by sarah koch

5 years ago my family was called into the wilderness of God’s grand plan. As we caught the wind of our dreams and our eyes were opened to a future far beyond ourselves, fear of the unknown took a backseat.

“Trust the process” was whispered into my heart and mind by the One who ordains the process. So we placed our lives, our marriage, our children, and our path in His hands.

The road has seen both barren landscapes and fullness beyond compare.
We have battled demons, grappled with fear, and fallen hard into failures.
We have felt a love deeper, a freedom bigger, and a glimpse of glory we are unworthy to hold and behold.

Why am I sharing this with you?
Because a long time ago I learned that divine lessons are not isolated lessons. Truths that are whispered into one area of life find a way to radically change others.

“Trust the process”
A truth that pertains to writing a lot like it does to life.

I would argue that few people desire failures and missteps along the way. We accept them if they come, but we fight for perfection.
The perfect job. The perfect family. The perfect social media feed.

Perfectionism.
The impossible wall we aim to climb in life and the writer’s foe.

Perfectionism is the enemy that keeps even the greatest of writers from putting pen to paper, fingers to keys, and spilling beautiful messes and deep wonderings onto blank pages.

We want to write well and clean the first time. We want to take as few missteps as possible. We want our first draft to be our final draft (or close to it).

So when this doesn’t happen, we easily settle for “I’m just not in a writing season” or “writer's block is winning this time”.
But what do we miss when we choose a perfect blank page over a messy page full of us?

Instant perfection removes the great opportunity to wrestle through what is
righteous and unrighteous,
life-giving and deadly,
truth and Truth.

A glorious process of discovery.
A terrifying move closer to facing fear.

Maybe you need to hear this as much as I do...
Writing is messy.
Writing is real.
Writing is all.

It magnifies our fears, insecurities, and lacks. It magnifies our passion, dreams, and beauty.

Writing is us.

Broken vessels that, when placed in the Author’s hands, can become something grander, more purposeful, and far more beautiful than the human mind can fathom.

Yet, our insanity for perfectionism causes us to edit who we are. It causes us to edit concepts, thoughts, themes, prose, stories, and impact of our writing before we even allow our eyes to see and our soul to ingest the physical words on the page.

The fear of a bad idea or scoffs from those whom we seek approval become a lock and key for our deeply feeling hearts and wildly creative minds.

In the process of writing this very piece I fought for every word on the page.
I cried ugly tears, almost cleared the page multiple times, talked myself into a frenzy of reason as to why I’m not worthy to deliver these words.

I stepped with trepidation through a valley of vulnerability and fear. Every click of the keys sliced through my core.

It was a process I struggled to trust. Because pain does not naturally yield trust.

But here in my little writing corner, I sat in the pain. Held. Known. Loved.
Then like a star birthed into nothingness, light cutting the darkness, it happened.
Trust.
Trust in Him.
Trust in the process.

As I was undone, He filled the spaces -- the grand Author, Editor, Publisher, and Maker.

So friend, come with me. Share in this moment.
Be brave and dare to fight for your words on your page.
Fear would isolate you, but look to your right and your left. We are there.
I’m right beside you daring to grow and daring to trust the process -- His process.
In both words and life.