Someday is FINALLY today!

When I was in second grade, I was a star! A writing star!  That’s what I wanted to be. I liked stories and writing them and telling them.  I even had my own series, ‘Leo the Lion’.  I don’t recall the stories, I just remember the title and the pride I had in my teacher’s exclamations of, “Someday, you are going to be a writer!”

Well, life happens.  Life happened to me.  And I did not follow the dream, follow my heart or follow the gifts that God gave me.  In fact, for many years I followed a lot of wrong things and certainly didn’t entertain the idea of God or that he had gifted me with much.  I had my own thoughts of my own righteousness and intelligence and my own will of what roads I would follow.

I woke up one day ( or maybe extremely early morning) and I realized that self-righteous intelligence of ME and what I knew and how I’d think and be and the grandiose me, didn’t lead me far.  I had drunken my way through the majority of my teen and adult life and had a mediocre life, a damaged marriage and a foolish mind and body. 

So, I stopped listening to myself, because myself was a 31 year old idiot that hadn’t bother to learn much despite what she spewed out at everyone.  I stopped and started to listen to someone else.  I listened to God.  I wanted to hate Him; I wanted what He had to say not to be true, I wanted His book and words to be lies.  I was ready to be defensive, I was ready to justify myself, and I was ready for a fight.  I was ready to win!

None of that happened.  Instead, I was stripped bear and left with the nothingness of me and the reality of His word and His truth.  And wanting Him to be a lie and the truth of Him are to me, undeniable- wanting something to be true and it actually being true are not the same thing at all!  When your heart is finally broken free and you can finally listen and learn and take the time.  It’s hard to say no when God simply says, “Follow me.”  And I did.

So here I am 5 years later, a believer.  And yes, I even believe God has given me gifts- Fabulous.  What have I done with said gifts?  Well, nothing. Nada. Zip. ZERO!

In second grade, I beamed at my stories.  I wanted to be a writer.  Nearly 36 years old and I am not a writer.  So, where to start?  I’ll be honest, blogging has not appealed to me.  I have felt like, well…everyone blogs!  I read many of my friend’s blogs and enjoy them, but I thought, I can’t do this.  I can’t commit to it, everyone does it and frankly, I am scared.  I am scared because I am decades removed from school, so the learning I once was instilled with is g-o-n-e. They’ll see my grammar skills are sub par! They’ll see that while I know all about there, their and they’re…sometimes I type too fast and still screw up.  They’ll see my sentence structures are confusing and completely not correct.  And really I am scared that- it will be hated, laughed at, ridiculed and worst! Not read at all.  That this gift I believe I have is no gift at all.  That I have nothing to say worth reading and what I want to reflect is nothing but banging on keyboards of empty words for just me and even God will say, “Yeah…..that’s not the gift I was giving out when I made you……”

But deep inside, I know this isn’t true and I am prideful.  I am prideful that if I write I might write things some might not like, so what?  I am prideful, it might not always be good, so what?  I am prideful, I need to be brilliant and can only write and publish, when it’s the best part of me I’ve ever produced.  Well, Jen, you are 36 years old and you are not a writer, so how’s that plan working out of you?

I want to feel God’s gift pouring from me and beam again that I am trying! I want to feel like that second grader again and all the years that are lost of the self righteous and prideful me are long ago and I started somewhere. So ok, a blog! Why not?  It’s a start and who knows where it will go and what God can possibly turn it into.

So here’s my blog!  I have no idea what I’ll write about or my style or form!  So I can’t do a pretty intro.  If you know me, you know I am hyper and all over the place and LOUD and spastic and talk a lot.  You know I am random and lose focus and say one thing one time another thing another time and at times … you are just trying to keep up with me!  So, I guess that will be my blog! Me being exactly as God created me.  I do hope you enjoy it, that in some way it blesses you, entertains you, shares me with you and on some level it helps you as Christ has helped me.

So, I am going to be brave today! I am going to lay it out.  And the fears of pride, or sucking, or that my writing, poetry, essays forms, my rants and ravings will not be well organizing or good or even too revealing of me and who I am, who I’ve been and how my mind works – are casted down and here I am finally using the gift that God has given me!

And where it all started, this- the original gift- my salvation.  I wrote a poem around the same time and it still speaks volumes to me on what God did to me that day.  So, here I go, doing something, anything, being brave, hitting the button……

Empty Shells

I was groaning

And making small useless noises

I was screaming and my voice echoed everywhere

I was full, completed

I was the I AM of my world

I opened my mouth and the little words came out every where

I’d trip and stumbled over my ego

I left it everywhere, never careful to pick up as I went,

            Treading here and there

It was blackened, hard

Full of my own sense of purpose

I was Me, and I was the I AM

I’d scramble and to prideful to cry

            Felt my way through

I’d call it progress, and hand out notes on the examples of being me

Seduction was power in more ways then one, a veiled delusion of the Grand Me

I felt worshiped and powerful, I felt like my words were dangerous tools

And I could kiss the sin away.

I toasted myself

Toasted the nights

 I toasted my life and blinded to the joke it was.

I was an empty girl, full of words and getting nowhere in all of it.

I was the THIS and the NOW, I was the version I screamed,

 “Don’t you see? I AM!!”

I was falling and desperate to pray to Him.

I was the all powerful, and He wept. 

I was drowning, celebrating dead.

I was so simple, I thought I was alive.

I was a small creature grunting useless, annoying words; my prayers were empty hollow shells.

I’d send them up, look for the answer.

 And proved, you weren’t there.

But you wept.

I toasted you with a sneer in my smile,

As sent myself contemptuously, heartlessly to hell.

I wasn’t worth a drop of blood, and you spilled it all for me.

I wasn’t worth a nail, and you wept red tears for my forgiveness.

I cursed your name, took a shot and laughed cruelly.

You bowed your head for me and whispered love.

I violated my body to prove I had power.

You served silently, died and finished it. 

I laid exposed, crying and crawling

I laid with no words

Coughed up my empty shells everywhere.

Despite the canvas of sin that painted me dead,

You rose from death

Breathed forgiveness on my flesh.

I Am the nothing.  I Am the unworthy. I Am the little girl who says silly things.

You bled tears for me!

I am alive, because your willingness to die. 

My ego swept away into dust.

I am on knees, I am the AM NOT.