A few days ago, I received this comment on the blog:

At first, I laughed. I mean, how can you not appreciate the subtle nuance of “yousuck@hotmail.com”?

Then I thought, “Wow, this person was upset enough by something I said to leave a comment that forcefully told me stop speaking.”

Then, it stung a little bit.

As any person who creates knows, you put something of yourself into that which you create. I create on this blog. I create thoughts and ideas and hopefully a new type of reality that we can step into together. So as a creator, when someone says, overtly or covertly, that they do not like what you have created, it stings.

But this shouldn’t be surprising. Not after the past week I had. Last week was a great week, and the Devil hates when people have great weeks. I’m reminded of something I heard at STORY:

The devil wants to steal your stories by convincing you they’re not worth writing.

Isn’t that the truth? You create and you write and you send your tiny, little creation out into the world hoping it makes it. You tell your story and try to live it out and the devil wants to make you believe it’s worthless. No one wants to read it.

It’s like when a nest of turtle eggs hatch and those tiny little turtles make a sprint for the ocean. Along the way, some are eaten by birds, lizards or fish. Some don’t even make it out of the nest. Our stories, much like tiny little turtle hatchlings, are delicate.

But we keep creating. We keep telling the devil to “shove it” and we keep creating, and telling, and sharing, and declaring: “This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Maker, all the day long.”

Have you ever been discouraged? Has anyone ever told you your story wasn’t worth writing? More importantly, did you believe them? Do you need to “pick up the pen” and start writing again?