to enter or not to enter...

in about 30 minutes a poetry contest is going to close, and i have been going back-and-forth all night about whether or not i should enter. even now i am struggling, though i am leaning towards not entering. my main concern about entering is that i do not want to be searching for worth/value by having my work acknowledged, and i do not want to feel worthLESS if my work is rejected.

i truly want my sense of worth to come from knowing that i am God's creation, and loved fully by Him. but i waver in that knowledge, as i believe all of His children do to some degree. these days, i recognize that i waver less, and perhaps that is evidence that am growing --ever-so-slowly of course, but growing none-the-less.

it would be lovely to write poetry again, and to do photography and art as well. i just don't want to being to travel down the creative path again until i am certain i am being lead there by His Spirit. when i was going on my own creative path without His guidance, i was doing it for me, and that selfishness lead to other selfish desires, which always leads to emotional emptiness and agony --and i don't want to even lean in that direction again.

the poems i was thinking about submitting are actually about my spiritual life and thoughts, which is a new approach for me. and one i really like. these two poems feel very alive and even though they are not light-hearted, they are positive, because they end with hope.

if i shared them in this contest, i would simply be allowing God to choose to use them or not. i do believe He controls all things, even which poems in a contest win or not. so in that sense, if they are chosen, or not, i do not have to worry about being accepted/rejected by man. He knows best.

hmmmm...what to do, what to do.