I’m cringing.
To come right out and say, “I am a writer” seems so pretentious. Like I’ve had training. Like it’s something I do for a living.
I don’t meet those qualifications.
I’ve had encouragement from friends to write, but does that count? Don’t friends encourage you to do what they know you enjoy anyway?
Would outside encouragement count more? Not really. A literature professor at UAH urged me to leave my accounting major for his beloved English department, but I wouldn’t even consider it.
Even having had a few things published through the years doesn’t mean I’m qualified to call myself a writer.
So what does?
What constitutes a calling?
What makes what we do matter? And who decides that?
Sometimes God puts something in you that you can’t not do.
Writing is that for me. I can’t not write. I can’t not tell where I’m seeing God, how real he is, how merciful he is.
I will still only timidly say I’m a writer. But as long as he keeps showing up around me, I pray words about him will keep spilling out of me.
So for now, qualified or not:
I am a writer.
* * *
Is there something you do because you can’t not do it?
Are you a writer, too?
