Throughout my life, I have always refrained from behaviors during lent - essentially denying myself in an effort to draw nearer to God. This year, I am trying something new. This year, I will be writing as my Lenten observance. I will celebrate God's gift of writing in me, by refraining from burying my talents.
I often wonder why I shrink from an activity that gives me such pleasure. The practice of writing has been with me since my childhood. I have always had love of words, finding just the right ones that encapsulate my mood, emotion or opinion. I have been lauded for my ability to write too many times to count and still I resist it. Though words and ideas materialize in my head daily, my need for perfection makes me swallow them, leaving them buried somewhere deep inside my consciousness, and I suffer for it. I imagine somewhere inside me there is a tree full of stories and wisdom whose fruit could feed the nations, or at the very least a few little girls and boys like me, who are afraid of becoming themselves.
And so this Lenten season I will write, I will not deny the gift, I will not be afraid, and I will draw closer to God through the risk of becoming what he is calling me to be. I will not fear imperfection, rejection or criticism, I will simply write for his glory, for his goodness, for his kindness, and for his mercy in continuing to provide the gift, in the midst of my neglect.
Thank you Lord for the love of words.
For the way they dazzle me, and the profundity of their sum.
Thank you for inspiration and characters and colors predicates and plots.
Thank you for paper and pen, keyboards and fingers, and the ever evolving desire to tell my story and consequently your story too.
Your love is inside these words you have given me,
Often they are my meat.
Consistently they move me to a higher understanding of you, and a fuller understanding of me.
Thank you for poetry and prose, lyrics and fables,
Compound, $2 Dukenese words and the often dismissed, gritty words of my people.
You are the living Word.
I live because of your Word.
Lord give me words and life to live... and I will write.
Ever Higher!
