Why must you doubt?”
God promised that He’d always be with me. Why rob myself of joy and peace by doubting? I choose trust over doubt.
Doubt or trust?
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