Young and Wild and Free

I dusted off the box before I carried it up from the basement. Contents of the box were unearthed as I dumped it onto the dining room table. It was an attempt to organize the boxes we would soon stack into a U-haul as we moved away from our house that held generations of memories.

Distracted with the task at hand, I got lost in a spread of old yearbooks, birthday cards, and hand-drawn stick figures with happy faces and big hair.

Somewhere buried in the box was an autobiography written by my eight-year-old self at the request of my third-grade teacher. Holding the document, I smiled as I read the list of details that seemed to matter greatly at the time it was written. A list of details about my cats, my favorite book, food, and even my favorite number.

But I stood and paused, blinking long and hard when I read one line seemingly lost in the middle.

"When I grow up I want to write books."

In my everyday life in the here and now, I am working on my first book, blogging my heart out, and you are reading it at this moment. So that probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you as the reader. But here's the thing, it was a twenty-eight-year journey back to that desire.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot the creative desire God had placed in my heart. Somewhere in the minutes, hours, and days that form my past, I lost the inhibition to freely voice what I thought I was capable of without fear of criticism or disapproval.

Maybe I got lost in the starring roles of my life. In motherhood and my career.

Perhaps it was that moment in junior high when I looked at that girl who sat three rows over and decided I would never be as pretty as her.

Or that summer by the pool when a guy commented on my weight in a manner that was unwelcome and not flattering. It has played on repeat in my head ever since.

Maybe it was the interview I bombed or the vows that got shattered or some other failure along the way.

I don't know the moment, but that desire placed on paper so long ago returned and began to stir again in the most unlikely of places. I would sit on my bunk in that state correctional facility and enter my own sanctuary. A safe space where I could pen my words. The letters were my lifeline, scribed from that place within my own heart still untouched by the wear and tear of life and time.

Even still, I would smirk and laugh when my husband would urge me to launch a blog, not taking his encouragement seriously and doubting my own ability to express myself in a way that others would connect with. He persisted, and each time I would stick my toe a little further into the water. Curiosity eventually gave birth to the launch of my blog, consistent writing and the return to myself. The return to that eight-year-old version of me that was daring enough to give voice to her dream.

I often watch my daughter as she twirls in her third wardrobe change of the day and pretends to be a ballerina. Uninhibited. Unashamed. Maybe it's because I smile in adoration and she feels the safety of knowing she is loved. Or perhaps it's because she hasn't been carried away from that place within herself that is young and wild and free.

May God return us to those places. May He take us back to who He created us to be.

FOR FURTHER THOUGHT:

There have been moments in my own life that have caused me to doubt my own worth or my ability to have a significant impact on the world around me. Some events happened, followed by a lie in the form of a thought that I allowed to become my truth.

The bible is full of accounts of God choosing the person who seemed least likely to accomplish the task. There are stories upon stories of people who were chosen but felt inferior or ill-equipped to be used for something great.

In the book of Esther 4:14, Esther is hesitating to go before the king to save her people when her uncle says to her, "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? " (NIV)

God chose Esther for the enormous task of saving many lives. He has chosen you and me also "for such a time as this." How will you live into God's call on your life?

PRAYER

Father, as I enter this new year, give me boldness and courage to step into the calling and purpose you have placed on my life. I pray that you will silence the lies that I could not be used for something extraordinary. I pray that you will remind me of what it says in Philippians 2:13, "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose " (NIV) Thank you, Lord.

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