But there is a difference between believing you are a writer and admitting it to anyone else. Those words carry weight. And authority. And in all reality, could easily be refuted by someone who just plain thinks you’re no good. Anyone can type. Only some can truly write. Right?

But the first step to feeling like a writer is saying it aloud. Or for me, writing it out.

I ordered my first business cards when I was about to attend my first blogging conference. I had never had a business card before and after spending hours trying to design my own and ordering them, I was frustrated that the color was off and the weight of the paper felt flimsy. It was too late to order new ones but after that experience I shopped around.

I ended up ordering from Minted.com because their designs were original and fresh and I had heard good things.

When I opened the tiny box with my name and the title writer beneath it, I finally started to say it in less of a whisper.

After all, I had a card. A beautiful one at that.

Many of you have asked where I got them. There are lots of places to get business cards but I wanted something specific with a beautiful design and color.

I spent awhile looking at some of the beautiful inspiration boards with their gorgeous wedding invitations, even though my wedding was 15 years ago, long before Pinterest could give you ideas about what to do with mason jars and paper pom poms.

Paris Lights – Mint board by Lori Wemple. See more wedding invitations

The post When a Card Says it All appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

I hope to God in 10 years I disagree with some of my blog.

But there’s something I love about that…. continue reading

Today I’m guest posting over at my dear friend, Tonya’s blog and I’d love it if you’d join me there.

The post Small Grace appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

Our coast is a fickle mistress, quick to turn frigid in wind and wave. So when she beckoned at 80 degrees with full sun I scoured the internet for a rental house and last-minute deals. We packed for the trip at 9pm as the kids skipped along happily, the four and eight year old lugging their suitcases up from the garage and neatly folding too many of the wrong things.

We had no agenda. No lines to stand in or tickets to buy. No events or places to go. No internet or television. Just the comfort of an old beach house and the slow roll of days in the sunshine.

And I breathed deep salt air and my legs burned red in the icy waves as we plucked sand dollars from the incoming waves, stacking them high like pancakes on an overturned frisbee. And we made sand cars and mermaid friends. Carving out features with our imaginations, finding seaweed hair and mollusk necklaces. Josh took Judah out on boogie boards and they could be seen bobbing up and down on the horizon.

And each of my family needed me to be there.

I wish I was different. I wish my capacity was larger, my mind less fragile. But that is like wishing I were someone else. I don’t even know who I would be without the ebb and flow of depression, the pain and the empathy I feel when I am at my weakest.

I cannot imagine I would be able to say “me too” and “I know”, had I  not scraped along the ruts in that road. I cannot imagine I would know and long for God the way I do had I not feared I would never feel him again.

I know that I can’t do as much as some, maybe even as much as many.

I realized something on this trip. I am afforded small grace. Just enough for the moment and often nothing more. And sometimes that means my path may be different.

I may be scraping by on knees, my blog silent as a grave, but I am holding my children to me. Breathing in the honey haired scent of my girl, reaching arms to catch my son as he launches himself towards me, boundless energy and charisma, or leaning into my oldest boy, wiping s’mores off his chin now speckled with downy hair.

My house may be a wreck with a maze of piles and things I am planning to get to but the words are flowing. I may be flushed red at the stove, pans simmering and lids clanging happily as my feet track across crumbs and feel the sticky spot where orange juice didn’t get wiped up properly. And I never get it all done. Never.

I am afforded small grace. I find comfort in knowing there is always enough. My portion for the day.

And sometimes I need to remember to sink down in the sand. To purge the voices that tell me I have to do this or that to get there. It is all in His hands. Every word and post, every small obedience  measured in eternity and sometimes all I can do is show up and take my portion.

I’ve missed you all. My five minute Friday friends. In the words of Monty Python, “I’m not dead yet.” even though my blog might be. If you’ve never played along it’s easy. Just set the timer for 5 minutes, the word this week is : Comfort

No editing, not over thinking, no making it all perfect. Just write. 

Then link back up with Lisa Jo and the Five Minute Friday gang, and  join in the community. 

