When Words Go Missing

Hello blogworld.  Are you still there?  A very long time ago I used to write on this page.  I wrote stories of my life and my struggles.  My joys and my grief.  And then, well, then all my words just went missing.  I'm not quite sure how to explain the silence but it felt heavy and it felt crippling.  I lost all desire to write in a space where others held freedom to read.  My words felt too sacred to me for a public space and so I decided to retreat--to write more privately and only for me.

That was 2 years ago.

But here's the thing.  I still come back to this space.  I browse around.  I change the header and make it look pretty.  I read old posts and smile at old memories.  Sometimes I even open the  new post tab and pretend like I'm going to write.  But every time I've just stared at a blank screen, with words that have gone missing and I just don't know what to say.

Do I go backwards 2 years and tell you about everything you've missed?  Do I tell tales of how now I'm living across the ocean, my kids have grown bigger, my struggles from 2 years ago still plague me today.  How do you start writing again when you lost all desire to write?  I'm not really sure how to answer that, but here I am.  I can tell you that in recent days I have had an overwhelming urge to create.  To make something.  I'm not much of an artist, although I wish I was.  Sometimes I think I feel things very deeply, the way that artists do--I think I have the soul of the artist, but my hands never learned how to create.  I can make a craft or decorate a corner of my house--I'm ok at those things, but there is something deeper within me yearning to create something of value.  Something that will change me, and maybe, just maybe change others too.

So here I sit, the same girl you used to know, and yet so crazy different than she was 2 years ago.  So much has changed in my life, in my days.  I feel more inadequate than ever to write, and yet I can't seem to move past this place.  I think God is bringing me back to my old love of writing.  Scares me a bit, because once you put words out into the world, you can't take them back.  People can think whatever they want of them....they can even toss them aside as meaningless or not worth their time.

But that right there--I think that's what feels different this time around.  2 years ago I really would have cared about that--I would have cared that people didn't really care.  I don't really feel that way any more.  This time around, I just want to create.  I want to wear my heart a little further down on my sleeve.  I want to untuck my soul just a bit--not so people will like me more or say well done.  No--I don't really need that anymore.  I want to write because I really do feel like I have something to say.  Something God has planted within me.  Something I've lived and breathed and communed with.

So here goes nothing.  This may be the last post for another 2 years, but I really hope not.  I really want to encourage myself to write and to not retreat again.  Rachel, write because you love it, not because you have to.  Write because God is writing your story and all your words can just point up to Him.

So, Rachel here, signing in.