I started this blog to pay tribute to my boy who is not with us any longer, but God reminded me today that my ultimate purpose is to write the story, His story (not my son's) - the story God is telling through my life. He has given me a deep love for fiction, mostly romantic novel type fiction, and a deep love of words.
Today, I sat at home --- waiting for my husband and daughter to return home from church watching a video produced by our church about "Hearing God." Obviously the first and most important way we learn to hear God is through the Holy Bible. But, what about those dreams and impressions, those times when God gives us a Word in season that sends us headlong into His Holy Scriptures searching for confirmation, direction and resolution.
That is where I have been these last few months. I have struggled for many years with the idea that God has given me a writer's voice, a heart to tell a story and to teach others from the experiences I have had with Him in my life as I have journeyed through His Word and the path that has led me to this place - this exact place and time in history to step beyond fear and live in the freedom of truth and faith!
At the end of the video lesson, the speaker instructed us to pray this simple prayer, "God, what do you want to say?"
Then silence. I paused the video and exhaled deeply, relaxing my mind and my mouth. I breathed slow and deep waiting for some revelation as my eyes were closed, my ears poised to "hear the voice of God." Suddenly in those quiet, sweet moments I heard the rustling of pages turning in a book, a pen scribbling curiously across the expanse of pages. I heard the future tapped on a keyboard and felt these words forming on my tongue - I translated them to my notebook resting in my lap - my pen slicing the white paper with acute black markings: "WRITE IT DOWN DON'T STOP WRITING TELL THEM MY STORY (GOD'S) Don't give up - though it lingers wait for it - don't give up - make sure the story is told. Habakkuk 2 & 3"
I asked God to drive out the voice of the enemy, confessing my fear away in favor of Love, Self-Discipline and a Sound Mind. I rebuked the whisperings of my enemy that told me my newly acquired prayer language and dream of being published were foolish undertakings, stupid and unattainable... Those things that keep me paralyzed in fear. In the name of Jesus I will live in truth and freedom.
Write the Vision and Make it Plain! Over and over again my mind returns to the phrase, "Write the story." I have been writing the story, for four years I have been struggling to tell a love story about divorce, redemption, reconciliation and restoration. I had 90 pages of rough first draft completed, some of it re-written - but still very raw. A story taking shape each time I re-read the printed pages in a generic notebook with my title and name pasted on the front. A story that is nestled deeply in my heart and soul dying to be given life and flight at the tips of my fingers.
Last night as I tapped out the cadence of my storyteller's heartbeat my story tragically turned and threatened to unravel the neatly constructed lives I had been creating for years. Like in life, something unexpected - awash in pain and confusing senselessness began to flow from my mind and heart. Before I knew it - life was turned upside down and my aching heart was reliving my own tragedy in a new way. Life would never feel normal again.
I lay in my bed tossing and turning, dreaming of my characters - waking then returning to sleep. Unable to settle my mind around what had just happened. I asked God why I had to write this story, why this painful thread of tragedy and regret. Why couldn't I just write a sweet, syrupy love story where the guy and the girl come together in the end with no pain and suffering to mar the picture perfect scenes. I told him I didn't want to write it.
This morning He spoke to me in such vivid detail that I knew He heard my prayers. He answered my spirit, my heart and gave me a Scripture to once again wrap my mind around. The same Scripture my heart heard a few months ago when I recognized writing was my calling and my specific purpose to use a teacher's heart and a reader's mind to impart truth into the lives of others.
A gentle nudge in a familiar direction. Do it well, child. I hear God tell me to Do it well.
Can it be that this is truly my destiny - that which I run from, that which I fear and view as a hobby? Can God turn my feeble mind into a port of imagination and my hands into an instrument of His revelation?
I pray it is so... I pray God is with me and I am not missing Him in some terrific way.
Until later, be blessed.
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