One of my professors told me that sometimes we need to put things in drawers and walk away for a while-- months, a whole season, a year even.  And then come back to that drawer and pull that piece out that you could not iron before and revisit it.  I have waited longer than a year.  I tucked my grad work into large envelopes and put them at the bottom of a box and put the box in storage at the top of the closet.  I have been breathing and waiting and realigning my world until now, this week.

Yesterday I sat on the couch and I had to remind myself of the breathing because it kept catching and I remembered that I run into my heart when I read my writing and I had not expected to feel the pain again, I had forgotten the vulnerability, the way words can split you wide open and lay you out.

Husband challenged me to do something bigger than writing in my journal, posting, writing things for boxes in closet spaces.  Yeah!  I should!  I don't know why I haven't really tried yet.  

And then there was yesterday.  And I remembered, silly girl, sitting there on the couch as my body tightened and my heart tensed and my breath halted.  I don't write fairy tale stories or fiction pieces.  I only know how to write myself and that feels really scary.  It feels a little like putting my Spirit out there, into the hands of strangers and giving them the great freedom to say no, we don't have a place for this or worse.  And the pieces of myself that I have written, they aren't the great ones.  They're the small shattering moments, the quiet falls, my stumbling attempt to move this body through this life.

Sister once told me that I am too unkind when I write myself.  After yesterday, agreed!  Put it all back!  This is too honest, this is death and this is anger and this is me, flat on my face begging grace.

But.

This is what I am-- a sinner who sometimes remembers her great God.  And this is what He has given me-- words that tie knots in my soul when I don't give them voice.  And He is loud in my Spirit when I write; It is the closest to garden walking with Him that I can find.  I am not able to give that up, it has been too long.  I have had brave moments before.  I am begging for a couple more.