Why in the world do I write?

Or better yet, how in the world could I ever imagine or expect that anyone would actually want to read what I wrote?

Mind-boggling propositions, don’t you think?

And honestly, on some days, I don’t want to write. Actually I don’t write . . . but I guess that is not news to anyone who has looked at this blog and noticed the huge gaps of time between entries.

For me, there are days of dryness, days of darkness of soul. Days overcome by physical pain. Days of realizing how much better others’ words sound than anything I think I could ever write. Days that I work way too hard, and produce nothing. Days I go without having even one thought worth recording.

This past fall though, I must confess my lack of postings is not totally due to my lack of confidence or fear of failure. The weekends of this fall were a random collection of leading Kids Hope USA training sessions, having family visit, or being out of town. There was only one weekend between mid-August, 2011, and January, 2012, that we were at home, with an empty house. But oh, what a wildly wonderful fall!

But back to my original questions of why I write and why I would expect my musings to be read. You must know that there are some moments I absolutely cannot keep from writing as God-breathed thoughts and ideas come to mind. Days I don’t care if anyone ever reads the worlds that swirl before me as I simply try to be obedient to my Lord’s prompting. Days that I get lost for hours in contemplation, in ‘seeing’ beyond where I am physically, in hearing within my spirit those things that end up on my computer.

So maybe I write because I have to, strange as that might sound. But then, so does obedience to a God we cannot see, a God whom many deny exists in this world rife with evil. Yet a God who made Himself manifest in human form and ushered in an upside-down eternal kingdom. A God who loves all people. A God who takes great delight in redeeming the lost, saving the hope-less, and bringing light to those trapped in darkness. A God who continues to confound the wise of this world. Who says that to die is to live. To be served pales in light of serving. Who teaches that we who love God will encounter trials, may even suffer for His sake. Yet a gracious God who proclaims that He is always with us, draws very near to our souls when we seek after Him, and has also promised to carry-bear-deliver us even in our later years (Isaiah 46:4).

Maybe I write because I am learning, as John of Kronstadt says of the most broken among us, to believe that, “{Our} brokenness does not define {us}. {We each} are one in whom Christ dwells. {We each} were meant to house the fullness of God.” I also believe we are meant to exude the fullness of our God.

And as we embrace the fullness of God within, we may hear a voiceless call to do something that makes no sense in human terms. A call, mute to others’ hearing, that cannot be escaped. My call for now, is to continue to write, and write often, something that absolutely makes no sense.

But so much more than that call to write, there is a call that makes even less sense – a call to throw caution to the wind and believe along with the one who penned these words that, “Our {My} deepest fear is not that we are {I am} inadequate. Our {My} deepest fear is that we are {I could possibly be} powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Nelson Mandela

May you each be liberated from that which binds you from becoming one who exudes the fullness of our God, one whose light shines brightly in this darkened world, and one whose life draws others to seek the freedom, liberation, and redemption found in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.