Just Write ~

Yes, I have waited so many times for things to be just right before even making an effort at all.

I have waited and waited and waited.

The area I waited the longest in, it seems, was following after Jesus – truly and fully.

Right next in line with that, would be using the desire (again, to the fullest) that He placed inside of my heart to write what lies within it and then share it with others.

After much prayer and years of waiting, I have finally decided that will be the topic of the book that I will finally write (unless the Lord leads me to something else, which I don’t think will be the case).

It has been on my heart for years – well, actually forever – to write a book.

But something wasn’t just right.

Now I know that the writing will never be just right, but the timing is – and that is what I have been waiting for – for it to be something that will truly glorify Jesus and it will happen in His perfect timing. The rest doesn’t have to be just right.

There is freedom in that – in oh, so many ways, there is freedom there!

The other day I realized: why not write about something that writers struggle with – why not also write about something that we all, as Christians living in this world struggle with at the same time? Why not write about how we wait for things to seem “just right” before we step – risk – grow. How when we hold back because we are waiting to be perfect first, we become stagnant. And then NOTHING actually really ever happens.

Why not write about how we often struggle with multitudes of things simply because we are waiting for them to be just right?

I’m glad Jesus doesn’t do that, aren’t you?

You, dear friends of mine are the first to get to hear of this – the first to know that I decided along with the Lord to write this book about the fact that stuff is not always going to line up to be just right for us.

It almost never does. (sing it with me now…”FREEDOM”!!!!)

We have to risk if the Lord leads us to – step first – trust in Him. Let Him make ALL THINGS NEW in and through us.

I do not wish to write a book for the sake of it. If that were so, I would have done it a long time ago.  I just want to place down what Jesus is moving me to share with others. Even if only my family and close friends read it, that is okay by me.

I will share more as things progress – please pray for me, friends. My greatest wish is to let this book develop at the pace that the Lord would choose, but that I move forward, in spite of the fact that not much of any of it is just right at this point.

~I am busier than ever and don’t know where the time will come from.

~I have health issues impacting my motivation and morale, even though I still have Jesus joy inside of me!

~I will not sacrifice this blog for any book as Jesus has placed this forum in which to write down the words that are on my heart in the forefront – it remains there to this day. There is community here – there is love and sharing here – Jesus speaks to me here. Clearly.

Here is a little excerpt of what I have written so far (in the middle of one of the chapters).

Just as a musician could not imagine life apart from using his gift of making music, a person with a love for writing needs to do just that – write down the words, the feelings, the thoughts that fill them up, and share them, express them, even celebrate them.

When I write, it feels like something happens that is simply, yet wonderfully, an extension of who I am in Christ. I feel near to Jesus when I write.

He teaches me how to magnify Him, glorify Him, commune with Him, and worship with Him through making what is on the inside come out in a tangible way.

Most importantly, through writing, the Lord reveals more of Himself to me, and allows me to see just how much He really loves others, including myself. He motivates me to become more like Him as he shows me these things.

But for so very long, I pushed it down – stuffed it. I didn’t like the rugged edges of my writing, but I didn’t want to sacrifice truth either. So I wrote the stuff that wasn’t “just right” in my own eyes, or by the standards of the world, for that matter.

I wrote the not-just-right stuff anyway and simply hid it from the world.

No…it had to be perfect in order to be shared. It had to be “just right.” And so, for many years, it was not just right. Not at all. And because of that, it was just…..nothing. It was as though it didn’t exist. Because I hid it. I was ashamed of it.

And it was then that I realized….

This is how I was treating my Savior as well. The way I approached my writing was the same way I approached my Christian walk with Jesus. If I couldn’t do things just right, I would do it halfway, but then hide that from the world. If I couldn’t do it just right, I might even throw up my hands for a while. Talk about backsliding!

I would play this game with myself for many, many years. I still catch myself trying to do it at times without even intending to.

But now I am on the hook.

I am on the hook with Jesus. And the words He fills me with – the ones I express through writing – they help make what I try to hide – intentionally or not – come to the surface.

~ Jesus is in my writing – it is now no longer my own.

~ Just as my writing is no longer MINE, the same goes for my life.

~It all belongs to Him. And that is right. It is just right.

But make no mistake: I battle with it still – all the time. And that reminds me of how not “just right” I am without Jesus. Every. Single. Day. It may seem odd, but the full knowledge of that is what makes me feel the freedom that I have in Jesus, friends. I don’t feel bummed out, bound up by facing that I am imperfect. I don’t like it at times, but I still have the “peace that surpasses all understanding” about all of it now.

So I am just going to write about that. I’m gonna write about how glorious it is to be saved from our “not-just-rightness” by the blood of Jesus.

I am going to just write about how very “just right” that truth really is.

 

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