The post Five Minute Friday: Comfort appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

I might have turned away a bit as you were sharing your story. I may have broken eye contact and glanced beyond you when you were talking, making you feel small and invisible. You might have flushed red as I excused myself with an empty smile and moved on.

I might have used you when I thought I’d stand a little taller on your shoulders and ignored you when I thought I couldn’t. I might have belittled your dreams and made you feel small. I might have spoken into your life with discernment and truth but no love or empathy.

I might have wounded you.

I might have talked behind your back, excluded you, prayed for you while passing on gossip.

I might have been the problem. And I might not have cared at all.

Some people gush love out of their pores, a sloppy mess all over. It covers and saturates everyone together in the puddles of life. And suddenly everyone is splashing in the muck and there’s joy and rainbows and some people just have that ability to see past things, to lay down cynicism and distrust and jump in, knowing there’s no way to stay tidy and love well.

I have these people in my life and they helped heal me from people like me.

Because I saw storms and learned to weather the downpour with carefully placed cruelty and a hardened soul.

Because I might not have known how to love well or at all.

I might have been too hurt to try. I might have been jaded and angry, judgmental and jealous. I might have sized you up and determined your worth before I ever really saw you.

Because I haven’t always wanted to love well. I was never the good girl who gave a crap.

I learned not to care about what you thought because I chose not to care about you at all.

I may have pushed you away or scared you away or ignored you until you had no choice but to walk away. 

But I find myself soaked down heavy, this new heart birthed by God, all watery and weary.

Because love makes a mess of things.

I sit in a room filled with women. I feel the weight of my stone and the smooth edge where I will write my word, but really there are so much more than one. I would need a mountainside of smooth granite to carve out the lies I’ve believed. The lies I’ve told myself.

Jennifer threw the gauntlet and offered to shoulder the burden we carry, to learn to tell the truth about ourselves. There are baskets waiting to collect the stones, which she will cart home with her and pray over, her daughters and her tossing them to the bottom of a nearby lake.

And I remember when I did this, years before at another retreat.

One where I held the rock in my hand with shame written in sharpie across it and I had picked it up to soon and smeared shame backward, the faint wet ink tattooing my hand dirty. I rubbed that spot with spit, my fingers working the indelible, the inevitable off my hands. And then I heaved it out to sea.

And I remember when that girl, the one I couldn’t stand but smiled absently at anyhow, started to cry and her shoulders heaved and mascara ran ugly scarring her cheeks and everyone gathered round her but I just stood, dug my heels down into the sand because wasn’t it just like her to make this all about herself? The cloud of drama that followed her everywhere she went. The stories that always seemed to change. The way the conversations would get sucked into her vortex as she went on and on and on. The monologue of the needy.

And words of affirmation and love poured out over her as arms tucked her tight and handed her tissues and then they all ventured down to the shore, their toes mixing in the spray as it lapped up on them and cheered her on as she tossed it into the waves.

I felt as though I was in some cheesy after school special where the moral of the story would be that friends are awesome and there are no cliques once you get to know everyone. Smile! And my mouth stayed hollow and empty, the taste of salt water bitter on my tongue.

But this is different. I am different.

And they say, you will know they are Christians by their love. Not because of some line I signed my name on accepting grace. Not because we made a deal, grace for sin, or life for death, Jesus in place of Alia and we’re good to go.

I know because my soul is heavy with the weight those baskets will carry away.

My heart hurts for those women who drop stones and pray to God to quell those fears.

It knows the thud of the stone hitting dust and walking away free into new life. And there is only one who can make it so.

I know because I am tired and know I can’t do it all. I can’t always do it well, I don’t. But I want to. I want to.

And that is death to life, empty to full, dark to light. That is the transformational power of God.

I know I am His because I love, in all my messed up frailty, my flesh, my failing, I want to do it better. I want to do it well. That stone, it’s gone, and in its place, this sloppy, soaking heart.

The post On Loving Well: A Stone’s Throw pt. 1 appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

I write close and soul deep and sometimes my bone marrow dries, the stuff where words settle in and gush onto the page with each pump of my heart.

So I went to Jumping Tandem with weariness in my bones. With the ache of the overtired. A bit frustrated at the grace I’m trying to walk around in and sometimes find myself tripping over.

