The Breaking Point in Life and Writing

by Martin Wiles @LinesFromGod

My life changed in five seconds. Well . . . maybe ten. 

“You have broken your femur at the neck, just where it connects to the hip ball,” the doctor said. 

Did that mean I had broken my femur . . . or my hip? 

What he said before surgery confused me even more. “I am going to insert two screws. We’d rather your own bones heal, but if this doesn’t work, we’ll do a hip replacement.” 

I’d known quite a few people who’d had hip replacements. In fact, I’d known a fair amount of older people who died shortly after breaking their hip. I wasn’t interested in either. Why hadn’t I listened to the silent message to stop wearing those blasted Crocks? I knew I shuffled my feet in them. I remembered almost falling more times than I could count. I knew I was over sixty and not as steady on my feet. But no, I had to be cool. 

Then, it happened. The stumble. The forward motion. The excruciating pain. I hoped I had only bruised my hip, but I had a bad feeling deep inside. Several hours later, the tests and scans confirmed my fears. My breaking point was the top of my femur. My life would change for weeks and months to come. 

The breaking point refers to that point when we’re at our wit's end . . . when we feel as if we’ve reached the end of our rope. People or circumstances challenge us. We don’t think we can go on. Things must change. 

“Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes” (Job 2:8 NLT).

Job was there. God allowed Satan to destroy almost everything he had: property and people. Job was a man of integrity and accepted good and bad from God. His wife? Not so much. She encouraged her husband to curse God and die. Get it over with. Let the breaking point . . . break. 

We never know what our breaking point will be or what circumstances will lead us to it. But we’ll all experience a few of them during our life. Life is difficult. Trials are rife. And we writers are no different. 

Our breaking points often come at inconvenient times. Trials are no respecter of persons . . . or writers. Deadlines loom. The agent or editor wants the revised article, devotion, or MS back by . . . WHEN!!!! In the middle of our busyness—our writing life—a fall occurs, a diagnosis happens, a loved one dies, a child rebels. The list is endless. We could throw up our hands (or keyboards) and quit—and we might have to hit the pause button for a few days or weeks—but God calls us to keep writing His words of love to others, fiction and nonfiction. 

The good news is that God is working behind the scenes to bring good from our bad. The one who can heal our breaks—literal and otherwise. My hip will heal, one way or the other. My circumstances will return to some semblance of normal, although when, I’m not sure. And after all, I could have broken both knees and both wrists instead of a hip. For what I do, that would have been more traumatic.

God doesn’t send or allow trials to destroy us, but to grow our faith in Him . . . to increase our dependence on Him. And when that happens, our faith matures, and we begin to see the positive side of things instead of the negative. 

What are some healthy ways you can respond when your breaking point comes so you can keep writing and not give up? 

Don’t forget to join the conversation below.

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The Breaking Point in Life and #Writing from Martin Wiles (@LinesFromGod) on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Martin Wiles is the founder of Love Lines from God (WWW.LOVELINESFROMGOD.COM) and serves as Managing Editor for Christian Devotions and Directing Editor for VineWords. He has authored six books and has been published in numerous publications. His most recent book, DON'T JUST LIVE...REALLY LIVE, debuted in October of 2021. He is a freelance editor, English teacher, author, and pastor.