I Get Fed in the Writing

Here’s the thing about writing. Well, actually, there are a lot of “things” about writing – but this is the thing that captivates me right now: writing is mostly one-sided.

You can get to know me through the words I choose to withdraw from my mental bank and deposit on the screen or the page. You can read about my mountains and my valleys, if I choose to be vulnerable and allow these words to see daylight which, often, I do.

You can read my words and a few of them may resonate and call something out of your past or put a name to your present. In the reading of these words, you come to know me and feel a kinship with me.

But that's the thing about writing: it's mostly one-sided. You read. You ingest and then digest and, maybe, God lets my words become a nutrient that grows the muscles of your heart.

Yet here, on the other side of the screen, I don't know how - or even IF - my words were consumed. Were they an appetizer that you nibbled on the way to another author's gourmet meal? Were my words the main course, the one source of sustenance for your soul? (God forbid! I hope you are going to His words for deep feeding, not mine.) Maybe my words were the cherry on top of your banana split day.

The thing is, I don't know! My passion for writing means I do it regardless of consumption.

On my worst days, I imagine this little blog as a place where I craft and create succulent foods but no one makes a dinner reservation. Some words can be bagged up and stored in the freezer that is the online blogging world. Other words don't freeze well; they are the lettuce that wilts and liquefies in the bottom of the fridge crisper. They get tossed in the dumpster in the back alley. On my worst days, I see a landfill of waste. I wonder if words even matter at all.

When I turn inward, I know words DO matter. So do I. And so do you.

I write.

You read.

You learn about me and the way I make sense of the world. But unless you respond to tell me which part of the dish had the best flavor for you, I never know if the meal was tasty at all.

The question is this: do I write to be read, or do I write to be obedient? When I admit to my pride wanting a little action, I confess sometimes I write only to be read. Lately, though, I'm learning obedience can be the workshop where passion lives. Writing means responding to God's nudges and obeying even when He's asking me to write the hard things.

I'll keep writing, for me. And you can keep reading, for you. Or not reading, too. That's okay with me either way, because I get fed in the writing.

God is so good to nourish me with the thing that makes me notice and relate to Him best: creating just like He does.