Step One
When words elude me, still I show up and seek them. Like a childhood game of hide and seek, I pursue them into the shadows, wanting to find them lest they avoid me too long. That is how writing can feel sometimes.
Even so, I trust in the source of the words. I trust in the gift of words. I trust in the process and the showing up. I refuse to quit even when the path is unclear and the story is not obvious.
After all, my story is not obvious. Not all the time any way. So why should I expect the story within me to make its presence clearly known to me merely because I show up ready to tap away at these keys.
But what is it that makes our stories murky? The stories we live out. How do they become overshadowed and unclear and where do we look to find the clarity and discernment for which we yearn?
For me, creativity allows me a means to explore the world not only around me, but within me as well. The creative process invites me to wind my way through unknowns and doubts, seeking truth and clarity and paths both worn and new.
Living a creative life requires a willingness to move along overgrown, dark roads that weave through patches of light and appear smoothly trodden down, obvious. But it also bids me come unto wild and, at times, scary paths into ourselves to uncover who we are and who we are designed to be.
Because sometimes we find we are lost, even though we thought ourselves moving in the right direction, and seeking obvious answers to our inner questions. Obvious answers that, like my words, can feel elusive.
I sit and stare at a brightly glowing screen but the place that seeks the words and the truth is not so aglow. There are turns ahead and uncertainty lurks along the way, in shadows and tangles.
But I can choose to move forward or stay here, stuck in what is not my place or my truth. To stay in a place that is not suited to my gifts or the good works for which I was designed is a lie. Therefore, I take each next step, one deep breath and whispered prayer at a time.
I hold fast to the truth I was created for such a time as this.
I hold fast to the truth I was designed to create, as are we all.
I was designed to write, to play with words, to tell stories and create images upon the page that will encourage others to search and seek their purpose and the truth of who they are designed to be. I was designed to show up and seek the words for this page and this moment.
Sometimes, I sense their presence and their hope. Other times, their reluctance and their pain. Always, I feel their truth and their source, their light. Always, when I seek the One who created me, my creating is beyond these words and my simple writing space.
Tonight, I listen to the whispers of the words and when they appear from their hiding places, I invite them here, where, together, we push back the darkness and invite others to take one step forward, toward their purpose. Because every purpose starts with step one.
