There is a squeezing pressure in the center of the chest when a body feels extreme anxiety. I recognize it now. There were times in the past I thought I was having a heart attack and rushed to the ER. “You’re having an anxiety attack,” they would say. I don’t bother paying the ER bill anymore.

Ever since I was twelve years old, I have had one dream. I wanted to be a writer. Now, I would argue that I have been a writer for decades, but I haven’t been a published author. I signed a contract a couple of months ago to become just that. I am contributing a chapter to a collaborative book with nine other authors that will launch in January. And it’s exciting. It is also terrifying. After a month of writing and refining and changing and shifting, I submitted my first draft today. And now, my chest feels gripped in a vice and my breaths are shallow except when I remember to take deep ones. This is my deepest dream. And the specter of perfectionism (which, ironically, is what the chapter is about) is hovering over my head, reminding me of the words of my college Creative Writing professor who told 17-year-old me that my writing was juvenile. Duh! I was seventeen! What did he expect? But those words landed like blows on a soul already beaten and battered by life. And they have clung to me for 33 years. In that time, I have not once submitted any writing of mine to be critiqued or edited by anyone that I did not trust. I don’t mind getting correction or constructive counsel from someone I know loves me. This is putting my words into the hands of strangers and allowing them the opportunity to tell me I am wasting my time on this dream. The terror is real.

But last October, I was in the hospital unable to speak with a lot of time to process and pray. Dad clearly told me, “Tell your story.” I don’t know, yet, all the details of how He wants me to tell it, but this opportunity was one that I couldn’t pass up. It was practically handed to me. So, I walked through the open door with no clue what was on the other side, only that I am on a journey that I am meant to share with others, and I must go. My best friend told me, “Do it afraid,” so that is what I am doing. Putting my greatest dream into the hands of the only One who can hold it safely.

Pressing on.