Something you might ...

Heidi Chiavaroli

I could have written any number of posts today, but I thought you might need to hear something. Because it’s something I need to hear. Often.

Ready? Here it is.

You write beautiful.

That’s it.

You write beautiful.

Now I know what you might be thinking. Heidi, you’ve never even read my writing. You didn’t see those ugly scores from the last contest I entered. You didn’t see all the track changes lighting up the margins of the latest chapter I submitted to my critique partners. You didn’t see that rejection letter. You didn’t see that horrible review.

No, I didn’t. And yet I still hold firm to my statement.

You write beautiful.

Because if your writing has the end goal of glorifying God, of representing his grace, mercy, and love in some form, then it is indeed beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a writer, you write to be read. I get it, believe me. But even if another soul never reads your words, if they are mirroring a longing for God’s heart, then they can’t be anything but beautiful.

So go ahead. Write something. Be bold. Honest. Improve your craft. Listen to your critique partners, your agent, your editors. Learn from their wisdom. Strive to create something that will touch your readers’ hearts. But know that in the eyes of the Author of Life, anything that is birthed by one of his children with his glory in mind—whether lovely or not by fickle human standards—is beautiful to Him.

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Heidi Chiavaroli is a writer, runner, wife, mother, and grace-clinger—not necessarily in that order. Ever since taking her first trip to Plimoth Plantation with her sister, mother, and grandmother at the age of nine, she has been fascinated with history and its significance to today’s people and culture. Heidi is the winner of ACFW’s 2014 Genesis Contest, Historical Category. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two sons, and Howie, her standard poodle. www.heidichiavaroli.com