A young writer pilgrimaged from the deep South to New York City, a place where in her wild imagination, mediocre writers were instantly transformed into renowned authors, just by being there. She wrote what she knew, little vignettes about life in the South, which seemed disconnected and a bit ridiculous in the glaring lights of this city. But yet so very faraway, her upbringing in a rural culture and almost foreign ways of life still pulsed through her thoughts, even as she was surrounded by skyscrapers, crowds of strangers, sour smells of the city, and concrete sidewalks in all directions.
After almost eight years of trying to pull together something publishable, in a moment of despair, she opened the window of her small apartment and threw the manuscript out, pages flying every which way through the air, down to the busy city street below. Immediately regretting her rash decision, she ran down the many flights of stairs and retrieved the typed sheets of paper from oblivion, dodging taxis and pulling her story out of puddles.
Then, over the next three years, she dissected what she had written, reworked what she had, adding more details and dialog, rebuilding from the foundations, and transforming it into her first book, published in 1960 and winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature the following year.
The 34-year-old author was Harper Lee. And that manuscript, thrown out the window and then painstakingly revised, was her book To Kill A Mockingbird which has sold more than 40 million copies.
She wasn't just lucky. That kind of accomplishment doesn't just happen. The profound does not arrive on the doorstep with Amazon Prime. What am I working hard on?
I read an interview this week about a multiple award-winning author who was once asked if she wrote every day. She just shook her head incredulously and answered, "What do you think?"
In far more venues than writing, what do you have, what do you know, and what is right in front of you? Work on it. Work hard on it. A downright mess, a bunch of loose unrelated ends, a rocky path instead of a shimmering open door? What can I do with that?
But as author Kevin DeYoung says, "Just Do Something." Tape all the pieces together, work hard, and see what comes of it. It may turn out to be nothing at all but training for something else, or even redirecting one's path. Or simply bringing some beauty or sense into the world. It may be a blessing to someone else you don't even know. We cannot determine the outcome, but we can take the next step, and then another.
The pursuit is not about a prize. But what is priceless is continually pouring into what the world may never even recognize as worthy of praise. There is rarely an award ceremony at the end, but thick goodness in the journey. A tangible achievement is no more valuable than the intangible. More often than not, the relationships and what is invested in them are what produce pure gold.
Plant seeds. Plant lots of them. We never know which one grows into a towering tree. We don't have a clue.
We may never see the forest our lives produces. But I run through thick woods almost every day, awed by the vistas, thankful for the shade, and grateful to those who planted the trees a very long time ago, those who had that kind of vision.
God's glory lingers
in what He has done.
May His beauty infiltrate
in all we pursue.
Now to Him
who by the power at work within us
is able to do
far more abundantly
than all that we ask or think,
to Him be glory...
Ephesians 3. 20
Pray continually.
Live faithfully.
Love well.
Practice grace in this.
Bring the name of Jesus there.
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