How can I be a writer, an author, without baring my spirit? Being a writer is not possible without opening my heart up to the whole world. I’m allowing the world to look into the most private places of my soul, and I can’t hide what’s in there. What I am on the inside will come out in my writing; the things that make me cry will be broadcasted. The things that make me blush get put out there where I can’t take it back. I guess that being a writer is simply to be ‘an open book.’ When you read what I write, you’ll be reading my spirit. You’ll know my secrets. You will see my wounds and my scars. You will see facets of me that I probably don’t even realize exist. Writing anything that others read is inevitably the same as keeping a private journal that gets uploaded in a public internet blog.
How can I hide? There is no hiding place. I’m vulnerable. If I write, I become vulnerable to every human who can read. Writers can get hurt. Infection can easily set into the wound if the readers don’t understand and respond negatively, or don’t respond at all. What I write is like a precious baby that I’ve conceived, developed in the womb of my spirit, and gave birth to with great labour pains; and yet this very beloved child of mine can easily be ridiculed, stepped on, and despised just because I put it out there for others to see.
But being a writer is maybe also the most rewarding, the most beautiful life to live. My heart may get stepped on and responded to in a very disappointing way; but the human spirit is created with a hint of compassion in it. Surely the human spirit can be swayed by words—be influenced and touched by the writing of another human spirit.
Ahh… I won’t hold back. I keep telling myself it’s okay that my wounds and scars show through. Someone will see my scar, and then they’ll nod saying, “I know exactly how that feels. This happened to me once…” and they’ll recount a tale of their own. Someone will see my wounds and bleeding heart in my writing and they’ll weep with me, feeling each pain as I did as I wrote it. Someone will read of the joy I experienced, and they in turn may end up feeling joy they never felt before.
But it goes deeper than even all that. Maybe someone will read of my breakthrough, and hope will be restored in their own spirit; they’ll get hope that maybe their own breakthrough is coming. Maybe someone will read of my healing, and they will begin to pursue their own healing. Maybe someone will read my love story of falling in love with Jesus, and suddenly the desire will be awakened in their own spirit to pursue that same relationship. Or maybe someone will read of my journey into the heart of my Daddy, God, and they will begin to wonder if they too could have Him as their dad.
So I’ll just write! I’ll stop trying to hide! Just be real... I think most of my readers are real, and they will understand. If they don’t, I’ll just not take it personally. I know who I am, and I won’t let go of my identity. I’ll just relax and enjoy the journey. There is someone out there who needs to hear what’s in my spirit. I’ll just write without hiding or watering it down.
Also, I’ve decided it’s okay to be sentimental. I once was taught that it was wrong or at least silly to be a sentimentalist—one who writes to evoke emotions for emotion’s sake. But it’s not. I think it’s profound! Emotions are beautiful. If I can cause my reader to cry the way this thought made me cry, then I am powerful and have allowed them to touch a place in their own spirit they may not have been able to access on their own. If I can cause a reader to laugh just because of what I wrote, I am powerful because I just caused them to experience a certain joy I carry that they now get a taste of.
Write. Be vulnerable. Write out the things that make me cry, and the things that make me laugh. Somebody’s spirit will be touched because of it.
Maybe someday someone will write me and tell me how my writing touched them. But maybe they won’t. It doesn’t matter. The shift has happened, whether I know about it or not. God made me powerful like that.
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