I’ve been Marie Kondo’d to death, she seems to be everywhere. She’s such a lovely person, though, that it’s excusable. Anyone else, I’d probably hate their guts now, but she is so gracious and gentle and kind, that I can’t stay mad at her. She’s made me stop and really think about what in my life “sparks joy” as her catchphrase teaches. In the midst of the minimalist and scale down trends, I’m finding that it is refreshing to have at least one place in my life where hoarding and excess is actually healthy and DOES spark joy: writing!
The more I write, the better I get at it. I can write in a million different directions and it doesn’t take up much space, and once it’s down on a screen or paper, it frees my mind up to focus on something else, or to take the same subject to the next level. I do tend to hoard books I love, which is a sticky wicket because they are full of value, but also take up room… but you will pry my treasured tomes out of my cold, dead hands, it’s the one place I take offense at Marie, that she says an average of thirty books is the ideal. Um, no. I have over thirty books in my to be read pile on my dresser alone, let alone my bookshelves where hundreds of my oldest and dearest friends live.
Writing is where I can be scattered, and the mere act of writing all the scatter down unifies and organizes it. I can start five book ideas, and then they live not in dusty, dark stone dungeons in my brain, they have a place and their own hobbit hole, right in my folder on my desktop, where I can visit and add more with delight, rather than have to dig out the map to the mind palace and take three weeks to find my train of thought there again.
Writing helps me take the objective out of the ether and translate it to the subjective. It takes my Gollum-like hold on an idea and put it down where I can properly weigh it, and know whether to keep it or reject it. I can file it as truth, or shelve it to opinions that may change, or “this only applies when __”, or discard it as a lie. It means I can take the heavy, full emotions I have over ALL THE THINGS and turn them into productive members of the society of my world, where they can inform or encourage, instead of just stay unvoiced or unresolved.
Writing gives me a chance to show someone else that, yes, there is someone else out there that is as strange as you, and give them words when they can’t find their own. “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14), I can contribute to that hallowed crowd, and be the second opinion someone needs to go from passive understanding to active application. How often have I needed that? To hear from one author on a blog some nebulous idea. To then hear a different facet of the same idea on a TV show or movie. To then read the ‘how to’ in a Bible verse, and then again, possibly from another author, that yes, this is truth, this is applicable, this is indeed God speaking.
It is not a role to take lightly. It takes making sure I’m keeping my relationship with God open with no blind spots, that I’m listening to what He’s already told me to do or to think about or to act on. It takes me being open to hearing what people around me are seeing and saying. It takes discipline in studying the Word, not with my own agenda, but with asking God what He’d have me see, and being willing to deal with whatever He brings up. In essence, the call to write means I have to know myself well, and know my identity in Christ so that I am sure of my calling and of why I want to share with anyone else. When I am aware of where my heart is deceitful and prone to wander, but also know when I’m hearing the voice of God through the Holy Spirit talking, and allow myself to listen, it is then that God can use me to hold someone else’s hand and speak what they need to hear, regardless of whether I know everything about the situation. I can trust that God does know, and that He will lovingly and graciously speak what is timely. I don’t need to preach, I don’t need to share everything all at once, I just need to trust and “do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12:11-12) and above all I need to remember to speak lovingly or just stay quiet! (Ephesians 4 has a lot to say about this.)
Writing helps me process memories and my own past mistakes or the mistakes of others that affected me in a way that can give freedom and help me learn what I can from those situations, and then leave it where it belongs, behind me, in a former self, where I don’t live or function anymore. Writing can release words that would otherwise poison the well if left to stew, and turn them into words that will heal and strengthen and free. There is power in the written word, it can make or break so many situations. I want to use this gift well.