For the past year now I’ve been “writing” stories and essays in my mind.  While baking in the kitchen, I’m writing thought-stories.  When I’m raking up leaves, when I’m sitting on the couch before the sun comes up…I’m pretend-writing.

I’m afraid now, having relegated writing to a mental thought process, that I’ve completely discounted the effort it takes to put these very thoughts down on paper.   Contented on the couch, I tell myself, “If people want to know the story, let them read my mind.”

In spite of the writer’s anxiety, rebellion, and the fear that have chased me for the past twelve months, I’m grateful to God for interrupting my writing passion.  In this last month, I’ve settled down into a deep well of quiet.  Above me, the words that jumbled and danced endlessly around in my mind have moved off the dance floor. They sit in chairs along the side of the room, in chairs, on the floor, leaning against the wall with their legs straight out, cups of punch in hand, and dreamy eyes staring into space.  Everything about their attitude says, “We don’t care if anyone asks us to dance or not.  We like sitting here.  We’ve come to appreciate the colors of the lights as they flit across the people moving back and forth to the music.  We don’t need to dance.  If we danced, we wouldn’t get to see the dance picture.”

Words and thoughts sit around the walls of my brain.  They’ve learned to be happy just where they sit.  It’s difficult to think of just the perfect persuasion to coax them out and onto the floor again, to fill them with the pulse of music, and to encourage their dance across the page.

God tells me, “That’s all right.  You were too taken with your dance-words last year.  You thought they were so pretty.  You forgot they were meant to dance to My music.”

I sit with my words today and ask them, “Are any of you ready to speak?”

The room is quiet.

We all sit still and listen.  Waiting.  God takes His own good time.

The silence is just the perfect space to feel His arms around me, his loving warmth.  Why ruin the moment by leaving the quiet?  Who can give me and my words serious reason for joining the jostling in the middle of the dance floor?

For today, with my words, I’ll sit back against the wall, take hold of my own glass of party punch, stare across the room, and catch the glint of His light as it flits and sparkles across the golden bodies and faces of His creation.

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THE WRITER’S LIFE
TABLE OF CONTENTS

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