I'm afraid to write the next memoir

I’m afraid to write the next memoir

47 Comments 28 January 2011

When Thin Places released this year, I felt naked. And rightfully so. I shared my story stark on the page there, my heart displayed for all to see. The pain, the neglect, the sexual abuse, the divorces–all these damaged me and my heart. Hints of those injuries haunt me today still.

One thing that really surprised me was how hard this book was to read for those people who knew me well. Not just painful, but anguishing. I found myself in the place of consoling. I needed to comfort those who knew me, to reassure them that I’m okay. And, though I still bear scars of the past, by God’s grace I am really okay.

A close family member is reading the book right now. Her sweet, simple message of “I love you” reverberates through me. I sense she wants to console me, to embrace the little girl who hurt so long ago. It heartens me. But it also reiterates the risk of authenticity. Our hearts real on the page affect people. Sometimes positively. Sometimes negatively. Sometimes empathetically, to coin a new adverb.

Soon I’ll be journeying down the path of another memoir. And to be honest, this one scares the bejeebers out of me. When I wrote Thin Places, many of the issues in my heart and my consequent healing had been settled. But this memoir threatens to unlock doors I’ve kept firmly shut. I have unresolved issues that haven’t seen light. While this, too, will be a redemptive book, the topic is chilling and confusing. I’d appreciate your prayers. While I’m not at liberty to disclose what I’ll be writing about, I can assure you that it will be a difficult writing journey.

I will write this memoir on spec, meaning I don’t have a publisher for it. I’ll string words together in hopes that a publisher will find it compelling. I have what I need to begin, and as soon as I finish my spiritual warfare book for women, I’ll dive in. By God’s grace. By His help. By His strength.

Q4u:

What about you? What are you afraid to write? Why?

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Pressingintothinplaces.com

Mary,
I hope you find a publisher. I hope the “words you string together” find their power in His anointing. I hope you have continuity of thought and direction. His blessings on your writing
Margaret Harrell Wills
http://jennyrain.com JennyRain

I’ve been following your tweets about being fearful of exploring that new writing place… praying as I see your tweets… cheering as I see you succeed in writing something. Thanks for letting us be a part of your journey. It is an honor

What am I afraid to write? All of it… in one place… between the hardened covers of revealing pages that might leave me feeling vulnerable and young again

Anonymous

Thanks for praying and cheering. It is hard to expose yourself.

Donna

Afraid to write about the fact that yes, you can really be two people….at least I was for awhile. A person who totally loved and was sold out to serving only God….yet would find myself “serving me” the next day in ways that no one would believe. Does that make sense?

Anonymous

Yes, it does, Donna.

Jocelynems

I am afraid to write because I think that going back is looking somewhere that God has covered with His blood. I am afraid of slipping into an unhealthy place. “Hands to the plow, but looking back” kind of thing.Though my life does show the scars of a definite dysfunctional family… I think no one escapes a certain degree of dysfunction, and that we are to look ahead, not behind. I don’t know. I’m not sure. The Lord has not chosen to show me anything solid regarding abuse. It has all been so “on the boarder/fine line” behaviors. Just abnormalities that plague me still today. I just don’t know.

Anonymous

That’s a good, hard line to walk, Jocelyn.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=160801584 Deanna McCune Albrecht

I don’t feel afraid to write..

I am more afraid that I won’t write, and that I will get to the end of my life and wish that I would have risked believing that the Lord had already given me everything I needed to walk out my calling.

Anonymous

Oh, well put, Deanna!

http://twitter.com/mycupofgrace Danaye Taylor

I have been working on a book about rejection/my life story for over a year now. I read through your list of 10 ways….and fit many of the 10 ways listed but I still fear facing the issues that I need too so that I can finish the book. It isn’t fun to relive a hurtful childhood and past, it seems at times like it is unfair we have to live it a second time to heal from it. I know all in God’s time, I just wonder sometimes if I’m not igoring Him because I don’t feel ready to deal with it.

