Writer…Definitely Interrupted

I’m just home from spending ten days away from the family. I ended up staying away longer than I planned because of life’s unexpected interruptions.

The day before I was planning on leaving to Dallas for the ACFW conference, I got a phone call from my dad. My younger sister had a heart attack.

Yes, you read that right. Shocking, isn’t it. BTW, she’s okay!
Even more shocking than the heart attack is that she’s 36 years old, 5 ft. barely 100 lbs. dripping wet, great cholesterol and blood pressure.

So why a heart attack?

She’s a smoker with a family history of heart attacks.

Her right coronary artery was blocked 100% (just like my dad’s when he had a heart attack at 65.) After they put in the stents, she felt fine and her heart suffered no permanent damage.

Getting back to the interruption (and please indulge me while I’m brutally honest here) I had a peace about the whole heart thing and after seeing her at the hospital, feisty and looking normal, I wasn’t worried for her health.

I was lucky enough she lived an hour from where the conference was being held, yet a part of me was torn. The ACFW conference was going on and I wanted to be there. I had been planning for it for the last six months. My sister was well cared for in the hospital and other out of town family had arrived, still I felt an obligation to be there with her.

I jokingly asked her why she couldn’t have the heart attack a week later, but the reality is, it was a blessing that she was so close. Only one hour away from where the conference was being held. If it had been any other place, I would have missed the conference.

At this year’s conference, I didn’t feel all the way plugged in probably because of what was happening with my sister. But when I was at the conference I tried to focus on the conference. When I was with my sister, I tried to enjoy my time with her.

Amazing things happened at the conference. No, I didn’t get a book contract, but I met some wonderful Writer…Interrupted people. But I’ll save the details of ACFW for another day.

As writers, we’ll always be interrupted one way or another, but it’s up to us deal with those interruptions in a positive way.

We can whine (on the inside, of course) and worry about not being able to write or pursue our careers full time, but that won’t get us any where. Instead of worrying about tomorrow, we need to live in the moment.

Write when it’s time to write.

Work when it’s time to work.

Play when it’s time to play.

Rest when it’s time to rest.

And leave everything else to Him who has called us!