just letting it be what it is.

Okay, so I've been talking to God a lot about writing recently. What to do, how to do it, and where there is even the appropriate space in my day (and in my brain) to get it done.

Because I didn't know. I feel like I spent all of 2023 trying to figure out how to create/maintain some sort of writing practice while also working a full-time writing job. And I never figured it out.

Maybe it's a regular routine.
Maybe it's in the morning.
Maybe it's at night.
Maybe I write best at coffee shops.
Maybe I'm in a hustle season.
Maybe I just write Thursday emails.
Maybe I just work on writing a book.
Maybe I work in sprints, and swap different activities in favor of writing for a period of time.

Nothing seemed to stick. Anything I noticed that worked well once turned out to be an exception, not the rule. And it was exhausting.

So eventually I just stopped. I stopped trying to figure it out, and I stopped writing. Outside of work, I mean.

It didn't feel great. Because you know what any content creator will tell you? The key to success is consistency. But what even is success – and is it worth the exhaustion I felt? Probably not.

Nothing happened for a while. No Thursday emails, and no response from God about what to do. In the spare moments I had when I could have been trying to write something, I just sat in His presence with it instead.

Then, when I was doing that last Thursday, I suddenly had an email pop into my mind. There were no instructions. No plans. Just a thought I could do something with – or not.

(Obviously, I wrote the email.) (But also, I just kept writing. After weeks of sitting with God with no words, I suddenly had so many.)

Two days later, I read a blog (of all things) from an influencer who was burnt out by creating content for the algorithm, for the audience, for the commissions – and was therefore posting what she wanted to post. Which, honestly, feels pretty relatable.

I'm not an influencer. I don't post (and I'm not even logged in) to Instagram anymore. But I work in marketing. I have a hard time seeing (or posting) content without thinking about the strategy. The trends. The algorithm. The data.

Or, in other words, the goal. The engagement. The clicks. The follows.

There’s nothing wrong with being smart and strategic or having goals, but like this burnt-out blogger, I can get caught up in how everything needs to be strategic and purposeful these days. With anything you post online, there is someone out there who wants to teach you how to do it better, monetize it, and create passive income with it. Which sounds nice, to be honest, but the truth is, not everything needs to be a business.

We don’t always need to know the strategy or the purpose or what it will become. Sometimes our job is to simply show up with what we have, offer it freely, and trust that God will do (and is doing) what He wants with it.

That’s what I felt like God said to me as I read that blog.

Maybe you do it like that.

Maybe you do it freely – in a space that has no algorithm or strategy. Don’t try to make it into something. Forget what you think it could be, and just let it be what it is. Let Me do with it what I want.

Years ago – probably in the midst of writing, editing, and not hitting ‘publish’ on those words (although I can’t quite remember the circumstances) – this thought popped into my mind.

Maybe they need what it is and not what you think it could be.

I wrote it on this notecard in Sharpie, as I do, and then I kind of just looked at it. It felt profound, and honestly a little offensive to my perfectionist tendencies, and I knew I didn’t come up with it. Holy Spirit was trying to tell me something.

And then, as I do with things I don’t fully understand in the moment, I put it on the shelf.

Literally. I used it as a bookmark in a book that’s been sitting on my shelf.

I forgot about it until a couple weeks ago when I pulled out that book to reference something. It was a marketing book, of all things. And I can’t help but think I found the actual strategy I was looking for.

So that’s what I’m doing here. Just letting it be what it is.