Three years ago on this day, I sat on my living room couch in my snack-stained bathrobe and messy bedhead bun – on what should have been one of the happiest days of my life – only feeling confused and disappointed.
I remember thinking, this is not at all what I imagined this would be like. I thought I would feel…..different. I thought I would feel something at least.
Anything but the way I did.
It was launch day for my first book, Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them. This was the culmination of a six-year journey. The achievement of a dream I had held in my heart since the third grade. The pinnacle moment for the project I had poured every bit of myself into for the last four years.
And I felt nothing.
The night before, I had been up late waiting to push “publish” on the Amazon CreateSpace platform that would send my words to every corner of the globe with an internet connection.
As the second hand tipped over the minute line and the clock struck midnight, I pushed that button with great expectation – as if my whole world would magically transform in an instant. When a confirmation page loaded on the browser I thought, well that was anticlimactic.
I walked around in a daze that Friday.
My book launch party was still a week away; there was still plenty to do, so I threw myself into the last-minute details of that and convinced myself that on that day – surrounded by my closest friends and family, toasting lattes to my accomplishment – I would finally feel that mountaintop moment of arrival I was expecting.
But November 11th came and went, and while I relished every moment of celebrating the milestone, surrounded by my biggest cheerleaders, nothing changed on the inside of me.
In fact, I plummeted so fast and so far south on my emotional rollercoaster, I felt more disenchantment than elation. Disillusionment than excitement.
I checked the sales report every morning for weeks – expecting to see numbers in the thousands. When it barely tipped over 60 copies in the first month, I was in a full-on depression.
What was happening?
If God really called me to write this book, and He opened all the doors for me to put it out in the world like He did, wouldn’t He also cause it to fly off the shelves?Wouldn’t He want as many copies in the hands of as many people as possible? Wouldn’t He want to make it a best-seller?
Did I hear Him wrong? Is this my fault? What’s wrong with me?
Then came the shame. Mountains and oceans of shame.
Shouldn’t Jesus be enough?
I mean, sure, those “lost” people out in the world deal with feeling unfulfilled, but not Christians, right?
I mean, I literally learned this lesson in junior high youth group: Every human on earth is walking around with a Jesus-sized hole inside them. Most people go around trying to fill it up with relationships, or sex, or drugs and alcohol. But once you “get saved” and “have Jesus”, all that goes away.
…Then why did I still have a hole?
What I have learned in the last three years is that achievement is empty. Achievement alone.
Even if it is the achievement of something good.
Even if it is something God called you to.
Even if it is in ministry.
Even if your heart is pure.
And no body prepared me for this.
No one ever told me that people inside the church – even inside ministry – can still feel emptiness in their souls.
I had enough foresight to see that if accomplishing the number one goal in my life made me feel this hollow, than any other goal I set from here would only result in the same cavernous hole. And I needed to do something about it.
So I set out on a journey. To wrestle with God about the ideas of success and accomplishment I held so deeply. To seek to understand the balance between expectation and contentment. Striving and satisfaction.
And it’s been great!
And scary. And fulfilling. And challenging. And burden-lifting. And freeing. And seemingly never-ending.
But, I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m starting to grasp some firm answers and see through the fogginess to clarity.
It’s time to start talking about it. I’m excited to begin sharing this journey with you.
If you’ve ever been disappointed by a dream come true, I hope you’ll come along with me.