There is a saying in the writing world. Kill the little darlings. The sentences, phrases, paragraphs and bits of our work that we fall in love with. These are the parts we can’t let go of and may be our blind spot, preventing us from improving our work.
My life and faith are like this too. I have my pet sins, the ones I have grown comfortable with and I almost forget are actually wrong. I dress them up, make excuses for them and sometimes even make them look healthy and spiritual. But, as a wise author recently put it, this is like keeping a dragon as a house pet.
These may be dreams I’ve long held to, secrets I keep or habits I don’t want to address. I’m not here to tell you what yours are. I know what some of mine are. But I don’t want to do the revising. Because it hurts.
It isn’t as simple as cutting, I must replace it with something better and that involves rewriting. That’s where the real work of our lives begins. Click To TweetBecause we were meant to fill ourselves and our lives with many wonderful things, not just empty ourselves of the bad ones.
I pray that the divine author will open my eyes to those blind spots. I invite him to take the red pen of his blood and mark up my life. It is a scary thing to do, because I may not really want to change. I like those bits, I worked hard at blending them in and sometimes so much of the story is built on them.
Yet, if I want this house to stand, the foundational work must be done, otherwise all that comes after will be unsteady.
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