I have no words.

It’s been a really hard place for me to be in. A place where I feel incapable of communicating or saying what I mean, or feel. I’m a writer who has spent most of her life using words that come out of my brain as a place to land. I’ve discovered more than I can even explain via my own writing. I’ve untangled, I’ve stared at words on the screen that I had no clue where they came from but just knew that they were true and real.

I’ve found the end of the rope through my words on more occasions than I can even count.

I’ve found hope in between the lines of my own writing because at the end of the day, when I write it, I know that it’s there. When I write something I know that there is something more in me, something I can grab on too.

Something that is more real than the things that feel dark.

But right now, there is none of that.

It feels like I’m standing in a hole and I have all the pieces to something that will help me out of the hole, but it’s a piece of Ikea furniture and I have no instruction and I don’t have that damn little tool to help me build it.

The only way out of the hole is to build it.

But, instead of building it, I’ve just sat there, not trying because right now it’s easier to stay in the hole than get hurt by the fall again.

Three years ago today I wrote that I was starting to not be afraid of the other shoe dropping.

And then a month later my mom died.

Now, I’m sitting here in this bar, writing these words feeling like I’m just throwing a pity party.

Because I know I’m strong enough to get out of the damn hole.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my high school youth pastor used to talk about how it was better to be a Christian whose fire was completely out than a lukewarm Christian. I remember, like most things from high school youth group, feeling so incredibly ashamed of that. I remember thinking that I just had to stay “on fire”. I had to do all the things I needed to do. I had to show up, be everything. I needed to sing on the worship team, and go to every bible study.

I couldn’t let the fire die because than I would be less than.

But here I am over 20 years outside of high school youth group and I would like to call bullshit on my youth pastor.

I would much rather have some dying embers of faith than feel as if a wet towel had smothered all the flames.

At the beginning of this I said that I haven’t been able to write; that isn’t completely true. I have been writing.

The words have just all felt completely and utterly devoid of hope.

Which, I know isn’t true.

Because choosing to write is choosing to believe in the hope that there is something at the end of the words.

Choosing to write is choosing to believe I might be able to be a little stronger than I was before I started writing.

Choosing to write is choosing to believe even though I feel incapable of it; I’m still someone who has the ability to stir hope and light.

So, that’s it. That’s me right now.

I guess, that at the end of it all, I’m here with my hands open, being a little more honest than I want.

I feel absolutely unsettled by all of these words and normally that unsettledness would push me to not post them, to shut my computer, maybe to even delete them, but instead I’m choosing for a moment to lean in to the things that don’t feel settled in hopes that the action might help them settle.

Let’s do our best to lean in.

 With love,

Meg