I attended a conference with a brand new friend (I’ll call her Sally), and I must’ve been in one of those vulnerable funks. I’d been at this writing gig for YEARS. Spoken for that many years too. I had several books out, great feedback on my speaking, and finally felt like I’d come to that place in my career that I was moving forward.

I’d embraced the 10,000 hour rule. I was the person who worked her behind off to get to where I was.

And at the conference, it happened.

The new person, shiny and young, who received a lucky break, a great noticing by a bigwig in the industry. Let’s call her Eloise.

The thing was: I really liked this shiny new person, Eloise. So much so. I wished her absolutely no harm, and I genuinely felt happy for her.

But on the way home from the conference, in the company of my newly-made friend Sally, I blubbered like a grieving woman.

So many years of work, work, work, much of it wholly unobserved. The grief felt tangible, like a lurking monster, pouncing on my resolve, siphoning off my perseverance.

It’s not fair, I wanted to say. All that work. Unnoticed. Unseen. And before I could voice it, I knew.

God saw.

He noticed.

And His plan is fully mysterious, where some upstarts get their breaks without effort and mule-horses like me pound on the keyboard years and years and years, still waiting for the one book to “hit.”

It wasn’t my time to be the It Girl.

It was my time to be the Sit Girl. The one who waits again. Anticipates the Next. (click to tweet)

It’s been two years since I boo-hooed in front of poor Sally. Eloise has no earthly idea her discovery undid me. I’m a little more mature now, sporting a few more wrinkles (oh let them be from smiling and not frowning!). I’m finding contentment in being smaller (click to tweet). Way down deep, I understand it’s God’s mule-horse plan for me.

Whether I sell well or I crash and burn, He has not revoked the work from me. I am to write still. As an act of worship. As an act of sheer, beautiful obedience (click to tweet).

Q4U: When have you been overlooked? Or when has someone early in the journey been noticed before you? What did you learn? How did you respond?