Part Three: Staying Grounded While Your Career Soars by Cheryl Wyatt

Cheryl Wyatt's series has been so "meaty." I hope you're enjoying it as much as I (Annette) am. Please welcome her back for Part Three of her series this Fortifying Friday.

Staying Grounded as Your Career Soars
by Cheryl Wyatt

Day 3 - Serving

An interesting phenomenon happened to me at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference. I set aside my entire conference one year to assist another member who is differently-abled.

The very next year a medical misdiagnoses put me in a wheelchair for months following a major reconstructive surgery. I am also a donor bone recipient which is part of the reason I can walk today.

Suddenly I went from being able to serve to needing help. Guess what?

I hated it.

It gave me a new level of respect for disabled people as well as the person I’d helped the year prior.

Trust me, it was much easier for me to be the one helping than the one needing help. I squirmed with uncomfortable emotions the entire conference.

Yet I was profoundly thankful too. A friend, Pammer James, without me asking her, set aside her entire conference to push me around in that chair.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask for help. I don’t know if it was self-sufficiency or embarrassment or what. But it was ugly, and God wanted it out of me. I like to be independent. God, in his mercy, sent me this friend and put it on her heart to serve me at the conference instead of having her own agenda.

From that point onward I determined to go to ACFW with a heart to serve and without my own agenda. To seek out the lonely and scared and those too scared or shy to ask for help.

I pray for you as you attend writers’ conferences next year that you will be super sensitive to the needs of others. You have no idea what a blessing you will be to that person who needs help but for whatever reason can’t ask.

You never know when you will be the one needing help. God makes us take turns. LOL! You will be forced to depend on others some day.

Until and after then, go with a heart to serve.

~~~
Born Valentine’s Day on a naval base, Cheryl Wyatt writes military romance. Her Steeple Hill debuts earned RT Top Picks plus #1 and #4 on eHarlequin's Top 10 Most-Blogged-About-Books, lists including NYT Bestsellers.

Her latest book, Soldier Daddy, a Steeple Hill Love Inspired title, released in October, 2009.

U.S. Air Force commander Aaron Petrowski leads pararescue teams, yet can't find one nanny for his three-year-old twins? The widowed father is returning to duty, but not without the best care for his beloved boys.

So when Sarah Graham applies, the young woman surprises everyone by passing inspection. Until Aaron discovers Sarah has a secret tied to a tragedy in his past.

He can't keep her in his employ—or in his heart. Until his brave little soldier boys teach him a thing or two about love.