I have stories under the surface, forming and coming together, but I’ve held them back, feeling the eggshells crackling underfoot as I ask myself what my voice will speak into this world that is so often too loud and startlingly empty of harmony. A world where I constantly fight doubt and try to believe I belong.

And then we’re gathered. A bunch of dreamers, storytellers, poets, and masters of prose, each with words to share, organically sprawled on chairs and ottomans, lounging on the floor when the questions are tossed out.

What is the difference? What is the message we’re saying and how do we say it better?

Because there are posts that hit hard and low, their veracity doubling you over, the stuff that shimmies up your spine and bursts out your skin in tingling goosebumps. The stuff soaked in glory, your soul resonates a holy amen to.

And then there is noise. The noise of those clambering to be edgy, to be relevant, to catch the ears of the masses to turn the browsers of the crowd into a viral mess infecting loud  and hard over the tops of people crushing down instead of building up.

The endless twitter streams with ranty sarcasm and vicious wit, retorts cutting at each other, blog posts lobbed back and forth like a game of red rover gone awry. And then someone busts out the theology and it is a party for the whole world as we clumsily dissect the word of God instead of allowing it to incise our own hearts in the hands of the master surgeon.

And how do we know where our words will land? How do we do this thing right?

Because I want a peacemaker’s heart. Not one that backs down or runs away but one that knows the difference between a crowd and a community.

Because the path of the coward melts into the crowd as a spectator risking nothing or heckles with the herd, safe to charge with the brute force of bodies amassed and sheer numbers on their side, leaving trampled souls in the wake of their words.

The crowd absolves self-reproach because one voice doesn’t stand its ground alone. It rallies and roars and rages against peace, littering the world with the trampled stories of its people.

But the brave, the ones who know community, the ones who fight for their words to be light even when the stories get dark, who fight to find the beauty and face of God in the midst of their disagreements, who are willing to bend low and lift up rather than climbing past and reaching farther for their voice to be heard over others are being raised up.

Since I started blogging a little over a year ago, I’ve found my story being woven into the fabric of these people. My people. I hear your voices in comments and blog posts, prayers and poems speaking my language. And I love you.

Just a few of my people.The brave and beautiful.

Because the brave see meekness and humility not as a liability of the weak but as the strongest defense against our own flesh. And it’s with these brave I want to gather round. I want to stake my claim in the heart of this community and cheer them on.

Powerful things happen when world changers begin to believe the dreams birthed on bended knees knowing only God can lift them up, only God can raise their voice.

I am placing my dreams in the midst of this circle. I am vowing to fight for my words to be God’s alone and not born on flesh and what’s in fashion. Not fighting for a platform or a pedestal but a pipeline to praise. An altar to lay out my worship.

I have visions of words being spoken into the darkest of places. I have visions of broken people telling their stories, their tears pooling like a baptism into new life. I have visions of hearts alive and consecrated wholly to God.

Only God has the copyright on beauty and redemption and it’s all His story from beginning to end. And if purposed to write a chapter along the way, Lord, let those words be formed with pliable hearts and open ears.

Let us bend our imaginations and pens slant, and scribble grace in the margins. Let’s learn to listen to the wails and whispers of the world with God’s wisdom. Let the truth we speak be drenched with compassion and mercy, humility and understanding.

Let our God sized dreams rattle the heavens with the praise of His people.

I didn’t know when I was going to Jumping Tandem, these dry bones would be kindling for soul-fire, setting my dreams ablaze.

The post The Crowd and the Community appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

We’d dump the carton of chalk, always white never the rainbow hues, and scratch out our best lines tracing over yesterdays faded ones, which always managed to be lopsided, slanting off like boxes about to tumble over.  We’d fill in numbers and grab a stone.

We played hopscotch in the blistering New Mexico sun, our hair pulled up into ponytails, wet along our hairlines  and swinging wildly as we hopped along, our canvas shoes and slouchy socks peeled off in favor of bare feet and the hot pavement we’d skip over like flaming coals before jumping into the patch of cool grass bordering the sidewalk.

