Editor’s Note: My friend Pat Trainum wrote this article for the MBT Ponderers blog in January. I liked it so much that I asked if I could reprint it in the January/February issue of the e-zine, but then I forgot, so I’m including it in this issue.
It’s 2012 and change is in the air. Everyone is setting new goals and looking forward to making those goals happen. Expectations abound.
But what if last year’s goals resulted in dismal failure? Some of mine did. My goal was to get an agent, then an editor. Instead, I got rejections. So this year I was a little fearful about making new goals.
Until I thought about . . . the farmer.
Yes, the farmer. Think about it. Every spring, regardless of past failures, he plants a new crop, hope and anticipation mixing with the fresh turned dirt. He plants his seed in faith, and then he waits. He’s done all he physically can do. He can’t make the seed grow or control the amount of rain that falls. Those things are in God’s hands.
Like the farmer, we set our goals, do the preparation and look forward to seeing the harvest. But sometimes our goals don’t get the needed rain or they stagnate, and we perceive that as failure. So we quit trying. We become afraid to try new things.
What is fear keeping you from doing? Not writing because you fear you’re not good enough? Maybe you’ve written the story God laid on your heart, but you don’t send it out because you fear rejection, or you’ve been rejected. Or maybe there’s something new you want to try, but the fear of failing holds you back.
A few years ago, my eighty-something mother learned how to program a VCR. Last summer she wanted to learn how to use a computer but was afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her anyone who could program a VCR could learn how to Google. In a short period of time she was Googling and doing Facebook. She even has her own FB page. This past Christmas, she learned how to text.
So, if my 90-year-old mother can risk failing, so can you. So can I. This week, my proposal goes out to a new agent and a new editor. Then I will wait. The harvest is in God’s hands.
~*~
Pat Trainum has published short-stories and co-authored Rise to Your Dreams, an abstinence curriculum. Her current WIP is a romantic suspense novel.
