I am a writer type. But I didn't always know this about myself. Despite the fact that my childhood days were spent in rich imaginary worlds created from my interior mind, I was writing chapbooks of poetry by sixth grade, over the years I've amassed dozens of journals and notebooks filled with random musings, plus all my email accounts have draft folders filled with writing ideas and lightning snippets that come over me and demand to be written into existence, there is literally no other "work" that both exhausts and rejuvenates me simultaneously, and my go-to, survival coping mechanism during the most difficult days of my life was simply just TO WRITE...still....it took me a long time to accept I was a writer.
I come from a family of writers which both masked the value of writing for me (it was just always a truth so I took it for granted) and led me to reject it (I wanted to go my own way, do my own thing.) Plus, writing is not exactly glamorous. It's rife with rejection, doubt, and frustration. It's hard to explain to others. It requires massive amounts of time staring out a window which doesn't look like productivity to anyone else. It's wadding up pages and screaming at typewriters and breaking pencils. It's the feeling of holding a masterpiece and then throwing it in the trash. To live this way is madness, to defend it to others is more torture.
I come from a family of writers which both masked the value of writing for me (it was just always a truth so I took it for granted) and led me to reject it (I wanted to go my own way, do my own thing.) Plus, writing is not exactly glamorous. It's rife with rejection, doubt, and frustration. It's hard to explain to others. It requires massive amounts of time staring out a window which doesn't look like productivity to anyone else. It's wadding up pages and screaming at typewriters and breaking pencils. It's the feeling of holding a masterpiece and then throwing it in the trash. To live this way is madness, to defend it to others is more torture.
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Sometimes God gives us gifts that take us a while to accept.
Sometimes we have trouble believing in ourselves, but the real truth is, God never asked us to believe in ourselves. He asked us to believe in Him. We are each given a unique gift (or gifts) to contribute to the world around us, it's up to us to get real with ourselves and down to the work of identifying what that is, but the real miracle happens when we invite God to use our gifts for good. |
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In 2017, I finally accepted my fate as a writer and since then I've been using it to do good. To help small businesses communicate their culture and expectations effectively, to help mental health counselors resonate important concepts to their clients through a lens of compassion, and to help everyday people reflect on their own growth and potential, to identify what is important to them - and then go and get it.
Official bio: Bonnie McClure earned her Bachelor's in Psychology from the University of West Georgia in 2012. Having a high creative interest, she also minored in Studio Art, focusing on photography and graphic design. She worked for over a decade for a small, non-profit Montessori School in Carrollton, Georgia. From 2012 - 2019, she was one of two administrators over the school, learning first hand the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of small business ownership. She is an avid runner and dedicated yogi, both lending an essential balance to her overall wellness. She has two young sons that consistently reverse the teacher/student role in her life everyday. She is a member of Villa Rica First United Methodist Church. Bonnie volunteers with local mental health support groups, including Survivors of Suicide Loss, in her father's memory.