Anonymous

It is hard to rehash, but often in the rehashing God heals us deeper.

http://amandatdodson.wordpress.com amanda

Thin Places was such an impactful book in my life. Praying your next book will touch lives and draw people closer to Him.

Anonymous

Thanks Amanda!

http://alittleofthisandthat2.blogspot.com/ Dayle

I’ve written about everything under the sun, including the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I’m not afraid of writing anything. Writing about the ugly is an exercise in freedom. Its cleansing and therapeutic. It has to be experienced to understand just how freeing it really is, writing about the hard places in life. However, I have chosen to not make public some of the really ugly, so as not to hurt the people who’ve hurt me. It was so long ago and I’ve moved on. I’ve overcome that part of my life, both by writing privately about it, and with God’s amazing grace. Could it help someone else if I shared ? Probably, which is why I sometimes struggle with the decision to keep it to myself. I think of the words of Anne Lamott , “If you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else,” and I wonder if that makes me a coward. I hope not.

Anonymous

Yes, great point, Dayle. There are things I keep private too.

http://foodliesandtruth.blogspot.com/ Barb Winters

I’m afraid to write about my parents. While my childhood wasn’t nearly as difficult as yours, there were negative character traits that affected me (and ultimately made me who I am, by God’s grace). Since I share a great relationship with each of my parents and I want to uphold God’s command, it is imperative I am honoring. I don’t know what that looks like.

Anonymous

It’s hard to do. I’m still reaping the consequences of it. Wouldn’t have done it unless God gave me the green light. Had to obey him first.

http://inkindle.wordpress.com Jeedoo

Will pray for you, Mary. So much vulnerability already–in Thin Places, in exposing yourself to the evil one in writing on Spiritual Warfare. Be in deep with the Lord and prayer support as you once again enter territory risky to your spiritual and emotional health. Only God can sustain you through another such journey.

Anonymous

True. Only Him. Thank you.

Sharon O

When my blog began it was surface stuff… then the Lord said ‘they need to hear your story’… so I unzipped some heart issues and it was hard, very hard, and much of it still resides deeply hidden. Integrity of heart is important and people who care will love you no matter what you write I found that my friends understood me better after they read ‘my words’. Black and white words are always so much easier than in person words, the paper distances itself from the ‘emotional’ moments of the memories. YES I am aftraid to write. but feel I must. Lord help me in the midst of my fear.

Anonymous

Good for you for opening up your heart. That’s so courageous.

anonymous

I would write the storyGod has given my life…and write the struggle my heart has answered…and write the agonizing wait of abandoned silence…and write the longing for promised soul healing…if I was a writer…
But the hardest thing to write would be my name…

Laura

God KNOWS your heart and He has given you a NEW name. I pray you may look to Him each moment of each new day for sustenance, grace, hope and peace. You are NOT alone. You are LOVED deeply revealed by His scars. If you can, read the Psalms…cry out to Him.
Anonymous

Anonymous, what you wrote proves truly that you are a writer.

Rbsalonen

Mary, you’re in my prayers.

Anonymous

Thank you. Sincerely.

Miningfordiamonds

I am new to your blog, and this post is very timely for me. I am getting ready to write a memoir of my own, about things I have gone through in my marriage to a man who has a mental illness. It is the vulnerability and exposure that I am afraid of, although the victory, triumph and deliverance is too powerful a tale to ignore. God wants me to write it. I know He does. He has made it clear to me. I don’t have a publisher, either…I have no idea what He has in store as to how He will get it into the hands of those who need it. But I truly know in my heart that our testimony of the deliverance God brought to us will bring deliverance to many. I would be interested in reading your story. I believe I could learn much from you!

Anonymous

Yeah, you have to have the hard stuff in there to see the starkness of the redemption.

Glenda Childers

It is a joy to pray for you as you write and I pray that God meets you sweetly and softly and gently ~ and that it will be easier than you think . . . a special gift from God.

Fondly,
Glenda

Anonymous

Thanks for your prayer, Glenda.

