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Thursday, December 27, 2012

More To Say

   Anyone who knows me well knows that I enjoy putting pen to paper. I make lists, plan parties, set goals and write my thoughts into half-filled journals scattered throughout the house. You can't get past my kitchen without seeing something scrawled in my hand on random pieces of notebook paper, receipts, envelopes and post-its. And I'd much rather write with a pen than type on a keyboard. But even typing gives me another outlet for writing that brings me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that I can't seem to find anywhere else.

   For me, the past three months, maybe even four, have produced little as far as the written word goes. Especially when I look at my journals and this blog, showing a major slow down in entries and posts. I think I can easily track the shift to my return from Africa and the founding of Love Mercy Uganda, which is a bit of a head-scratcher, since that trip and those experiences and this new mission have more than saturated my heart with enough material to write a book. The big, thick, door stopper kind of book.

   Maybe there is just too much this time to lay it out there for you guys to get a real sense of what happened...or of what IS happening. I struggle myself to keep up with what God is speaking and orchestrating and unveiling, and even then it's not all on stage or in the wind and the earthquake and the fire, but in that still small voice of His that roots me to doing nothing but sitting still. And I don't get much writing done that way. 

   I write standing up, shifting from one foot to another, or on my way from the mop bucket to the toilet brush and even while I'm driving. I write in my head while I'm out shoveling snow or walking to the mailbox.

  Sometimes I'm sitting....but not much comes out when I TRY to write. 

   But I'm here at Come To My Rescue because I sense a shift that has occurred somewhere along the way that is allowing me to write again. I am an extreme editor of anything that I publish, always wanting to make sure I say it right and say it well or not say it at all. And I don't think that is going to change.

  But what might change is how much of me I allow into my writing.

  Because I have changed.

  And the lenses that I see the world through have been upgraded to a new prescription.

  It's hard to say whether you'll notice the difference or not.

  What matters I guess is that I have more to say. More to tell you. And my voice is more my own now. Or better yet, I'm more of who He intended me to be from the beginning.

   I'm looking forward to writing from this new place I'm in and letting Him use what I often see as rubble from a torn down, abandoned warehouse, but what He has clearly shown me to be some pretty valuable building material.

   I'm intent on cooperating with Him.

   Some of you will know exactly what I mean. The rest of you can catch up as we go along.

   Stay tuned for Anna's story. An abandoned one-year-old girl from the streets of Uganda who God is using to fit me with those world-altering new glasses I told you about.....who fulfilled a promise from a God I still haven't figured out....

   And Shafik.....a little boy who refused to give me anything but a backward glance and downcast eyes.....who reminds me every day what it means to take a risk.....to forgive......to look up.

   Both of these stories I thought were mine to keep. Stories too personal and telling for me to publish. But they are on the edge of my writing heart and they are meant to be shared, not hoarded.

   He has once again......Come To My Rescue.