in repair

You may have noticed something different around here.

I’ve always, for the last several years of blogging, tried my best to be honest in my writing. Part of it is exposing what is inside of me to the outside world, and figuring out just how I feel can only be done by writing it out. (Mostly.)

There has been of shift of late, particularly in the last several months. I’m making more time to write like I used to, but I am shifting into something that may not seem like a big deal to you, but oh… it is to me.

Remember my word for 2013? Anything? I had something else in mind entirely when that word presented itself to me, which sort of defeats the point. But I am reminded that I did pray that word to God, promising him that whatever he would be up to, I would do it if he asked. God has been whispering some big truths to me, since about March of this year, that I now seem to find everywhere. In things I read, classes I teach, sermons I listen to, books I finish and bible studies I work on. I’m still working on processing these truths, so it is too soon to reveal them to you right now, although many of them have been expressed here over the years because they are a deep part of who I am. I am just now connecting them to my emotions. Big stuff here.

But this shift is intentional. It is part of the hard heart stuff that a child of God must work through, especially one like me, that often lives as an orphan. The shift: I am trying to write more courageously.

This goes beyond being honest and authentic, I believe. I can be those things and still not be 100% transparent. I can write in that way but not reveal the tough feelings that may bring a reader down. (And me, when I writing them.) But I’m trying to remember that this kind of courage is less about who sees this and reads this, which makes me feel vulnerable and scared.

This is about admitting these things to myself.

And feelings are always far more real when you tell others. Far more real when you allow the words to tumble out of your heart, through your fingers tips, onto a keyboard and appear on a computer screen. This kind of writing is forcing me to examine all that is inside and lay it all out there so I can look at it and say to myself, “There. This is truth. It’s messy. It’s sad. It’s got some self-pity, some love… It’s painful. So. What are you going to do with it now?”

When I first started writing in this format, I remember that the name for this blog didn’t take any time at all to settle on. (I just wish blogspot would delete comewhatmay, which has been inactive for many years, so that I can have it.) I guess that title really isn't all that different from “anything” now that I think about it. But I am trying to take it a step further… by being more honest and transparent about the darkness in my heart so that Christ may shine a light through it in some way.

“I am in repair – I’m not together, but I’m getting there.”