The Walk is back!!!

Dear Readers,

As the school year came to a close, I realized that I needed to take a break from blogging.  I needed to spend some time staring at the wall.

 As spring leaped forward into summer, I found myself on my bedroom floor sobbing, “I just can’t do it anymore!”  The energy it took to produce something every week left me exhausted, the public nature of social media left me exposed, the idea building a platform left me feeling like there was a tower in my life that needed to come tumbling down.

Ironically, I was staring at the wall, when it happened—suddenly I had the inspiration I needed to keep going.

It was the end of June and I had gone for about two months without writing.  I was the little kid in art class, Crayola markers sprawled out on the table, looking up at her teacher with teary eyes and a quivering lip.  “I don’t know what to draw!”

I lay in bed at night imagining myself to be a granite quarry.   Maybe all the natural resources in me have been stripped clean.  Maybe I have nothing left to offer.  Maybe I should close my MacBook Pro and never open it again.

One night, I woke up at 1:00 in the morning and crept downstairs to surf the Internet.  I wanted to know what Wikipedia had to say about writer's block.  Like a frantic hypochondriac addicted to WebMD, I scrolled through the list of symptoms and silently agreed that I had every one of them.

Do I have any business calling myself a writer?

What if the words never come back?

Am I always going to feel this empty?

My pastor asked me what my hopes were for the summer.  I told her, “I need to hit the pause button.  I need some new perspective.”

She suggested that I study what the Bible has to say about “seeing” in Genesis, Exodus, and Psalm 139.  I was in the midst of this bible study when I found myself staring at the wall during a writing retreat.    There was a Power Point presentation ahead of me and the voice of the facilitator ringing in my ears, “Writing is about observation…” 

I had an ah-ha moment just then and as I walked back to my room I began to imagine myself as the recipient of CPR.  There I was lying on the floor, but Someone had just breathed life into me.  Now I was full of inspiration.  I began to write with hunger and hope. 

I pulled a piece of paper out and penned these words:

Sabbath rest, I am learning, is about refocusing.  It’s an invitation to loosen our grip on productivity, so we can be gripped by the One who wants to produce something in us.  It’s letting the ground lay fallow for a season, trusting a new crop will eventually be planted bursting forth with life!  It’s accepting that when we are empty, we are in prime position to be filled.

This year, I want to write about what it means to see: to see others and God, and to let others see us.  I’m excited to explore this topic and I want you to enjoy me on this journey!

Thanks for waiting, praying, encouraging. 

Jenny

P.S.  My pastor is planning on running the Grand Canyon from rim to rim on September 15^th.  Read about his amazing journey and how you can be involved supporting a ministry for women in Ethiopia called Eyes that See.