Shannon

I’m afraid to write my story – my memoir. I’m afraid of not being believed, of driving a stake between my family and I, and for revealing parts of my late husband’s character that most never saw. Then there is that massive fear of failure. Perhaps this is not the time, but I feel a small tug from the Lord that one day He will ask me to write again.

Anonymous

I, for one, want to read that story, Shannon.

http://pollywogcreek.blogspot.com Patricia @ Pollywog Creek

Just realized that I totally overlooked your question. What am I afraid to write? I’m most afraid of writing devotional thoughts….and yet that is where I am constantly led. I’m more afraid of misrepresenting the Lord than I am in being authentic.

Anonymous

Wow, isn’t it interesting God asks us to write the thing we fear?

Deborah

Have been playing at writing my story for several years. Now that I am into in ernest, I have been asking myself the same questions. Not sure how the family would respond to the actions of some of their own, and the pain that they never saw.
Your words about being healed and then opening back up again, strike me to the core.
Your “Thin Places” helped me to remember all the times He WAS there, even when I didn’t know Him or see Him.
God in His mercy heals us in stages. I believe, so we are not destroyed.
Thanks for your transperency, many are healed because of it.

Anonymous

I’m glad Thin Places helped you see His hand in the hard times.

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http://pollywogcreek.blogspot.com Patricia @ Pollywog Creek

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – If I had to choose one book from 2010 that had the greatest positive impact on me it was Thin Places. I was deeply grieved for the brokenness…the unimaginable wounds…your tender heart endured, but the constant thread of redemption and restoration that so clearly ran through every chapter was the hope and encouragement that a world of broken and wounded hearts (including my own) need to be reminded of over and over. I will most certainly be praying for you in this new writing journey as you reach into deeper “thin places” still… to this “chilling and confusing” topic and those yet “unlocked doors”.

You’ve actually been in my thoughts this morning, Mary. I’m so grateful for all you do to serve the Body of Christ…to encourage…to mentor…and you do so with much love and grace. God sees it all.

Anonymous

Patricia, your words truly blessed me today. thank you.

http://www.susanbaganz.com Susan Baganz

The book I am seeking to get published is memoir/self help/ marriage. . . and it was so hard to write, harder to do the revisions (due to the content) and because it’s not a past but present kind of thing it scrubbed things raw and emotionally highlighted even more my pain and struggle as well a draw me deeper into drawing on God. If God calls you to write it, Mary, then keep asking for the prayer and dig in and trust Him on the way. I don’t have a publisher yet. . .but my book has already changed the lives of those who have read and proofed and edited for me. Changed lives is more important than income (although God knows, we desperately need it!). If God needs to rip our hearts raw so He can use our “momentary, light afflictions” for His glory, then so be it. Emotionally that’s easier said than done. ((hugs!))

Anonymous

I’m so glad to hear your book has already changed lives. What a blessing! May it find a publishing home!

Ronda

Without a doubt it’s a book that will help prepare women and girls of all ages for marriage and remarriage, which means I will have to dig through some yuck of my past including divorce. I’m a private person so this is going to be a tough one. But since it’s the book I don’t want to write I know it is one I must write.

Ronda Ray
Author of Prayer Revolution, How God Refined My Connection With Heaven

Anonymous

Ronda, that sounds like a compelling, needed book. Write without fear.

Alibo_us

For me, Thin Places was hard to read… it tripped me up in my own thinness of all of those things that I didn’t want to think about, much less confront. At the end of it I was sad and raw, but I think it was necessary. Sometimes to become stronger we have to press through those thin places and let God lift us up out of our own way.

I am afraid to write… my voice has changed since my divorce and I miss the way it seemed to just flow with all of the magic of God before. My blog is dusty, and I keep praying for those miraculous epiphanies that inspired me to start my blog in the first place. I MISS IT.

It has occurred to me that I can’t “go back”, that the change of my perspective will lead to new epiphanies… but I just feel this profound sadness. And frankly I am tired of talking, feeling and writing about THAT. sigh…. I just miss the strength that seemed to flow with so much clarity when I wrote. Journaling does not have the same result, although I can say that I am doing that at least.