Restoration

The day after my last post where I notified you of my writing trouble, I was journaling and I wrote out my heart in a poem-like piece. This will shed some light into where my heart was at that point:

~This Valley~

The sun once lit this lovely valley

Casting light on flowers, trees, the river.

But then shade came, slowly, gradually

And the pretty places of this valley became chilly.

The birds stopped singing, the shade grew darker

Until at last, night set in. It was dark. And cold.

It's in this cold valley where I'm shivering

Wondering where to turn or where to rest.

I feel lost now in this darkness. Where's the sun?

Not even the stars or moon is glowing. I'm lost.

But I remember hearing something that gives me hope:

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

I wonder if the sun will come again in the morning?

I wonder if soon this too shall pass? Please Lord.

That's kind of bland maybe and definitely completely unedited and unretouched. That is simply how I felt that evening. My heart cried out for clarity off vision, for healing in my dull and wounded heart.

I started to feel hopeful that my joy would return eventually to begin writing again, but to refocus I laid my writing aside for a full month.

Now that we've returned to Redding, California, the time has come to begin again. But there were several issues concerning my writing to be resolved first before I could even think of beginning again.

So a few evenings ago I spent an hour in the prayer house, revisiting my old journal entries to remember what it was in my heart that stopped me from writing. Some wounds can only be healed by reopening them, cleaning them up, and then they can heal shut properly. That evening was an opening of my wound.

The day after that in the morning I talked with my mom about my wound. We had a good heart to heart. Dumping out my feelings to her was the cleaning part of the process.

And then today at church, Sherri Silke the speaker asked that all who had dropped a dream of theirs to raise their hand and the people around them would pray for them. I raised my hand. Yes. I dropped my vision of writing this book for a while because things weren't working smoothly as they should. Even if but for a few moments, I lost hope. A handful of caring women around me laid their hands on me and prayed for me. I cried. Of course I cried! But it felt good. It was a release. Afterward Mommy hugged me and whispered in my ear, "Now you can write your book again." Exactly.

So now I am excited to begin working on my book again next week. I am halfway through chapter thirteen, and there's sixteen chapters in total if all goes as I've planned so far. I am planning to restructure my story a little bit and make it even more exciting. I don't know yet how I will do that or what changes I'll make, though I have a slight idea. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens when the creative juices are flowing and things start happening in the story. With the Holy Spirit giving inspiration, anything can happen! Anything is possible!