Michelle Thorne Books

Revealing You // Delivered

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Write? Okay. Publish? UGH!

June 12, 2015 by Michelle

I am so insecure about my writing. I sit and worry about every word, every phrase. Is it going to be taken how I intended? Does that matter? Who is going to read this? If I offend you, will you stop reading my posts? Does that matter either?

On June 1 I published my second book, Revealing You. It’s a journal really, and it is needed. I wrote it because of the number of women I leave in the hosptial with nothing but my phone number, a hug, and hope that I will see them again. Most of them I don’t see again. It’s very hard to connect with such a painful subject. Very hard. My face is associated with that tender, excruciating time. I understand and it makes me sad.

I want so badly to love them. I want to be a person in their lives that speaks truth and love and the truth in love. I want to challenge them and I want to learn from them. I said the other day on Facebook that I want to travel around the world and hug as many birthmothers as I can. I do want that badly, but I can’t. I can write, and so I do.

I wanted to write this second book because I wanted to love these people well, and I wanted to keep loving them when I was not physically present. This journal allows that.

But I’m insecure about my writing…Writing for me is uncomfortable. Well, let me say this. Writing is fabulous, but publishing anything, even this post, is uncomfortable. I feel like people are rolling their eyes at me or patting me on the head. When I wrote Delivered, I had friends comment on how shocked they were, pleasantly, that they were not embarrassed for me. Now, after publishing Revealing You, I have had more than one person say to me that I am a writer now. That only affirmed my fear that one book wasn’t enough or that self-publishing, with its long nights and steep learning curve, was somehow less than.

Feeling less than…that’s a common theme in my life.

Anyway, why do I do this? Why do I sit in the discomfort of my calling? I guess I do it because I have to. Both of my books have erupted out of me like the cork from a champagne bottle. I make myself vulnerable to anyone who will listen because I can’t contain this tragically half-redeemed story. I want to tell people.

I want them to know the truth of why women choose adoption. I want birthmothers to stop being stigmatized. I want expectant parents to know the truth of what it’s like on the other side of adoption. I want women who volunteer at Crisis Pregnancy Centers to love and accept the people who come to them and not assume that adoption is the only/best option for the person in front of them at any given time. I want adoptive moms to hear that we love you and we are jealous of you. I want adoptees to know that though some of us can’t reconnect, our hearts long for it too. I want birthmothers to know they are not alone. I want…I want…I want…

I want so much, but tonight, I want you all to know that I am insecure about my writing. I don’t want you to know that so you will comment back to me about my writing. Please, don’t. Honestly, you can’t fix my insecurity no matter what you say. It’s my issue for God to resolve. I want you to know because I want to encourage you. You can do that impossible thing. You can let your light shine and the fire in you burn and you don’t have to have anyone else’s approval or permission. You can, with Jesus.

Sitting in a place of vulnerability when God has called you there is not as vulnerable as it is sacred. Any path that follows after Jesus is holy ground. Take off your sandals, friends, and get comfortable being uncomfortable.