What’s this all about?

I've known I 'should' be writing for awhile now. Many times, when I have asked God, "What do you want me to do?" Writing is nearly always the first thing that comes to mind. But I've struggled with what to say, to whom to say it, how to overcome the practical hurdles of actually putting words into the world. I don't know that I could say, even as I begin to type, that I have a fully formed plan of what I will write.

What I do have is (regretfully) NOT that incredible onesie, but a general vision of my purpose. A compilation of thoughts, images, verses, reminders, realizations, and lived experiences coming together and continuing to whisper, "Write".

I've walked, sometimes crawled, through dark days the last few years. Grief, depression, anxiety, faith crises, relational turmoil, and innumerable other challenges symptomatic of just being a person on this planet. But I have always returned to Peter's question: "Where else would I go, Jesus? You have the words of life."

I have repeated Peter's words in joy, in confusion, in pain, in quiet, steady confidence, and in loud, urgent desperation - both believing it to be true and yet also willing myself to believe it is true again. In my questions, my deep pain, my spiritual wrestling, the times God is obvious and the times God is silent: I continue to believe in Life abundant and available. I continue to believe that it both comes from and leads to Jesus, that he has and he IS the Words of Life.

When John says "the Word" he calls Jesus the "logos" of God - the knowledge of God made real and material in the person of Jesus. When I say and think of "the Word" of God, I think of the same - revelation of God. Through Jesus, Holy Spirit, the Bible, and anything else in my life or the world that reveals who God is, what God is like. That is the Word.

As Peter points out, anything that reveals God, reveals Life. I have found also that anything full of Life in turn reveals God - whether nature, relationships, books, music, entertainment, conversation, work, play, scripture or any other source - all wise, beautiful, kind, abundant, and good things point to and reveal the Word, the very nature of God.

The more I notice these glimmers of Life, pinpricks of stars in what can be a black sky, the more I need to hear myself speak them out loud, see myself write them down, and humbly share them with you. My hope is that in every story, every metaphor, every verse, every realization, every Word shared, that we find Life.