I am ready to quit. In the midst of a tedious editing job, I have been tempted to imagine scenarios that would allow me to quit gracefully.
Oh, the pieces I would write in that extra time! But sometimes when circumstances hint that a door might click shut, it pops open once again. And that is fine too, because I want to quit only when God makes it clear that I should.
Of course, when it comes to life, faith, and all the other things that matter to God, there is never a time to quit.
This past summer I quit a writer’s’ group after a short time. I had warned the coordinator that I might drop out, since this was my second attempt at participating in such a group. But I felt a twinge of guilt after I had said good-bye; was I a quitter? Well, I could think of a few important things that I hang on to with all of my might.
Besides that, I had valid reasons for quitting both groups, so those decisions made sense. And then I thought of this: At times God wants us to quit so that we can move on to something else. After all, a new door may never open if we refuse to let the old one shut. Recently a friend quit writing her column titled, “A Note While the Baby Is Napping”; she informed the editor that the baby no longer naps much at all. So this mother of six, who also publishes a magazine and juggles numerous writing projects, decided to drop an activity for her family’s sake.
Sometimes quitting makes sense. At times we may need to drop an activity or quit a job. There is a time to stay; there is a time to quit. But when God is the one shutting that door, quitters always win.
Christine Laws is a freelance writer and editor living in Amity. Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in a variety of publications. She is also the author of “Fresh and Fruitful: Cultivating the Art of Writing,” available at www.clp.org.
