I’m participating in Five Minute Friday. For details and the link up, head over to Kate Motaung’s blog here. The challenge is to free write for five minutes on the week’s one-word prompt: easy.

Here goes!

The thought came to me fully formed: it would be easier if I were working full-time instead of writing.

Expenses wouldn’t be as daunting. I wouldn’t have to be so concerned with the extra expenses of moving and fixing our new home. We could take more vacations. I could shop more. That kind of easy.

But the truth is, life would be harder, too. I would go through each day knowing I’d deliberately passed on the opportunity I have been claiming to want since high school: to focus on writing as my only job.

And more than that, I would be turning my back on the opportunity I believe God went to great lengths to give me. He promoted me at work time after time, and He gave me just what I said I always wanted, that one position.

The job I dreamed of was torture in more ways than it was easy. Long hours, out-of-balance schedules, un-walked dog, untouched keyboard. My stories sat on hold, my blog dropped off, I cried a lot, I started having health issues–some of which still haunt me.

Lord, never let me forget that you’ve brought me here and that there is nothing easy about being outside of Your will.

Time’s up, but can I just add that I’m so grateful I get to spend my days writing? What a gift! The harder aspects of it are absolutely worth the privilege. 

What have you decided to do despite sometimes thinking it’d be easier not to?