When God Calls You To Share Your Story but You Don’t Want To

When God Calls You To Share Your Story but You Don’t Want To

Despite our desire to follow God’s call on our life to write, it can be hard to get thoughts and words on paper when circumstances are difficult or our hearts are broken. Although our hearts want to step out in faith and be vulnerable about the pain and struggles we’ve been through, our minds often put up a fight. 

As a result, we can often find ourselves, as writers, saying “no” to God instead of “yes,” and maybe even thinking, God, are You crazy? I’m not sharing that!

That’s certainly something I’ve struggled with over the years as God called me to write transparently about the pain of my separation and divorce. I imagine you too may have secretly struggled with heeding God’s call to write about a difficult experience due to fear of sharing a behind-closed-doors look at your life and heart. Yet giving in to the fear of sharing through our writing can often stand in the way of reaping the blessings of obedience God has in store for us. 

Through a lot of faith, tears and prayers over the years, God helped me find the courage to push past those fears and share about many painful experiences that I would have liked to have kept secret. I’ve seen Him work miracles in me and others that would have never occurred had I let my fears rule.

One tip I learned years ago with regard to pushing past our deepest fears was just to write that thing we’re afraid of writing. Let the words flow, and don’t focus on worst-case scenarios or what people might think. Think about what God thinks, and that is all. 

My best suggestion to you today if you’re struggling with being vulnerable in your writing:  

Do what scares you; keep doing it, and the fear will eventually subside. 

Then in time, you’ll realize that your obedience to share transparently not only helped other people and changed lives but your own heart was healed along the way. The truth is, we can embrace and overcome our fears by simply starting to write words down. A blank page usually becomes way less scary as soon as you put words on it.

Today I’m excited to announce He has once again opened the door for me to use the sharing of my pain for a purpose through the release of my new book that launches today! 

My previous book Living Unbroken: Reclaiming Your Life and Your Heart After Divorce (2021) was written through an ocean of tears and fears, but through the sharing of my story, God not only healed my heart but filled me with a passion to take things a step further. 

Today, my faith-based Divorce Recovery program launches nationally, through the release of Living Unbroken: A Divorce Recovery Workbook. This workbook includes access to seven weeks of teaching videos and a downloadable “Leaders Guide.” It will be the only small group, faith-based, women-only divorce recovery program available, and I am standing in my chair praising God for all the women this workbook and study will potentially help. 

Six and a half years ago, when my husband walked out, I thought life was over. I thought my writing career was over. I thought my ministry endeavors were over. But I could not have been more wrong. 

Pushing past our fears of sharing our stories and stepping out in obedience — even with trembling knees and a knot in the pit of our stomach — will always open the door for God to do the most amazing things. 

Faithful obedience to be transparent in our writing always opens the door for blessing.

Interested in purchasing a copy of Tracie’s new Living Unbroken: A Divorce Recovery Workbook, or the book Living Unbroken, either for yourself, for a friend, or to share with a Pastor or Women’s Ministry Director in the hopes of starting a program at your home church? Click below to order your book, or click on the video for more information. 

PURCHASE THE DIVORCE RECOVERY WORKBOOK 

Connect with Tracie on Instagram and Facebook, as well as on her blog, for daily encouragement! 

 

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Tracie Miles has been the Director of COMPEL Training at Proverbs 31 Ministries since January 2017, and has been volunteering on the speaker and writer teams for Proverbs 31 since 2007. Tracie is an author coach who works one on one with writers of all levels to help them pursue their writing dreams, and can be found at www.traciemiles.com. She is the author of seven bestselling books, including Living Unbroken, Love Life Again, Unsinkable Faith, Stress Less Living and Your Life Still Counts, and has a new book releasing July 2024 called God's Got You: Embracing New Beginnings With Courage and Confidence. She is also the founder of the national Living Unbroken Divorce Recovery Program, a 7 week study series to help women heal and recover together. Tracie has three grown children, two of whom are married, and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can connect with Tracie on her website at www.traciemiles.com as well as on Facebook and Instagram.

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  1. I have a great desire to write a book, memoir, about living through pain, growth, and eventually using God’s grace to make life prosper through all of it. Having a painful childhood, getting marriied early in my late teen’s, starting and maintaining a business while raising 3 children, often having just enough money to get by. Now at mid-life, it looks some of the same, leaving my floral career, semi-retiring and taking care of my elderly mother, I feel like my story mattters. I started my writing career by accepting a job at a local paper as a writer, and I really feel like it is my calling. I started a website and face book page called the Lotus Flower, depicting despite the murky waters and muddy soil you can still rise and be a beautiful flower. I have blogged some but mostly just post content about self care and growth.
    Please advice as I have no idea where to go with this idea, I just know it is in there, waiting to be told.
    Blessings,
    Carla

  2. Yay God! Traci, congratulations on your obedience to Him. I look forward to reviewing your new workbook 🙂