Growing up, I didn’t think I was very bright.
I remember, as a teenager, lying awake in bed at night thinking I wasn’t very bright. I suffered from insomnia and an overwhelming amount of anxiety. So there I was, fifteen years old, lying awake in bed. It was well past midnight. I stared at the white ceiling and held the covers close to my chest, my eyes wide, the silence deafening around me.
“I’m stupid, aren’t I?” I thought in that dark, quiet room. “There’s something wrong with me, mentally, and nobody has told me because you don’t tell people that kind of thing. You just treat them with pity. I’m legitimately stupid, and they just haven’t told me yet.”
A brilliant display of self-confidence, am I right?
Believe it or not, God had a little something to say about that.
Let’s fast-forward about 10 years. I’m now a young adult, in the second year of my time as an apprentice at The Company. (You want to write like me? Definitely check out their apprenticeship program: https://writers.company/training/ )
I’m sitting at the brown, wooden table in front of the white-erase board. Brad, my mentor, is standing at the board. We’re going over my plans for the next novel that I’m supposed to write, and I’m nervous as all get out.
I had a few ideas—two I liked way better than the one Brad and I were currently discussing. It was a time-travel novel. One that, while interesting and unique, I had zero confidence that I could write it, let alone write it well.
I wasn’t smart enough to understand regular science, let alone what it would take to write about time travel. It would be an impossible task.
“Tell me why you can’t do this Time Travel Novel,” Brad said, pointing to my outline. I opened my mouth. He stabbed the papers with his finger. “And you can’t use ‘I’m not smart enough‘ as an excuse.”
I shut my mouth.
I had no other reason.
I floundered for a bit before I muttered something like, “It’s not an excuse if it’s true,” or something equally as emo. That didn’t cut it, of course, and before I knew it, I was writing a time-travel novel.
“Do or do not do—there is no try,” is baloney.
I had no other options. No excuse worked on Brad (they never do). There I was, with the task to write a time-travel novel. I was either going to fail or succeed—and I absolutely hate failing. The only thing I could control was me, so I might as well try, right? The stupidest thing you can ever do is simply refuse to try, and all that “motivational” crap people say when you have an impossible task.
So I started to try. I researched the different types of Time Travel in fiction. I studied theoretical science and got a headache pretty much every day. Finally, after about two weeks of constant study, I finalized my plan and started to write.
Guess what? I succeeded!
Here is the official cover reveal for my time-travel novel!
Introducing: Call It Consequences
Coming January 21st, 2026
What would you do if your 12-year-old self showed up and told you that you had to travel back in time to save your dead mother’s life?
Lorraine’s mother died almost a decade ago, and her life has been spiraling out of control ever since. If it’s not the grief or her aloof father who won’t give up his pointless time travel experiments, then it’s the mysterious man in black who always seems to be watching her.
Does that mean it’s up to Lorraine to fix everything? Lorraine’s an artist, not a mathematician. With only her unwitting boyfriend for help, how will she ever accomplish what her genius parents never could?
More importantly, will she be able to keep it a secret from the strange government forces following her?
This book is unlike anything I’ve ever written before. It’s probably the best thing I’ve written in my entire life.
Defeating The Lie
It doesn’t always work out like this. But what I hadn’t realized before was that I was limiting myself by calling myself “stupid” and “not smart”. I was informing myself of my own expectations, giving myself an excuse to not even try.
Isn’t that what the enemy always wants? For you to limit yourself so he doesn’t have to?
I, unknowingly, was agreeing with a lie from the enemy for years. That was pretty silly, huh? How many things do you think I could have accomplished if I’d started fighting that lie instead of agreeing with it? I know I would have slept more as a teenager, that’s for sure. I would have been happier and more filled with the light of Christ.
I didn’t think I was smart enough to even try, because I had agreed with a lie from the enemy. Thank God he changed my mind, right?
Thank God I relied on Christ to write this novel instead of my own pride, of feeling the need to be smart.
Thank God for grace and forgiveness and for restoration. Because God promises those things to us. When we realize we’ve been believing a lie, we don’t need to beat ourselves up for it. All we need to do is refocus on God.
So reader, guess what? God made you smart enough for the things he has prepared for you. You can learn, and you can grow, and you can defeat those lies. You’ve got the God of the universe on your side. You think he’s intimidated by you not understanding the universe he created? Think again. He’s got this. 🙂
Excited for Call It Consequences? Join my newsletter so you can get an alert when it comes out in January!