We’d drink from the hose turning the spigot until the hot water flushed through the taut coils and burst out cool flowing over our lips and cheeks and into our mouths. Sometimes we’d let the water run, pushing our thumb over the tip as the spray burst out like fireworks showering us with the sparks. Sometimes we’d make rainbows in the sunshine.

We devoured the summer with simple things.

I can’t remember the point of hopscotch anymore. Maybe it was to jump over a space as you move along without landing on the lines. Maybe it was to make it in each box on one foot.

All I know is that I was never any good at landing in the right spot. I was never any good at staying in the boxes or throwing the stone to the right number. But I still played. Because there is always a second before you land when you think you’ve aimed just right and you think you’ve pushed off with your knees and toes and the spring is going to get you where you want to go. And because the sun felt good and right on my shoulders and cheeks. Because nothing tasted as good as the water from the hose when we were too lazy to go into the house and get a cup but had enough energy to jump for hours.

Because the point of the games we played wasn’t the point.

Because I remember not caring so much about getting it all right and in the lines. Because sometimes I just wanted to leap in the sunshine.

I still land wrong. Always just outside the crooked lines I’ve drawn for my life. Never with the numbers in the right order, never with my toes free skimming along the surface, touching down without worrying if I’ve got it just right. And it’s not fun anymore, because I forget the sunshine and the simplicity and the feeling of jumping with my arms wide and my cheeks flushed. And when I look ahead, all I see are steps I’m going to get wrong and the game I don’t want to play anymore.

The rules are easy peasy. We follow the master community builder Lisa Jo Baker and we gather at her place to link up lives.

5 minutes, no editing, no over thinking, set a timer and get it all out, link up, encourage and be encouraged. Hope to see you there.

The post Five Minute Friday: Jump appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

Writing lends itself to a process. There are stages and maturation of story that mimic the seasons of pregnancy and birth

An idea implanting, as it germinates somewhere deep inside you. Hardly even aware of its presence and the role it will have in the rest of your life but it’s forming and coming together.

The rocky sway of sickness as it takes hold. The clutching of your sides and the tilt of your mind as you adjust to it taking over. You are no longer your own, this story is a part of you.

This is when the vomit drafts come. Waves of nauseous writing spilling out with no edits. Soaking the paper with prose. This is the scouring of your gut. The contents of things you haven’t even digested or thought about or been able to process. The writing that comes from the deepest parts of you and can’t be controlled entirely by rational thought. Let yourself write in this place.

Too many writers try to hold this back because it’s messy and ugly and so much of it will be flushed away. But this is the most crucial part of a stories formation.

This is when the parts fuse and multiply and split. You may hold this new life in you, close like a secret, storing up your treasure. Unwilling to share the news for fear of tragedy.

You may want to lock yourself away, as your skin greens and you find yourself untrusting of smells and sights and input. You may not be able to crack a book or follow a blog because this new life is draining away all your energy.

This is the time to purge yourself of it all. I’ve been sick with story lately. And instead of a full blog, I’ve been absent. But I have to be fully here. I have to do this now.

And then the nausea recedes and all feels right with the world. There is the burgeoning glow of having a story, beginning to show. You are voracious in your appetites. You ingest everything in odd combinations. One moment you’re reading Kierkegaard, Kate Morton, or Natalie Goldberg.*

This is when you would crack open What to Expect When You’re Expecting or On Writing Well and read until the dog-eared pages wear and you have mastered all there is to know of the coming season.

For your story to grow you have to welcome a balanced intake. You must nurture and cultivate this time. You’re not ripe yet, but it’s forming.

And then you’ve put in the time, grown this story and carried it close for months. You’ve studied up. Made your appointments and critiques. Edited with a red sharpie until the scars across your page bleed through. You are ready. You are swollen with expectation and just want it to be birthed and done. You want to see the fruit of your diligence.

So often, we want to skip the steps altogether. We want the creation without the time for it to be created and cultivated. We rush the process and end up with work that is premature and carries with it halting complications. Work that cannot weather the harsh realities of the external world and struggles with immaturity and futility.

So enjoy the process. Even the seasick sway of the vomit drafts. It will be worth it when the time is right.

