When God Asks You to Change Careers...Now.

I met Camy Tang at ACFW. She was one of my mentors. Her gift for listening, understanding, and guidance made me so thankful I had signed up to meet with her. What a blessing.

Sometimes all we need is a listening ear to understand direction.

Sometimes all we need is to take the direction and follow, no matter how bizarre it seems.

I asked Camy to share with us today.. Here is what she wrote:

God Asked Me to Lay Down My Writing!

I’ve always loved writing, but my attitude wasn’t the greatest. I was more interested in my name on a book cover than in giving God glory. So, God asked me to lay down my writing.

Mary here- I can see this happening for any career. We often become consumed with our idea of the end goal and not God's. Been there...many times.

At first I thought He was nuts, but once I realized He was serious about it, I fought Him long and hard over it. Eventually, I did it—laid down my writing, stopped cold turkey. Set my manuscript away (all 600+ pages of my epic fantasy novel that was going to take the world by STORM!).

I changed careers studying biology research, probably as far from fiction writing as I could go. I still made up stories in my head, but never wrote anything down. One day, quite by surprise, I was laid off from work. I didn't know what to do until out of the blue, I sensed God giving me the green light to start writing again.

To get back into the feel and learn more about the writing craft, I read tons of writing books, took online workshops, attended conferences. I learned everything I could about the writing craft, the publishing business, and the market.

I wrote and sent out my work.

I got lots of rejections.

I had horrible comments from judges in the contests I entered.

I wrote five complete manuscripts with Asian American characters during a time when publishing houses weren’t actively looking for multicultural stories. Eventually, I had to go back to work because it was just too expensive to be a writer without a contract in the San Francisco bay area. Hah. That would hold true for living anywhere.

I guess I had an advantage because I had already laid down my writing once, and God had clearly told me to take it up again. I knew without a doubt that I had His blessing for my writing, so even though things were really hard, I didn’t give up. I knew this was what God wanted me to do.

Sushi for One released in 2007. My husband was so proud of me—holding that book in his hands affirmed to him that this “writing thing” really was what God wanted me to do.

Since then, I’ve written for Zondervan, Love Inspired Suspense, and Guideposts and have known this was the time God wanted me to write.

Camy Tang grew up in Hawaii and now lives in northern California with her engineer husband and rambunctious dog. She graduated from Stanford University and was a biologist researcher, but now she writes full-time. She is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads one of the Sunday worship teams. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ to read free short stories and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter.

Thank you Camy for joining us this weekend!

Has God ever asked you to lay something aside for a time and asked you to do something else for a season?

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