Living and Writing

(To M. W.)

. . .I am stopped in every attempt at consecutive work.  It has for years been special discipline to me, because I am naturally fond of going through with a thing, and have always had a strong yearning for definite settled work. Yet, I have never been permitted anything but desultory work; either ailments or something beyond my own control has always  interfered ever since I was about twenty. . .Margaret, is it that He cannot trust me with any word for Him, even after all these years?  I have been feeling very down, and I hope really humbled; it seemed rather marked, His not letting me write at all this year; and, now, taking away all work from me seems another sentence of the same lesson.  I feel such a “cumberer,” every one doing more and better than myself.  Pray for me, that I may really learn all that He is teaching me. . .

I am always getting surprises at my own stupidity!  Why could not I have seen that lovely trio of texts?  This only confirms my strong belief that if I am to write to do any good, a great deal of living must go into very little writing, and that is why I have always been held back from writing a tithe of what I wanted to write; and I see the wisdom of it.

–Frances Ridley Havergal from MEMORIALS