Present Over Perfect

growing. My appreciation for a well-crafted sentence or a
perfectly chosen word is only rising, and my fascination
with narrative and characterization and revelation, especially
in memoir, is akin to an obsession.
My love for reading remains, but my desire to write is
conspicuously waning . . . and I wonder sometimes if it’s
because writing has become—or maybe always was—a way
of proving myself, defining myself, articulating something
about my identity and worth.
Of course it is: who writes four books in a decade
without having a little something to prove? I wasn’t the
smart one in my English program. I know that no one put
money on me being the writer among us. I was a pastor’s
daughter who married a charming worship leader and
worked for another well-known pastor: for the first decade
of my professional life, I spoke on behalf of those three
articulate, passionate, smart men. I became an expert in
crafting and supporting their voices, and I wondered, deep
down, in a tiny, secret place, if there was room for my
voice. I was fairly sure there wasn’t.
Late one night, a couple of years ago, a group was
gathered around a fireplace and one friend asked this
question: “What do you wish you could go back and tell
your self from ten years ago?”
I said, “I’d tell her I know you can’t even imagine it
now, but you don’t have to only speak the words of your
father, your husband, your pastor. Your work doesn’t have
to be simply facilitating their work. You have your own