Writing & Fear Part 3: My Garden Grows Words.

Don't miss the first two parts of this series on Writing & Fear 
10 Reasons I Pause Before I Publish
 When I began to hide

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Why do I write when it is risky? Why risk being misunderstood or simply wrong, here in this very public place? 

I write because I am learning who I am, how God made me. I am a writer.  
My entire life makes more sense now that I say it out loud, now that I mean it:

I am a writer.

The ability to write is one of the things that God is growing in my garden.  I try to share with you those flowers that God is growing in me and around me. This is part of my vocation as a wife and mother and friend. It is part of my vocation in the church and in the world.

There are plenty of weeds in my garden, to be shure. [sic] There are plenty of ugly things, and I have bad days, when I sit down at the computer and vomit through my fingers. I try not to pass that on.  Even so, the hard things and the nasty feelings may lead me to learn or receive something from God, and from the receiving comes the writing; the good kind, the kind that makes you laugh or encourages you.

Out of the dirt grows a flower. I pick the flower and I put it in a vase and I pass it along to you. I hope you enjoy the flower.  I hope you know who grew it in me and thank Him for it, too. I hope you can ignore the grammar mistakes and the dirt. I hope I am presenting you with a flower and not just a weed that I have grown to like. I can’t always tell.

It’s not the same gift everyone else has, and some people don’t understand it at all.

I might whine that somebody isn’t taking the time to appreciate my flower- picking, and neglect to notice that he is consumed by the use of his own gifts, in fixing computers or caring for souls or taking out the trash. But then I remember that other people have their own gardens to tend. Perhaps this particular flower wasn’t meant for him (or her.)

I pick my flowers and I wonder why in the world other people do other things. Why spend your day worrying about engine efficiency? Why spend hours learning html code? Why, when there are flowers to gather, when there is grace to enjoy?

But those people have different things growing in them, and that is God’s work, too. And I will learn that, when my computer breaks, when I need a different kind of gardener. And I will be amazed at the strange and useful gifts in the person who has come to my rescue. And I will thank God.

I love when the kids pick wild flowers from the yard and bring them in to me. They give me a gift, that cost them nothing other than the time to pick it, and they are thanked for it. And rightly so: they noticed the beauty around them, they gathered it, and they couldn't help to share it with me.

I try to do that same thing here in this cyber place. 

I notice, I gather, and I use words to pass the grace along.

You are living your own day, running through your list, tending your own garden.  Your garden is filled with your own weeds and gifts and worries. I imagine you, when you come here, stopping for just a minute, taking a breath, and allowing my words into your day.  What a privilege that is for me, to be with you in your work or in your rest. I hope my words are a slowing down and a pointing up and a passing on of blessings.

Why do I write?  

I write because the flowers grow, 

because the grace showers down on me 

and I am compelled to gather it up in words.

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Tell me, friend, what is God growing in your garden?  I'd love to hear from you!