Words for Today.

Here I am again.
Before this screen that can feel haunting some days.
I feel fulfilled once the work has been created, the words written,
Yet getting there each and every day feels like a new mountain to climb,
New pain to endure,
New challenge to push through.
But, here I am even still.
If I am learning anything it is this:
DO NOT GIVE UP.
Do not give up dear heart of mine.


Though the voices echo in my mind:
“This doesn’t matter, words don’t change the world.”
“Why waste your time? People are skimming, not reading this.”
“Who do you think you are to have something to say? To have a voice to speak into others?”
The voices get louder as I sit.
I willfully turn my eyes towards my remembrances within the fight.
My “Do not give up” sign still resting on my wall,
My “stay” tattoo etched into the skin of my wrist.
I remember to proclaim truth over lies lurching.
For the truth is, words DO matter.
Words in fact DO change the world.

Why did people always say “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”?
That person was a liar.
Probably someone marked with power in effort to tear down their subject.
I hope they didn’t win.
I hope the subject didn’t believe the lie.
Because the truth is that sometimes words DO hurt.
Words have the power to change the very course of our lives.
Whether it be affirmation or damnation, it shifts us.
Words of destruction build walls, borders around our lives where we will no longer go.

We change course at a young age when we are told the very thing that makes our soul come alive is not good, will not prosper, or has no purpose.
We change course when what was meant as hopeful truth, words to sing praise to another, is shot down in rejection, confusion, denial.
But may we also not forget that we change course when life is spoken back into our bones,
When we listen to the stories of others, their triumphs, their victories, their freedom songs of pushing past the rejection to embrace light on the other side.
Our words can cause a people group to rally around a cause,
To rise together in worship,
To bend to our knees in prayer for miracles.
Our words have ability to shift us in ways we may never know this side of heaven.

But, I want to always remember to never give up.
I want to remember to not stop writing.
For writing these words is a way to keep a space of myself in this world;
To leave a legacy with my thoughts, my memories, my loves and my devotions.


I want to remember to not stop writing because it makes me come alive on the inside.
It breathes hope in the desperate spaces,
It brings clarity to the crazy,
It is a rhythm where I am able to see myself in ways I couldn’t see before.
As I write I feel it connects me to generations past, with their feathers to paper.
A gift I do not take lightly.
It is a luxury to write.

And here I am, when I thought I had nothing to say,
But am now rather quite surprised because there was much more here than I thought.
Life is a bit that way is it not?
We believe something to be true,
Preconceived judgements take root,
But as we lean in, as we dig deeper and share space and time in relationships, in writing, in community,
We discover there is much more there than we ever could have imagined.
We discover a depth and beauty beyond compare, a settling into our bones.
A healthy rhythm of proximity and persistence may be the very thing to discover the untapped wonder, joy and hope we so desperately seek.
These are my words for today.