When the Words Won't Come

Week after week, the words just won't come. 

As a writer, this is usually the most frustrating thing that can happen to me. Rather than being truly frustrating, though, I find myself in a kind of limbo. 

The words are coming, I know it. They just aren't here yet. And instead of grasping for something that I cannot have nor will into being, I am waiting. Waiting for the words that have never belonged to me. For the words that give shape to my head and my heart. For the words that I'll never fully understand. For the words that I will never own, but can only borrow for a moment at a time. 

Writing is a gift. It brings me so much joy. But that doesn't make it my right. That's the thing about writing... You can't force it into being. I can't hope to give words to something if God doesn't give me words for it first. I cannot put something still infinite into the finite existence of letters on a page. God is teaching me so much that it is my heart's desire to write. To let those borrowed words flow and to come to know the God I love that much more. But as much as I may desire to write, I am not inspired to do so. 

The words are not mine. And they simply will not come. 

Instead, in that silence, I am simply reminded of God's blessings. Of the abundance of grace and goodness he has showered on me. Every day. Of family and friends. Of a job that I love so dearly, and moments of silence in God's presence every day. Of laughter and good books and running through sprinklers on really hot days. Of sweet friends who know how to encourage me, and people who bring out the silly side of me. It goes on and on. 

Instead of giving me the words to understand the big things God is teaching me at the moment, he is reminding me of the abundance of grace he shows me every single day. He's reminding me of the little things.

Why? I do have words for that:

No idea. 

But in it my heart is stilled, calmed, quietly basking in the goodness of God. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Nor all the words in the world. 

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging- in love, creativity and friendship
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by the ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

For Longing, To Bless the Space Between Us, John O'Donohue

Quiet

I am a verbal processor. You have probably noticed this by now. I have to talk things out. Everything. Seriously. I just can't process things when they're all jumbled up inside my head. I need to talk it out to find the common thread of what God is trying to teach me. But the process isn't done then. Then I have to go write about it. It's only after I've written about something that I truly understand it. 


Well, sort of.


I've been struggling since I got back from Colombia. I guess I shouldn't say I've been struggling, because it isn't like I've ever struggled before. I'm not discouraged or lost or running or looking for God. He's here. He's been right here all along like he always is. He has shown up in spades in the moments I have needed him to. But the rest of the time, he isn't nearly as verbal as he usually is in my life. He's just very quiet lately.


I'm being stretched. God is not only annihilating the box I didn't know I had put him in, he is blowing the boundaries off everything in my life. The things that not only he can do, but the things he can and probably will call me to do. I love it.


But that's just the part of it that I understand. There is something incredibly deep, something subtle but fundamental that he is shifting. He is changing something very deep and very important in me. And I have no idea what that is.


I understand the world best when it is put into words. And since God is being very quiet these days, it confuses me. Usually, when God is teaching me something, it is through use of words. Whether it be conversations with other people, or him giving me words directly, words tend to be how he teaches me important things. But not this time around. I can tell he is doing something important, but I don't know what it is. And I don't think I'm going to. There are no words, and I don't think there will be. There is simply a stirring in my soul, a shifting of my heart, and silence.


I realized today that he is being quiet because quiet is what I need. But even more than that, he is being quiet so that I can't even try to understand what he's doing in me. Maybe it's too deep, too subtle for me to ever understand, or maybe I'm just not supposed to right now. I don't know.


But whatever the reason, I can't even try to understand or put into words what God is teaching me right now. And in that I am reminded that God doesn't need me. He changes me for good, for his glory, and my heart is his. He changes it, and sometimes I don't get to see it or understand it or really be a part of it at all. Sometimes he just changes it and I'll never even know what he did. I just know that the heart in me is different and a little bit more Christlike than it was before. 

Loco

Just a few random notes, because....

My life is crazy these days. In a good way.

Camp is busy, busy, busy. But I love every minute of it. I am tired to the bone at the end of the day, but I don't feel used and abused like I did last year. This is so clearly where I am meant to be this summer. I love it, I love my staff, my co-workers, my boss. And I think, maybe, they love me too.

I head home tomorrow for my best friend's wedding! I'm heading out after camp, and I'm so excited. I am sad to leave and miss out on camp for half a week, though. I will miss it while I'm gone. And not at all related, but I get a haircut this week! Finally! Taming the wild mess: go.

The World Race. It's been on my heart for a while now. I have no clear direction just yet, but there is that deep sense of purpose in me that says 'go.' Not in a right now, drop everything kind of way. But in the 'start thinking about this, praying about it, and prepare to act on it,' kind of way. I'm not sure yet if it involves me graduating a semester early, or going next summer, or what. He's given me no plan yet, which is fine because he's got it and that's all that matters. But I do think he's in the process of revealing the next step to me... Which means I'm about 70 percent sure I'll be packing my bags to gallivant around the world for a year come next July. Or maybe this January.

YWAM has also been on my heart. To a lesser degree, but still present. I've no idea what God is doing... but it's pretty freaking cool. I love watching it unfold.

And I've been reading through books like crazy. I finally finished Desiring God, am thoroughly challenged by it and still chewing on it, and have been talking my roommate's ear off about it's challenges on suffering for Christ. I just ordered Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot, Forgotten God by Francis Chan, and biographies of David Livingstone, William Carey, Amy Carmichael and James Hudson Taylor, and am still waiting on Anam Cara and a book of poems by John O'Donohue. I love it.

That's all I've got now. Life is insane, and good and full of so many blessings. Deeper thoughts later.