Note: I don’t normally blog here about internal things, preferring instead to share thoughts on my “yardening” or memories of other phases of my life. But since I was 13, part of my self-identification has been “writer.” But I had lately begun to wonder if I could still use that description — is one a writer if one isn’t really writing? Apparently so. Apparently thoughts and ideas have been wintering in plowed ground, waiting for spring’s warmth to sprout into new growth. I posted the following on my personal blog this morning, but I wanted to share with my friends here, as well.
***********************
I’m writing again, for the first time in a decade or so, and it feels like coming home to my true self. Really writing — the kind of writing that I used to do, that left me marveling in awe as the words flowed from my pen to paper, almost as if the pen had a mind of its own.
That’s how it used to feel, when God would give me ideas for stories. It was almost like watching the story on a movie screen in my brain, and simply transcribing what I saw on the screen. I had thought the dearth of words related to my very desultory Christian walk. I claim Jesus as my savior, and believe the truths set forth in the Apostles’ Creed, but I do no daily Bible reading, attend no weekly church services.
That said, I constantly dialogue with Jehovah God, and recognize that all good gifts in my life are from His hand. Like this gift of writing, that has recently returned with so much power. The more ideas flow into my brain, the more I return to Bible reading, specifically the Gospels. I’m seeing things I don’t remember seeing there before. And I see stories.
In “Steel Magnolias,” Truvey says “Every person has a story.” The same is true of the Bible characters – no, not characters. These were real, live people, like you and me. They worried about keeping their jobs, their homes, their sanity. They loved and laughed, wept and prayed, cooked and sewed and cleaned, got married, had children, lost children…
Their lives were more immediate than ours, less removed from reality. No air conditioning there – when it was hot, their own sweat cooled them. If they caught no fish, or grew no crops, they went hungry.
Life was struggle and joy all in one. Sometimes, life was sorrow. Through it all, they persevered, holding to the hope of their faith that Yahweh was not as other gods – that Yahweh was a God who listened, a God who cared. He had delivered them from Egyptians and Philistines – he would deliver them again.
If he didn’t? He was still Yahweh, still in charge. The prophet Habakuk perhaps said it best:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Hab. 3:17-18
Those are tough words, from a tough person – a faithful person. I’ve wanted those words to be true in my own life for years, and never really noticed that they already were.
The fig tree of my writing has not blossomed in close to ten years. Oh, there were little buds here and there – snippets of stories, or thoughts or poems that reassured me I could still write when it mattered, but not the effortless flow of words that I remembered.
Until this spring, when all outside was green with new life, and it was time again to remember our Lord’s sacrifice on our behalf. This Easter season, the words began to flow again, and I pray they never stop. But even if they do, like Habakkuk, I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Meantime, I’ll revel in the feeling of being home again.