I’ve chatted it up with my amazing friends over on Twitter at #fmfparty. If you don’t know this gang and you have any kind of writer in you, or wish you did, this is the place to be. To vomit up those words so to speak and trust that your sister-friends will hold your hair back for you and bring you paper towels and water. Because they are rock stars y’all. If you don’t know. More than my readers, more than my peers, more than my friends. They are soul-sisters, doing the best kinds of things with their words: building family, forming community, making much of God. 

I went over the 5 minutes to finish my thoughts. The * is when my time was up, but y’know, sometimes you’ve just got to get it out. 

The rules are easy peasy. We follow the master community builder Lisa Jo Baker and we gather at her place to link up lives. 

5 minutes, no editing, no over thinking, set a timer and get it all out, link up, encourage and be encouraged. Hope to see you there. 

The post In Which Writing is Like Pregnancy appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

Dear Chihuahua of Fear,

I remember when you used to hang around in my 5th grade classroom, sitting behind me as we recited the pledge of allegiance and I spread my thin palm across my already expanding chest.

I remember when you whispered I didn’t fit. Not just in the white cotton training bras but in life. I was old from youth, weathered already and tired. My almond-shaped eyes squinting out at a world of girls as white as their new Keds, all blonde curls and sparkly teeth.

I remember when I lay on my belly flipping through fashion magazines and I’d look up and open my eyes as wide as I could and stare out at a face I never saw reflected back at me through fashion magazines, television, and the echelon of the 5th grade socialites.

 I remember when you hissed not to try because surely I’d fail and fall hard to the laughter and sneers of an imaginary audience. 

 I remember when your voice got louder, as mine got quieter.

I remember when I walked to the edge of the group. Stood on the outskirts catching glimpses of the camaraderie and bantering and I remember when my voice quaked like a broken reed and I spoke trying to catch one of their sentences and hang on. I remember when their eyes passed over me, not even bothering to exclude me, just indifferent in every way. I remember the backs of their heads and the way the circle was just tight enough that I hand to slunk away unheard.

I remember when you screeched that no one could see me. 

 I remember when you taught me to keep secrets. Taught me the things deep down could never be told, only whispered in the darkest of nights, strangled sobs muffled by Debbie Gibson and The New Kids on the Block.

 I remember when you taught me to smile and pretend everything was okay. That nothing deflects the arrows of hurt and rejection like a cold dead heart. That to be indifferent was a way to escape pain. I remember the boom and echo and thud of your voice against my chest after the last sobs escaped, swearing allegiance to you and your power to keep me safe.

I remember when you taught me how to crush people. How to sit in judgement of them, vulture-like, waiting for a moment of vulnerability to strike and tear away at their weakness. How I learned to wield cynicism and wit with a forked tongue and a smile.

 I remember when you taught me I was damaged goods. Too broken to be fixed, too dirty to be cleaned, to lost to be rescued. I remember when I believed you. When your voice was so loud and this world too hard. I remember when you had me running from the pain. I remember when you owned me.

But the curtain tore, the veil split, and the magical wonder of your OZ-like presence is comical, pitiful even. Your voice echoed throughout my life, magnified by my inability to see past the tricky mirrors and see you for what you are. I remember when I saw you clearly, a liar, a fake, a fraud of gargantuan proportions in a tiny chihuahauaesque frame. The mastermind of delirium with your revolving messages of fear.

So I listen to a new voice now. The voice that split the fear wide open, told the truth to my broken heart, pulled the pieces back together and gave me dreams and a story.

I remember when I was called. The voice that told me I fit, I’m seen, I am safe, I belong. I am His.  

This week Holley Gerth gave us a prompt in pursuing our God sized Dreams. Write a letter starting with Dear Chihuahua of Fear…. 

The post Dear Chihuahua of Fear appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

Within the diversified lineup of speakers, were a few I wouldn’t have purposely chosen to see. For instance, William P. Young, who was a brilliant speaker and by all accounts a lovely, humble man, wrote The Shack, a book I had serious issues with. The Shack challenged me to scour God’s word and theology because its contents nagged at my concept of who Jesus is and the character and nature of God.

