Small acts of faith can be huge. I've been on this post-corporate journey for a while now, and one thing I have learned is that faithfulness in those areas that matter most to you is essential. I knew that writing would take on a more prominent role in my life after my lay-off. I had been putting it off for so long that, once liberated from the corporate grind, I knew it was my chance to start again.
I started with journaling. This simple activity has done wonders for my soul and my mental outlook. I journal every day. There are days when all I can manage to get in my journal is the date, time, and weather. That's OK. Most of the time, I can muster a line or two about what I am feeling. On those rare occasions when I don't journal, it feels like something is missing.
But journaling was just the beginning. I launched my Substack site and started to write. Once a week, then twice a week. At one point, I took a month-long break. That's when I realized that writing is one of the few things keeping me sane. Now, I am writing on Substack daily, and it feels incredible.
Prayer is the last piece to fall into place. As I mentioned before, I have not had the best track record with prayer. There have been many starts and stops throughout my life. However, the prayer journal has been a game-changer. Being able to write my prayers is the magic bullet I was looking for. It keeps the conversation going even when my spoken words stall out.
There have already been times along my journey when I wondered if all this effort is worth it. Should I be spending my time doing more productive things than all this writing? The answer is NO. Writing is who I am and who I always wanted to be. Turning out words is what I have always loved to do. I lost that feeling for a long time, but it's back now.
I don't have any answered prayers to share or examples of new opportunities based on my writing. What I can tell you is that when I don't write, my day feels off, as if a fog has settled around me. But when I do write, it feels like I am doing exactly what God put me here to do.
That is what my faithfulness to my writing has taught me. Be it my journaling, article writing, or written prayers, I know who I am. Faithfulness to these things has taught me that. God made me a writer, so I write. He made me a lot of other things too, but in the end, it all comes back to writing. Thank you, God, for making me this way. And thank you all for coming along for the ride.
—Daniel