Shouldn't you be writing?

My son asked me the other day, “why haven’t you been writing?”  Really, I can’t give a good reason.  Maybe it has something to do with my season of life.  I should be writing, but I’ve found it difficult.  It’s been my dream to write, but I find within myself a barrier to pursuing my own dreams.  Maybe it’s some lie I’ve believed.   That I don’t have what it takes, or I should be placing my energy into something more practical.  Yet, why do I write?  Alan Ziegler says that some people write because there are stories we must tell, or because we must tell stories.  We write to remember; we write to forget.  We write to create something new, or to re-create something.  We write for sheer pleasure- or for healing.  We write to move the reader, or to change the reader, or to change ourselves.  I think for me, and most, it's a little bit of all those reasons.

The truth is, I love creating.  Whether it is a hand crafted ornament, or a faux finished wall, or a combination of well-ordered words, creating is a reward in itself.  But chewing my thoughts out on paper is the best time I’ve spent.  For me, writing is thinking- thinking right.  Typing or scribbling words helps me to measure my thoughts.  It’s taking pieces of a scattered, fragmented reality and putting it together to make sense.  It’s a search of the soul that brings about truth.  It’s revelation that leads to gratification.  

Through writing, I question faith, and then find it again.  I seek for divine intervention and find remedy.   It’s not that truth is subjective, or can be found by musing alone, it’s that I have sown truth, hidden it in my heart over time, trusted the God of the Bible to make it efficacious, and when I begin to pour out words in pen, reflections of the truth find their way out, all over the page. Writing is self discovery and God imparting.   Maybe it’s just for me, but I think those little nuggets of encouragement from a child shouldn't be missed.