I’m a PB Rising Stars Mentee!
I’m so honored to be selected as a PB Rising Stars mentee and work with the amazing Maria Marianayagam! It’s taken me over 2 weeks to process this news… it felt like such a long shot, I think I didn’t know how to receive it. Thankful she saw gold in my writing, and for this opportunity to get a serious shot at a dream I’ve had since childhood.
It’s been 5 years since I left my career as a high school teacher and administrator to be a stay-at-home mama and pursue children’s book writing. And 1 year since I left it for the second time!
There is a story about a little girl who has nothing but a pocketful of seeds and a dream to turn a dirt field into a beautiful garden. This dream gets interrupted, of course – again and again and again. But just when all seems lost, the little girl discovers that the things that seemed to be pulling her away from her dreams were actually the very things pulling her greater purpose together.
This is my story. As in, I wrote it, received a runner-up prize for it in the 2022 PB Rising Stars contest, felt like I was being launched into a season of serious writing with both of my girls in school all day… and then was faced with my own interruption – I was asked to teach 1st grade at my daughters’ school. I couldn’t ignore or understand the pull I felt. So I said yes… And as this yes turned into many no’s to all the things I thought I was going to be doing, I realized that I was following in this little girl’s footsteps. I was living the story I wrote.
I ended up teaching 1st grade for two years. It was the best school I’d ever taught at – the highs were high. But the lows outside of the classroom were low. And during one particular low point, a story came out of me. It was a story about Time — how it’s good. It’s on my side. And how if you treasure it in all things, there’s Time for everything. This story is what I ended up submitting to the PB Rising Stars Contest this year. But this time I wasn’t a Runner-up. It was my name on the announcement screen.
I recently came across a journal entry I wrote in 2022, a few months into putting my writing on hold and taking the 1st grade teaching job:
I was standing inside my house the other day, looking out the window at my front yard… and noticed how all the one gallon plants we had planted only a few months prior were now already two to three feet high! And before I could form my question, the answer came – the soil.
I had been baffled by the quotes from all the potential contractors when we first started this landscaping project. Why was the majority of our budget going toward demolition and soil prep? We had plenty of dirt – couldn’t they just dig the holes, plant the plants, and be done with it already? I wanted that dirt field to be filled with greenery and blooms. I didn’t want to take the time (or the money) to do the demolition, replace the dirt with new soil and nutrients, install the irrigation system, etc. I wanted the yard to be pretty. I wanted the fruit.
But looking at the yard, I realized if I had done that, I’m pretty certain all my plants would’ve died. Or taken forever to grow. But because we took the time to clean out the old stuff, till the soil, put in the good stuff, establish a system to ensure it would continue to be fed and grow and thrive… the plants were thriving, and growing at an accelerated rate. And then my Sprout Garden story came to mind. And my writing dreams. And I wondered… could I be that girl in the story? Could my time in the classroom, working alongside this amazing team and serving these students and their families, be tilling and prepping the soil of my heart and mind, so that when the time was right, my writing dreams could not only grow and bloom, but thrive?
I don’t know what these next 4 months will hold. But here I am, 3 years after writing this story, after saying yes to the interruption, and miraculously being brought back to my dirt field where it all began… just like the little girl in my story.
I won’t put all my hopes on this mentorship; I know it’s just the beginning — because the purposes God has for us are greater than our grandest dreams.
“For the vision awaits an appointed time; It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” ~ Habakkuk 2:3 (BSB, NLT, NIV)
