God Sees All the Seasons of a Writer

by Lynn Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn 

It’s officially Hurricane Season. I don't know about you, but I am fascinated by storms. I will watch The Weather Channel all day for continuing coverage of whatever massive event is happening.

I’ve watched a lot of tropical storms batter the East coast and Gulf coast over the years, but during Hurricane Irma in 2017, I saw something I had never seen before.

During the storm, pictures and videos started popping up in my Facebook feed that showed the water being sucked out of bays and away from islands. The first one I saw during Irma was video from the Bahamas and when it appeared, I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing. But then it happened again and again as Hurricane Irma made her way to the US. 

In case you’ve never seen it, when certain types of storms come in, they can literally suck the ocean away from the shore. People can walk around on ground that used to be the bay because the water is g-o-n-e. As the storm passes, the water will flow back in and things will return to normal.

There was a time during Hurricane Irma when Tampa Bay was empty. People were running around, dogs frolicking, on land that had never been seen before because it was always covered in water. The reporters and people they interviewed kept going on about how they’d never seen anything like it. I certainly hadn’t.

How was it possible that with as many storms as I’d watched, I’d never seen this occur? It turns out that your average hurricanes don’t have this kind of impact. It takes a very big and powerful storm to do this. 

As I watched, completely fascinated, I felt a stirring in my spirit and God showed me something.

He wasn't surprised by this at all. He knows this happens in nature and He knows this happens in our lives.

We all have a certain tolerance for a “reasonable” amount of storm activity. We get up and go about our day with various small storms—maybe even tropical force or Category 2 storms—brewing around us.

But the big storms can quite literally suck us dry. We have nothing left to give because all our energy has been taken up by this powerful storm.

And yet we beat ourselves up over it. I think writers are some of the worst when it comes to this. We stress over our struggles to meet our goals and fret over word counts. We cut ourselves no slack at all. We say horrible things to ourselves and feel extraordinary amounts of guilt because we’re so tired and so empty. 

But God is not seeing it the same way.

He sees our dry bays. He sees the empty shorelines. He knows the category 5 level storms we are facing and He is not sitting there wondering why we can’t get our act together and deal with it because *HE KNOWS* what has happened.

Others may not see it. They may not understand it.

But God knows. God sees. He is still 100% in control.

If you’re walking around every day like those crazy reporters, hunched over in the wind just trying not to get blown away, my prayer for you (and for me) is that we will relax in the grace God has shown us. That we will rest in the knowledge that He is not expecting more of us that we can give.

In His time, the water will return to the bay. The waves will again lap along the shore. The storm will pass. The words will flow again.

Be kind to yourselves friends. Give yourself and those going through huge storms around you the same grace He gives.

Grace and peace,

https://youtu.be/1UAZN88kwLY

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Lynn H. Blackburn loves writing suspense because her childhood fantasy was to become a spy—but her grown-up reality is that she's a huge chicken and would have been caught on her first mission. She prefers to live vicariously through her characters and loves putting them into all kinds of terrifying situations—while she's sitting at home safe and sound in her pajamas! 

Her Dive Team Investigations series kicked off in 2018 with Beneath the Surface and In Too Deep (A SIBA Okra pick and Selah Award Finalist). The 3^rdbook in the series, One Final Breath, releases in September 2019. She is also the author of Hidden Legacyand Covert Justice,which won the 2016 Carol Award for Short Novel and the 2016 Selah Award for Mystery and Suspense. Lynn lives in South Carolina with her true love and their three children. You can follow her real life happily ever after at www.LynnHBlackburn.com and on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.