So, back to the near-vomiting. During the course of the weekend, we had each been given a homework assignment: to write a short story that “opened a vein.” We were given the specific directive to “write something that made us uncomfortable.” The purpose of this was to practice sharing vulnerable parts of ourselves in our writing that we might otherwise be afraid to. So, I went back to my hotel room that night, pondering on this. As I sat contemplating, I felt the Holy Spirit poke me.

“You should submit that story,” he said. A story I had been working on flitted across my mind, and I immediately began to sweat.

“No. No way. Not that one. NO WAY,” I said aloud in my empty hotel room. “I can not, will not submit that story.” Why? Because I had emailed a couple of scenes from said story to Jim not once, but twice, and both times he had seemingly ignored the email. I was sure he thought it was a super weird and dumb story but didn’t know how to tell me. So, naturally, there was no way I was submitting it and presenting myself for public humiliation.

But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t leave me alone! Seriously! I paced my room arguing with him for over two hours, giving him all the reasons why I wasn’t going to do this. When I had exhausted my reasonings, I sat down on the edge of my bed in defeat. I was hit with the solid fact that I had to submit. I HAD to. If for no other reason than if I was getting this upset about it, how better to illustrate the whole point of the exercise? Well, I didn’t like that, no, not one bit. But I sat down and pulled up the story and agonizingly finished it. When I was finished, I hit “send” before I could change my mind, then proceeded to sleep not a wink the whole night.

The next morning I didn’t eat. I barely spoke to anyone. Jim’s son Taylor taught the morning sessions that day while Jim reviewed our short stories, so all morning I was in a torment of anxiety like nothing I’d ever experienced before, knowing Jim was sitting in the back of the room reading. I don’t think I heard a word Taylor said all morning.

Finally, Jim stood up to present the stories. When he announced he was going to have each of us read our stories aloud, I swear to God I almost wet my freaking pants. I was seriously a hair’s breath from having a panic attack right there on the couch in front of everyone. And, Jim had apparently decided to save my story for last. I wanted to die. Die, I tell you!

Then it was my turn. Cue the near-vomiting stance. Jim smiled at everyone, and started speaking.

“So, we have one final story. Sarah,” he said with a small smile, “has, well, she’s blown me away, because she’s …Sarah, what do you wanna call what you wrote?”

I cleared my throat, knowing exactly how Todd Anderson must’ve been feeling. “I, uh, a…a f-fan-f-fiction,” I stammered. (Yes, I had loved Soul’s Gate so much, I had written a fanfiction story for it.)

“Yes,” Jim said, now with a big smile. “I start reading this, and I go…’Wait a minute! These are my characters! This is my book!’ I’m gonna let Sarah explain it, but girl, I love what you did! I love what you did, it’s so brilliant!”

Relief hit me with the force of a baseball bat and all the breath I’d been holding whooshed out of me at once. He didn’t hate it! I felt dizzy, but managed to squeak out “I’m so glad!” And then burst into tears.

Jim went all sort of, “Hey, hey!” and looked really concerned, so I gathered the shreds of myself together and in a strangled sort of voice, shared how I had emailed him about the story a couple of times, but had gotten no response, and therefore thought he had hated it. Jim’s look went from concerned to complete shock.

“And…you still submitted it?” he said, utterly dumbfounded. “Thinking I hated it? You did that?”

So while everyone else broke for lunch, Jim and I had a talk, where he basically said I had done him a words-can’t-describe honor by writing a story based on his book, and that somehow he had missed both my emails (he gets a ton of fanmail) and how he was so sorry he’d never responded, and that because of his inaction I’d had to carry the belief that he’d hated my work for so long. But he was astounded at my courage in submitting it anyway, that not many would have done that, and that I was “even more epic” than he originally thought I was.

So, in the end, I too was able to “seize the day,” and in return was rewarded in ways I never dreamed of. So whatever Big Scary Thing is in front of you, whatever God keeps poking you on, don’t give up. Don’t let anyone take it away from you. God has given you your gifts, your heart, your mind, your passions for a reason! Please don’t let fear or despair keep you from them. Be epic! Sound your barbaric yawp and seize the day! It’ll be worth it, I promise.