Please welcome guest writer and good friend, Rachel Hauck. She leads worship at the ACFW conferences where Dawn and I lend our voices to the team. She’s here to share her reasons for writing.
A year or so ago my husband and I were walking our dogs around the neighborhood, chatting occasionally, being in that place of comfort and understanding with each other in silence.
I felt so at peace and at home with myself. Not only had God worked His love into my heart over the past years, but I loved my husband and our life together.
And I loved my job. Writing books.
“Writing is so deeply satisfying to me,” I said to my husband, pressing my hand over my middle. “Like, I’m perfectly content.”
Right after graduating college, I went with a friend to a beach house on the Gulf in north
A swell of desire and longing filled me. I wanted to capture the moment, some way, but I didn’t know how. Write? Sing? Dance?
I had similar emotions often in those days. After seeing the coming-of-age college movie “St. Elmo’s Fire” I remember looking at my good friends thinking “I want to write about us like that some day.” We were in college, the same sorority, living a life of friendship similar to what I’d seen on the big screen. (Though not quite so … um … wild, shall I say?) But I wanted to capture our college emotions and friendship.
When I started writing, the restless longings ended. By the grace of God I’d met the desire of my heart He put there.
I love to work with words like an artist might like to work with clay or paint. I love to create a story and work with elements like conflict, goals and motivation. I love to create and solve problems.
It’s fun to mimic life. It’s awesome to present a piece of God in my stories and characters.
Writing is something that is just in me. I’ve had a lot of jobs I’ve loved and enjoyed, but nothing sits home with me like writing a book.
I don’t want fame or riches. I don’t envy celebrities or politicians, or winners of reality shows. Why? Because I’m doing what I was designed and called to do. I think I used to envy them because they were living their dream and I wasn’t.
For me, the dream was simple and clear cut. Writing. Others have a plurality of dreams. They love painting or nursing, or home schooling their children or coaching football. Writing is one aspect of their lives. They are living their dreams too.
If you love to write, it doesn’t have to be your only dream like mine, but a part of who you are. Either way, take time for your writing, your dreams. Set goals.
I love to write because when I do, I feel His pleasure in me.
Rachel Hauck is a multi-published author living in sunny central