It’s been years since I’ve read it. I’ve heard the argument that it’s allegorical or mythical  fiction and therefore shouldn’t be scrutinized for theology. And I would agree had it been treated as such when our book club chose and read it. But the most common reaction from participants was how it changed their view of God entirely. It’s dangerous to feel our view of God changed through a book without the backup of scripture.

Surely story can reveal the empathetic nature of God and His movement in the world but if it doesn’t align with scripture, how do we navigate that? I felt I was reading the words of a man who wrestled with the nature of God and found it lacking, filing in holes with God in mans image or in this case woman’s. I empathize with the author and the many hurts of his youth, but hurts from the past often have a way of catapulting us into extremes. We retaliate from wounds with spring-loaded actions far surpassing the balance that God’s spirit calls us to.

So I sat and enjoyed what he had to say about the writing experience and his journey, while trying to reconcile the message he was sharing. A message I didn’t entirely agree with.

And  I wondered at how we disagree and love each other. 

I’ve seen epic disagreements explode on social media. I’ve navigated twitter minefields after the election. I’ve witnessed the battlefield in the comments sections of my writing sisters as feminism has been both elevated and discarded by opposing sides.

I’ve seen avatars and statuses change over chicken sandwiches, and Starbucks lattes, and gay marriage. Every plus or equal sign staking a territory and an ideology; comments for and against littering the newsfeed as the world looks on.

I’ve seen the battle over who gets to decide and interpret and who’s right and how we tell. And I won’t lie. I have a tendency to want to stand when I ought not to. When kneeling is more appropriate, when washing feet and wounds and egos pave paths for clean feet to walk holy ground. Because our feet get bogged in the sticky sinking sand: issues and agendas and platitudes of our faith as we tiptoe over the divide instead of bridging it.

How quickly we run to or from controversy and contention. I am all in the fray or far removed. How do we turn away wrath with soft words and a slow dialogue?

I wonder where the love that covers a multitude of errors exists?

Sometimes, I want to rant and I believe the anger welling in me is righteous because my pride wants to stand. I want to cast about with swords slicing and divining in ways only the word of God has right to. And we get so clumsy with our faith, our freedoms to speak truth no matter the cost.

And then I hear talk of loving well, like Jesus, but the love I see is flimsy.

This love comes free and easy and carries no truth. No hard edges to bump up against and refine us, no need for commitment to carry us past infatuation into soul baring, the messy and barren stories of truth. The love that walks alongside and spills into broken places and challenges our stones to fall to dust but still says sin no more. Because God forgave when he was the only one justified to hurl a stone, yet still commanded righteousness as she left with grace.

And we all love to love those who line up with us, but how do we love  the ones who say it all wrong, who get it all wrong, who just don’t get it at all? How do we love when the one getting it wrong is so often ourselves?

Because honestly , I don’t mind being hated, I know the gospel is a hard master. I know it’s foolishness to a blind world. I’m not ashamed of the exclusivity of Jesus, and that isn’t always palatable in this culture.

And yet, so many Christians rush to be hated. Line up with stances and carry the repulsion of the world as a badge of true faith when really they’re nothing more than offensive in their deficit of love. In our belligerent and unyeilding application of righteousness, and our outspoken condemnation of a sin-soaked world, we’re more concerned with our cause than our care of each other. More concerned with our stance than with our surrender.

We don’t look like we love. The love that neither condemns nor condones but covers all in God’s scandalous grace.

Sometimes, I don’t know how to do it well.

I’m sitting in the audience listening to the speakers talk about writing, faith, and culture and I nod yes, and squint my eyes perplexed and my gut reacts to the things I agree with, and to the things I don’t. It’s all there.

And I wonder how we bridge this? How the body of Christ can disagree and still call each other brother and sister?  I am afraid of guilt by association. I am afraid you’ll lump my theology with those on the wrong side if I don’t keep up my guard. I feel safer with clear lines drawn and I don’t know where wisdom and discernment end and acceptance and grace begin, because I’m having a hard time overlapping them. 

Sometimes, I get it all wrong.

Yes, I know that my 31 days series officially wrapped up in October but since my journey is ongoing, I am leaving it open for a few posts on church as they form organically. If you want to check out the rest of the series, click the link below. 

