The fruits of our labors produce an identity that everyone can see. What we believe will come out in our actions, words, and creativity. The fun comes when people comment about your fruits. One, we all have beliefs, but not all beliefs are based on truth. Two, we all have protective layers that will make changing some of our beliefs harder than others. This friction is one of the biggest things that stops us from wanting to share. We are bound to hurt each other’s feelings with our rotten fruit, but we also will lift others up with the good.
I’m still learning many things about myself and what beliefs I still have that are based on lies and wrong assumptions. A lot of the learning has come from stepping out and sharing, taking the falls with the accolades. Some of the learning has been acquiring the ability to discern what advice is worth listening to and what is not. Everyone has an opinion, but if we try to listen to all of them, we will spin in circles. I know it made my 20s one crazy ride jumping from one thing to the next.
So, here I am on Substack writing this blog/newsletter once a week, sharing my opinion about how to have An Abundant Life. Writing is one of my labors and I’ve seen it produce good and bad fruit. I’ve received so many opinions and comments that sometimes I spiral on what to do and other times I have stuck to the plan. One thing you will notice immediately is that I’m a Christian. No matter what I write, my faith (beliefs) will come out in it. I even get to share about times I messed up on this walk with Jesus. After all, the times I learn the best is when I flub things up and figure out the better way to do things with Jesus. I’m living proof that you do not have to be perfect before you step out. I bet I’ll still be figuring out life until the end.
I also have another Substack called Tales of Karnum. It’s a work in progress that could use more love, but my fiction side is in a writing spree of book three of a series. I’m still figuring out the whole author’s life here and with my books. Some days I wonder why I bother and then other days the reason comes to fruition. It takes courage to share because we have no idea what people will notice and comment on.
Things that could have stopped me from seriously since Dec 2020 are:
lots of, ‘we liked your voice and your precept, but it isn’t a fit for us to publish’
the sound of nothing but crickets when first stepping out into new social media and blogging attempts
comments about how I should be writing without them taking into consideration everyone has a unique voice
the noise of so many how-to write and publish resources
an entry to a contest did not even make the long list
What kept me going? It’s in the little things. Here is a list of some of those.
I love this character because…
I love your story and passed it on to someone else
Your book helped me understand the relationship with Jesus in more than one part of it. (this was for my first book Champions of Light - a fantasy novel)
I love all the twists you put in your stories. How do you come up with this stuff?
Confirmations that I nailed what I intended to share in any of my writing
I will not stop writing. I will share regardless if I flub it or rarely get a nailed it. I will not stop encouraging people to figure out who Jesus is and find a relationship with Him, because that is my purpose. Without Him, I would have never reached this point in my life to share any of my gifts properly. I would not be able to share how I have an abundant life amid chronic illness, frustrations, trials, and all those fun out or our control events. The things I learned can help save others from repeating the mistakes I did. There are a few mountains that have a deeply grooved path around them because I missed the lesson until the umpteenth time.
My philosophy is that if I can learn to overcome with Jesus, anyone can. None of us are lost causes, even if our fruit stinks like it’s been in the hot sun rotting for years. Sure, it may take some time to clean up our act, but some lessons turn us around immediately. People will notice. Sure, we are all too prone to notice the negative first, but that should make us stop and do a quality check on our fruit production. All too often, the faults we see in others are the same ones we have. They just get dressed up differently.
It’s good to analyze our fruits and where we are in life. Is our fruit helping us live abundantly or is it leaving us feeling depraved? Is it impacting the world around us for bad or good? I encourage you to examine your beliefs and ditch the ones not founded on truth that rot your fruit.
This is lovely! we all need to remember, while we're inspecting fruits, to also inspect our own tree.