From Edie: Today, Edwina Perkins leads us to discover how busyness and burnout can quietly steal a writer’s voice. Learn five biblical shifts from Martha-style striving to Mary-style creativity, peace, and purpose. I'm so excited to have Edwina as a guest today—and I'm even more excited to introduce her first novel to you! Be sure to follow the links at the end—it's a book you'll love to read again and again.
The Martha Writer: How Busyness Steals Your Voice and What Jesus Says About It
by Edwina Perkins @EdwinaPerkins
I've been a Martha lately.
Not the kind who gets credit for showing up. The kind who can't stop moving. Who answers one more email, accepts one more project, says yes one more time, and calls it faithfulness.
It isn't.
You know the story when Jesus visits the home of two sisters. Mary sits at his feet. Martha works. And when Martha finally breaks, frustrated, depleted, looking for someone to validate her busyness, Jesus doesn't give her what she's asking for. He gives her something better.
Martha, Martha.
Two words. Her name, twice. That's not a rebuke. That's a hand on the shoulder of someone who sees her.
I've needed that lately. And I suspect some of you have too.
The Martha Writer
Martha writers are everywhere. We're the ones who love the craft deeply, but somewhere along the way, the craft became a to-do list.
We're managing deadlines and social media and speaking engagements and client work and conference prep. We're producing content instead of creating it. We're writing for everyone but ourselves. We know all the right things to say about the writing life. We just haven't lived it in a while.
The trouble with being a Martha writer isn't that the work is unimportant. It is important. Deadlines matter and so do many other things.
But when the doing crowds out the being, we lose the very thing that makes the work meaningful in the first place.
We lose our voice.
The Mary Writer
Mary wasn't lazy. She made a choice.
She chose presence over productivity. She chose to receive before she gave, and Jesus said that what she chose would not be taken from her.
Mary writers still work hard. They still meet deadlines and honor commitments. But they write from a full place instead of an empty one. They know the importance of the Word before they can give any words away.
Their writing has something in it, and you can feel it when you read what they’ve written.
That something is what burnout steals.
Five Shifts from Martha to Mary
I’ve had too many Martha dates lately, but here's what I'm learning.
1. Before you write toward an audience, write toward God.
I often tell writers to write for an audience of one. Your first audience needs to be between you and God. Journal. Pray on the page. Let yourself write badly. The practice of writing without an outcome in mind is what keeps the well from running dry.
2. Protect one sacred writing hour.
An hour you defend. Close your email. Silence your phone or silence anything else that causes a distraction. Tell people you're unavailable. Martha writers fill every open space with something productive. Mary writers protect space as an act of obedience.
3. Read like a reader, not an editor.
When did you last read something purely for the joy of it? Not for research. Not to blurb. Not to stay current. Just to be moved. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and received. We need to do the same.
4. Say no to something good so you can say yes to something better.
Martha's problem wasn't that she was doing something wrong. It was that she couldn't stop. This is my Achilles’ heel. Good opportunities will always exist. Your capacity won't. Every yes to the urgent is a potential no to the essential.
5. Let yourself be still long enough to hear what you actually have to say.
The stories that impact don't come from a frantic mind. They come from a quiet one. Stillness isn't wasted time, it's where real work begins.
Martha, Martha.
He sees you. He's not dismissing the work you've done but inviting you to put it down—just long enough to remember why you picked it up.
Mary chose the better thing. We can too.
TWEETABLE
by Edwina Perkins
Home isn’t a place. It’s a reckoning.
After her husband’s death from leukemia, Ebony McMullen loads her three children into an overstuffed Suburban and drives fifteen hours from Colorado to North Carolina—back to the small town her husband once fled.
She’s out of money. Out of options.
And forced to live in a house owned by the father-in-law who never wanted her.
Home is everything she feared it would be.
Her oldest son, Owen, is angry and restless after legal trouble in Colorado. Scotty is desperate to belong on the high school football team. Destiny, bright and tender with Down syndrome, sees beauty everywhere—even where others see difference.
But in Home, difference is noticed.
A diner waitress asks, “What are you?”
A teacher assumes Ebony belongs in the kitchen.
A rival father hurls a racial slur across a football field.
And when someone humiliates Destiny in a cruel act meant to send a message, the family begins to unravel.
Meanwhile, Ebony discovers that the town’s roots run deeper—and darker—than she imagined. Long-buried secrets about Shane McMullen, her rigid father-in-law, threaten to fracture what little foundation they’ve built. And as old wounds surface and new betrayals emerge, Ebony must decide:
Will she keep surviving?
Or will she fight for a home worth staying in?
The Colors of Home is a powerful story of grief, race, redemption, and the courage it takes to rebuild a family in a place that may not want them.
Because sometimes home isn’t where you’re welcomed.
It’s where you choose to belong.
As a sensitivity and authenticity consultant, ghostwriter, and writing coach, Edwina brings decades of editorial experience to her work with authors across genres. She teaches at conferences throughout the year, championing honest, inclusive storytelling and equipping writers to center marginalized voices with craft and courage.
When she’s not busy with her other responsibilities with writing, she enjoys spending time with her grandkids and curling up on the couch to watch BritBox mysteries.
You can connect with her through
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