I'm back, have been for a couple days I guess, but I've felt I should say something and don't exactly know what or how. I felt I should have all my questions answered before returning to blogging, but I don't. But I do have an adjusted perspective and starting point, and a renewed vision to be writing. My perspective and life had turned in quite a lot and I wasn't living out of the central point of bringing God glory, and loving Him and others first. I'd become selfish, again. So, I'm back renewed, adjusted, refreshed.

As for writing, I feel I know less than ever about some things. How much to say, how vulnerable to be, what topics to discuss, if I even should be blogging. Scratch that last one, that is the one answer I think I do know now. I looked over at my 'archives' the other day and thought back to all the writing I've done here since 2006. Masters Commission tour, 4 years of college, graduation, applying to Cambridge (and not getting in), starting full-time work, a handful of friends weddings, now babies, so many changes and revelations, ponderings, free-writes, silly stories, tear-full paragraphs. One of the greatest lessons I learned from SLT, or rather from my facilitator, Jon Pinkston is the value of little things done faithfully over the years. Blogging has been one for me. Sometimes I worry I am pracitcing bad habits, and there might be something there for me to change, but overall blogging and the consistent writing it has provoked has helped shape my writing, making me comofortable with it, better at communicating a clear thought, organizing it, and being willing to offer it. And it has helped shape me.

I've never before been so aware though of all the opinions on writing, and how much is too much to share. I've also never felt I share too much. If anything, I tend to feel I struggle to really share the things that matter. But the other side to this is that I don't care to write things that don't matter. Writing should bring joy, or depth, deep tears, or a laugh, if it doesn't inspire something new in you, or remind you of something you'd managed to forget, what is the point of it? We don't read to discover what we've always known, or what everyone knows. We want to read something that changes us, provokes us, inspires us and challenges us. We want to travel to new places when we read. And so a writer must be willing to step out into those new places, before anyone else and bring others there. But there are so many perspectives on this, and I think much if it is connected to the different callings and personalities of people. I've been seeking the Lord as to what is His will with my writing. Art is vulnerable, it always has been and always will be, and when you create, you become transparent. I remember I hated dance practices in MCs, I felt naked in front of everyone with all that I was processing. I often cried through them. It seems strange, especially to a girl who so enjoyes dancing, but art makes you vulnerable, and you have to be willing to be seen. Those dances were also some of the most life-changing times of my year - letting the Lord work His ways all the way through me.

This week, as I was praying about a lot of this, I suddenly remembered one of the words I was given at the encounter retreat a couple years ago. Someone gave me an easel, and said, "You have to be willing to be on display." They explained how they felt the Lord was telling me I had to allow Him to display my artwork and create with Him, and also how I had to be willing to allow Him to display me as the artwork. The words from the rest of the leaders were all very similar. Amazing how a word like this can come back 2 years later and confirm something amidst all your doubts. The past two years have been a growing journey of willingness to be seen, to allow others to know me, and to discover how to write what matters. I don't care to tell all, but even as I was struggling through the value of mystery (something I've always wanted to hold on to), a friend reminded me, It's all about God revealing His glory through us. So that is what it comes down to, keeping my focus and motivation in bringing Him glory, and partnering with Him in whatever He is doing. And so, I am here again, writing. And whatever you find of me in this, I hope it draws you to Him. Transparency requires a willingness to be seen, but even more than that, it requires a willingness to be seen-through.

(Ha, amazing. In writing this, I think I finally got my answers. And that makes me think all the more how walking in our calling is most often the very route God is waiting to speak to us on. It is in finally making the choice to just do it, not because I felt like it, but because I know that I was created and called to write that He spoke to my heart's questions and confusion.)