The past couple months have been hard. Really hard. Truth is, I’ve been climbing the walls, beating my head against the door, clawing, screaming, bawling to God, “Where are You?”

For all my efforts to get published, I’m in sort of a vaporlock now—the dreaded no-man’s land between potentially career-changing publication deal and ostensibly a whole lotta nothin’. For six months now, I’ve been poised like an Olympic sprinter in the starting blocks of the biggest race of my life, ready to go, ready to rock n’ roll, ready to pour everything of myself into the final push to publication. And then, industry politics intervened. And there’s nothing to do but wait until The Powers That Be decide if/what/when my deal is going to come to fruition.

One of my Facebook friends posted a quote yesterday by Rick Warren, author of A Purpose-Driven Life: “God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don't run after them."

In my life, this has been true on many occasions. The college boyfriend who shall remain nameless. The Hollywood producer who got me dreaming of lucrative writing gigs. Other random people and friends whom God obviously placed in my life for a certain time and purpose, then excised for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

It’s all been so frustrating, having come this far, having spent this many years of blood, sweat, and tears, to basically have nothing concrete to show for it.

I said to one of my writing friends recently that I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to succeed in any entertainment profession, something beyond one’s control must happen, and Destiny must smile on you. This, of course, taken within the context of Christian worldview, translates into a favorite quotation from opera singer Luciano Pavarotti: “You must be kissed by God.”

I don’t know why this culture is so fond of astrological references like “born under a lucky star” and “leading a charmed life”, as if planetary alignments, karma, and surrogate “deities” like Fortune could ever come close to the personal, all-powerful Jehovah God who breathed the stars into the heavens and holds Time and the Cosmos in the palm of His hand. But I’m equally guilty of casually throwing around those terms and making it seem more like happenstance than the sovereign will of God that allows people like me to overcome adversity and succeed in life.

To realize I’m whining about something that is at the very best simply icing on a cake of personal success, prosperity, and triumph--after all, I was supposed to be on suicide watch and confined to a wheelchair at this point in my life—makes me fall down on my knees and beg forgiveness of my Creator God for my impudence.

There is a certain futility/resignation/relinquishment associated with focusing on the unassailable sovereignty of God. Even our mistakes and failures are written in the fabric of Time, and ALL things He has seen beforehand. Am I destined to be a success in the eyes of the world? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Can I change this “fate” if God, in His ultimate wisdom, has allotted me to be a resounding commercial failure? If He chooses to remove literary success (dare I call it an idol?) from my life for my protection, will I chase after it?

Will we relinquish our wants in service to our destiny, even if it is not what we imagined? Or will we continue to chase after the things that God has removed from our lives for our own good?

Sometimes it’s just hard to know when to keep banging on the door and when to let go. But God also knows that if nothing else, I am persistent. So for now, I’m going to keep on keepin’ on.