Six years ago, I started writing a memoir. I was three quarters of the way through writing and with a full book proposal, when my hyper-manic episode came. Two weeks in the mental ward of a Budapest hospital and the entire arc of my story changed. My work was irrelevant if I was going to give to the world in integrity.

Fifteen months later I was in a new country, a new environment but my mental illness was alive and present. I returned to the mental ward, this time of an Orlando behavioral center. My narrative continued to change and I was in flux at what to write.

Nevertheless, a few short months later, I began to write another book proposal for ‘something’ that could detail what I had lived and continued to live. I abandoned the work soon–the experience was simply too raw.

Fast forward three years. I began to write in earnest again. Another memoir, but of the past four years of coming to grips with the bipolar disorder which marched into my life uninvited, a bully at times, threatening to own me. This story was one of triumph and I had great hopes for its debut into the world.

One year later, after multiple rejections from agents, then publishers, a re-write of the proposal and more rejection, I am here. Writing a ‘simple’ blog post on vulnerability and I am asking some questions.

Why would I make myself so vulnerable, this woman who already exposes her heart so quickly? Why would I try again after one round of publishers’ rejections? Why would I try at all when I know it to be so difficult to get published?

While I doubt it often, the answer is simple. There are faces, hearts, stories–people–who need to know they are not alone. There’s a message unsung of how mental illness does not have to define you. There’s an appalling lack of hope in a world that desperately needs it. There is One who says to love ‘the least of these’, which we all become in our vulnerable, overlooked, states.

But I just want to cry and I have felt the hot tears falling down my cheeks. ‘Pick someone else, God’, I say. I am not strong enough to carry this passion, this vision, and see it through. It’s all so risky and I am too vulnerable in the face of it.

Yet, it never ceases to amaze, how what we think will take us down, actually makes us stronger. It’s surprising, the depth of human will–the ability to rise resilient.

Vulnerability is so much more than wearing our heart on our sleeve. It’s molten courage strengthening all the ins and outs of that heart–making it gold. Instead of shredding us, it can weave itself through us with the knowledge of our infinite worth.

And I can honestly say this is my testimony. It’s been so very risky to put myself out there in my writing journey. Yet, after each ‘no’ has come a ‘yes’ to know who and Whose I am.

I am one who is born and cradled in love.

I am bought with the precious blood of Christ.

I am strong beyond measure because the Triumphant One lives in me.

I lack nothing.

I am whole.

I will rise today, every day, and One Day into eternal life.

Therefore I can endure the ‘no’s’ which aren’t really rejections in God’s hands. I can endure the weight of dreams delayed as they become altogether new. I can endure the shattering of hope, for beneath it lies the pearl of great price. I can endure the lies that I don’t matter, because they are grey, dull and flimsy.

I can endure whatever comes, because all that I am is precious to the One Who holds me close in Great Love.

Beloved, you too, can endure.

I apologize that I haven’t posted in months! My goal is to begin posting every week, or at least every 2 weeks. Like all of us, I have had kids home and life has been crazy because of it! However, I have been podcasting every week. You can find the ‘Messy Life Mighty Love’ podcast anywhere podcasts are (see below).

Here’s the link to Apple Podcasts for ML ML podcast!