I would also love to know how you navigate your beliefs with loving well within the body of Christ. Have you ever stood for something that was right but for all the wrong reasons or in the wrong way?

Day 28: 31 Days to Why Church?  

The post Being Hated for all the Right Reasons appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.

There is nothing more unique than the truth. And nothing more difficult to tell.

I have truths in my life. Ones that are wound in story, as much a part of me as the links in my spine, and the skin that has grown and stretched over me all these years from infancy to womanhood.

For many writers, this is where we measure our memories.

We weigh the life we’ve lived, the thoughts we possess, and we not only reflect but find revelation. It is in the very act of writing that I find what is true. Often surprising myself as a memory or thought springs up and dashes off on a path I had yet to discover.

For a writer, the souvenirs of life are words and story. We travel with our minds searching for that perfect picture, the shot where the sun is just right and the shadows flee and we take in the glory of a delicious adventure. We are tourists, looking for mementos to take back with us. To gather our readers to us and open the albums of our words and enchant them as though they were always standing among us. 

To do this, we have to tell the truth as we believe it. But that’s not enough.

Because anyone can say I think parenting is hard. A truth I’ve come to believe as a mother.

To take someone into your bathroom at 3 am after you’ve finished cleaning up vomit from his Batman jammies,  Star Wars sheets  stripped and stacked precariously onto the tilting pile of laundry yet to be done, and glanced at the crepey yellowed skin sagging beneath your eyes like bruises on a heavyweight, all the while wrestling with your screaming toddler who doesn’t want to wash the remaining puke from his hair because you can’t manage to keep the water out of his eyes with him squirming, and he always squirms, and just then you hear the creak of your bathroom door and soft footsteps, and more footy pajamas and “My tummy dudn’t feew good mama,” and the catch and retch in her throat as she pitches forward and spews last nights dinner all over the linoleum, and you yell “Don’t just stand there! Go to the toilet!” as she sobs pathetically holding out her arms for you. And this is the truth, parenting is hard.

And your readers say, yes and amen, because they’ve done it too.

And good writers make contact touching down on collective consciousness. They tap memories with flesh on them. The feel of the cold floor, the sounds of their wailing child or the pad of their footsteps, the smell of bile and baby powder in your baby’s hair, the sight of motherhood in the trenches when morning light has yet to break and the fluorescent bulb in your bathroom bathes you with sallow flesh like the undead.

Good writers write memories with their senses. They travel the sinews and nerves and receptors that take in the world and they collect them like treasure. They are always writing. A writer never loses those memories, because they’ve been collected along the way.

Whether you write nonfiction or fiction, to write with all your heart, you have to get at the truth of humanity. What makes us connect? What makes us relate?

It is so often less about the abstract concepts of love and faith, sex and motherhood, religion and duty, society and politics and more about the stretch marks your first child gave you and how you now feel when you make love. The feeling of standing in line to receive communion as a child in your itchy white dress and the weight of the wafer being placed solemnly on your tongue like the weight of the whole world’s duty being consumed says so much more about your view on religion than any overt statement.

We connect in the concrete through our sensing of the world around us. 

Maybe years from now, when my kids are grown and my daughter calls me after the grandkids go through a round of stomach flu, I’ll look back and remember. Maybe instead of telling her it all passes by so fast and cherish those precious little ones, I’ll remember how long those nights were, how my body sagged into my bed, only to be dragged back up with the next round of cries. How I resented them stealing my sleep even as I mopped at feverish foreheads and tucked their bodies into mine. How motherhood broke apart my selfishness bit by bit and still I wrestled with it, because they needed so much from me, and sometimes, those nights were long.

And when I tell my truth, it will be about parenting and selfishness, and exhaustion, and the love and sacrifice of a mother, but it’ll never be just that. It will be a love story, one written with all my heart. 

Every Thursday, we’ll be talking more about writing. What it looks like to write with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you want to be sure to get all the posts, sign up to have them delivered directly to your inbox.

The post Write with All Your Heart:The Unique Truth appeared first on Narrow Paths to Higher Places.