Wading to the Breakers

I have completed Book Two in the Uncharted series. From outline to final draft - two months. Amazing, fulfilling, dumbfounding considering I teach homeschool, am rehearsing bass guitar for upcoming performances, help my husband with his business and keep a home. Not so incredible if I admit my writing gets 99.9% of my computer time. I am not currently on Facebook. I don't Tweet. I don't Pin anything.

Here is the catch: if I want my books published I must (so they tell me) get an online presence flourishing. I must blog more, pin, post, tweet and self-promote.

I've been blessed with wonderful, encouraging feedback on my books. If God wants to use my work to bless others, He will make it happen. Social media doesn't make God make things happen and the lack of online presence doesn't keep God from moving in our lives. Yet (just like the paradox of how we who are saved come to faith) I have some responsibility in this matter. If I want my books published, I have to self-promote. That concept freaks me out!

I feel like I am standing on the shore looking out at an ocean and don't want to get wet and I am being told I must wade out to the breakers and let them hit me. Over and over. I have to Tweet and I have to query agents and I have to act (online) like I am someone worth listening to. I have to stand in the breakers and then *hope* one picks me up and carries me and IF it all goes well I will get caught on the crest before I'm swirled into its turbulent kinetic energy and spewed onto the shore, panting and exhausted.

But what if God did give me the gift of writing and what if He did so that I write stories that inspire and uplift and comfort and what if I have to wade out into the breakers to get the stories out there and if I do... what does he promise but that He will be with me! He is my sure foundation, my fortress, my deliverer, my comfort, my peace, my security. He promises to guide me by my right hand and afterward receive me unto glory. Ah - glory! His glory! That is the end I want - His glory.

Fine. I'll Tweet.