I'VE GOT THIS

by Cynthia Ruchti

I know I'm not alone.  When the author copies of my latest release arrived today, my first reaction was joy, immediately followed by brokenness, humility, on-my-knees gratitude and pleading for God to use the book, give it wings, propel it to the readers for whom the story was written.

Most of that day, I wavered between that internal dance an author knows when they see a book in print, in hand and that blown-off-my-raft sense of the enormity of this amazing process in which I'm privileged to participate.

This isn't my first novel. Not my first book. Not my first rodeo (if I wrote about rodeos). I got this. Right?

No. I don't. None of us do.

I had the idea, didn't I? No, even that was God.

Well, I wrote the story. Not alone.

I came up with those clever turns of phrases. No, I participated in the creative process.

It took hard work, but I fixed what the editor suggested. After much prayer.

I need Him every hour. Every moment. Every stage. At every turn. I don't have this. He does. What I have is Him.

I need Him, oh I need Him. Every hour I need Him.

He's the one who wakes an author in the middle of the night with a thought He planted in the subconscious. He's the one who implants an empathy for crises we've not experienced ourselves. He's the one who DOES something with our words, breathing life into them as poignantly as the Father breathed life into Adam, as transformational as Jesus' first breath in the tomb in which He didn't belong.

Ask the author who's been at this far longer than I have. The thought remains. We will fail if we say, "I've got this." We will see His blessing unfold if we say, "He's got this…and I'm with Him."



Cynthia Ruchti tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels, novellas, devotions, nonfiction and speaking events for women and writers. Her latest release--All My Belongings (Abingdon Press Fiction)--launches on May 6th. She needs Him every hour, for every book, and every breath.