Here's To Writing Again

I posted a picture on Instagram the other day of a blank screen, my journal, and my London Fog, ready to write for the first time in almost 2 years. The words refused to come. I typed a sentence and then quickly deleted it all. The sentences I left on the page didn't make much sense and the ideas did not flow at all. I couldn't get anything going and really wasn't sure why. I love words. I love to write. I love to process (some of you are laughing because you have been the recipient of a book in the form of a text message.) Words are how I try to make sense of it all. But they weren't coming.

I decided to go back to old posts to read the words of my last posts. There were three unpublished- one rambling from 2 days before Thanksgiving this past November, one title but zero words in the body, and the start of a few sentences that literally just cut off and stopped. As I reread them all, I had zero recollection of where I was trying to go or what had prompted the topic that appeared to be among my few scattered thoughts.

February 11, 2018 marked the date of my last published entry. The title? "Never Done." Which honestly brought a good laugh from me because clearly my writing had been "done" for a while. Still, I struggled to remember why the words stopped, why I quit writing in the first place. Why did the words stop? Why had I abandoned the few that were started right after that published piece? Had I just gotten busy and moved on to other things? Was I sharing words somewhere else? People close to me have encouraged me to write multiple times over the last couple of years, and I just flat out wouldn't but really didn't know why (my stubbornness is special).

And, then I remembered. I made a choice. An active choice to silence my blog, to silence my words all because of a stronghold in my life I could not release. The tears immediately started flowing, right in the middle of Starbucks.

I thought back to the sermon I heard that afternoon. (Side note- I tried a new church this week. There's more to that story that I want to share- long story short, church being the most segregated hour of my week felt wrong and I couldn't ever settle that- I didn't want to. So, I tried a new church and it was a beautiful representation of why I love Houston so much.)

The pastor is in a series titled From Now On. Yesterday's message was centered around finding rest, true rest in God. His last point hit hard (in a painful, I needed to hear that from more than the people that have been trying to tell me all along, good kind of way.) From now on, I will forgive. And then he proceeded to say, "if I let them, I will allow what someone else has done to keep me from what God wants."

And, then it came barreling in even stronger: my bitterness, my inability to release pain and to forgive myself and someone else, had lead me to this place of silence. Needless to say, the tears didn't stop. I did what the guy next to me was probably secretly hoping I would do once the tears came- I went home to process and pray and write in my journal and confess it and search out what was going on.

In the words that flowed and the things God brought to mind, I realized that silencing my blog was just the first choice made. That eventually lead to silencing other ways I was sharing. My reading stopped. My journaling stopped. My posts on Instagram and Facebook of what I was learning and leaning into stopped. I found that I had gone silent, not sharing anything real with anyone, not even those closest to me. I deleted my post because with all of the processing came the shame of knowing I was the reason words weren't coming and I wasn't sure when I would actually be able to write.

Here is what I know I want: I want to walk in forgiveness. I want to walk in healing. I want to walk in freedom to be who God has created me to be- and it wasn't to be quiet, to be silenced, or to walk in bondage to my own unforgiveness.

So, after a morning retreat in my chair and some encouragement from a dear friend, Cindy, who constantly points me to Christ, healing, and growth, I am back at Starbucks with my journal, my computer, and a London Fog. Of course, I had to go to a different Starbucks because I am literally wearing the same sweatshirt I had on yesterday.

This time, the words have come and I have a list going of more things I want to share- songs that are just touching my soul right now, podcasts that have spurred me on to keep asking questions and dig deep, what I have been unlearning and relearning about our nation's history, my faith, education, justice work... basically, all the things I have stuffed inside for 2 years.

Here's to writing... again.

(And to updating the About Me section because obviously I am no longer 36.)