The Catholic Writers Guild

Here is the second installment in our Lenten journey. Today Karina Fabian shares her journey to becoming a writer for God. However don’t be put off by the writer part, because the devotion is chock full of ideas for life and not just for writers. As mentioned in the previous devotion feel free to share your stories here or on Karina’s website or any of the other blogs where you see. Our goal, God’s desire in putting this on the eight authors who will share the journey is that we all find a closer relationship with Him.

God Bless and Enjoy.

I’ll see you next week and may your Lenten journey be one filled with love and forgiveness from God.

Christina Weigand

 

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:6-8

1996.  I was married with two toddlers and had left the Air Force. We’d moved to Wyoming, where I had no job and one friend.  I tried the supermom thing, cleaning house to within an inch of its life.  It didn’t much help.  Despite being an introvert, I was getting cabin fever—and it wasn’t the house.  It was my life.

It came to a head when I was reading a novel by Harry Turtledove—not one of his better ones, and I actually yelled at the book and at him.  “I could have written this!” I snarled.  Then the thought hit me:  Maybe, but I hadn’t.  And I hadn’t really tried to write in years.

I’d always wanted to be a writer and had even written a novel in college.  The stress of the Air Force had made me forget my dream, but when I left, I didn’t do more than give it a nod with one short story.  So what right did I have yelling at a multi-published author who was also a college professor?

Lent was coming up, so I put down the book, apologized and prayed.  Lord, you know the dreams in my heart.  You know I love to write.  This Lent, I want to give that to You.  I will stop reading and start writing.  Please lead me in what to write.

By Easter, I was writing for the Wyoming diocese paper, plus several other smaller local magazines.  I expanded to national magazines, mostly parenting articles.  Rob and I developed a near-future universe where the solar system was colonized and a religious order did space search and rescue.  I had asked and God granted.

I’ve done a lot of different writing since then, from silly fantasies and science fiction to devotionals.  Sometimes, I get a wonderful surprise, like when I got to write Why God Matters with my father.  When I start to feel off track, or stuck in a situation, I will stop and knock, trusting God to open the door to lead me on.

Sometimes, the door He opens leads my back to myself.

—–

Have you ever had a case of lifestyle “cabin fever,” where you felt stuck in a situation that maybe was pleasant, but not fulfilling?  Are you experiencing one this year?  This year, give that to God, but offer him a “trade”: give up something but also take up something that might move you forward in your life.  Dedicate that to him and ask him to guide the use of that talent or activity.

Dear Father in Heaven, you promised that if we asked we would be given, and if we knock, the door will be opened.  Here I am, knocking.  I give you the dream of my heart; take it to unlock the door that guides me to following Your desires for me in my life.  In Your most holy name, Amen.

Karina Fabian is an author, wife, and mother of four currently living in Utah.  In 2010, she and her father wrote a short devotional, Why God Matters: How to Recognize Him in Daily Life.  This year, they invite people to share their Lent stories at http://whygodmatters.com