Writer. (Five Minute Friday)

When I saw the prompt, I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Writer.” Had it been, Write, I would have felt much more ready to sit down and begin.

But, writer, kinda always scares me. It wasn’t until just before Allume last year that I even referred to myself as such out loud. To my husband. To my Mom. To my best friend. In hushed tones and with the sparkle in my eyes that portrays a secret. A secret delight, to me, but a secret to be kept from everyone else. It was the term I always carried in my heart as one I wanted to apply to me.

Even as a seven year old. I know this because somewhere in my Parent’s Entertainment center lies a dusty VHS tape that reveals that my secret was long carried. A little girl in a fluffy ponytail who’s chin barely sticks above the table’s top holds a pen in one hand and holds down wide-ruled paper with the other. The paper lies in a vinyl Lisa Frank Notebook and holds her secrets.

Her brother, four years older and just recently allowed to carry the huge camcorder on his shoulder… walks around the house shakily recording the evening’s events. He shows my dad in his recliner watching the news. My mom smiling over a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce and me at the table, frowning with concentration.

“Whatcha doin?” He asks. 

I glance up, red cheeked and grinning at being discovered. 

“Writing.” I mumble.

“Whatcha Writing?” He asks.

“A Story. ” I say pointedly and instinctively pull my hand over the words.

“What’s it about? Let me read it.” He says. 

“No!” I laugh. “It’s not finished and you CANNOT see it yet.” 

For the record, the piece of notebook paper was never finished. Never found and never read. But the memory is there and it reminds me that going back to the things we’ve always loved and enjoyed can sometimes give us insight into those things that we are passionate about.

It also reminds me that we are all so often so guarded over our words that we miss the opportunity to share them. We see the amazing books being published. The speakers speaking. The “paid” writers writing. And we write… and we feel our words fall flat. The fall flat to us because they “aren’t finished.”

But the stories that are still being told are often the most beautiful.

And in the everyday moments of crazy and wonderful– we see the hints of the back of the tapestry that the Grand Weaver is orchestrating. And we can know… He is still working. We do not yet see where our paths will go.. but we do not navigate them alone.

How wonderful to know that we follow HIM. He GOES BEFORE US. He makes our path straight. He leads us in the way that we should go.

Will you join me in telling the stories that are yet to be finished? In the telling, we can lay those stones of remembrance. The reminders that our God is faithful. He has been. And He will continue to accomplish His purposes in us.

After all, it is HIS story we are telling anyway. Not our own.

 

Linking up with my favorite community of writers over here at Five Minute Friday.