Five Minute Friday: Write (Take 2)

The thing about writing is that at some point somebody's going to want to read it.
-Lisa Jo Baker

I can't remember a time without this passion, this drive.  A child, too innocent and ignorant to do anything but surrender to it.  An adult, too unsure to even acknowledge it.

So I put away childhood dreams and entered adulthood with this passion awkwardly beside me.  It straining around and around, me craning my neck further and further away.  I ignored it, but we both knew I knew it was there. 

It kept pecking on my shoulder and I kept pretending like I didn't feel a thing.

I was afraid to write.  Because who will read my words?  Who would see my heart laid bare?  I don't know.  Once on paper they could get to anyone.  Far too dangerous a risk for me.

And that was life.

Until I began to write for a living.  And hiding behind others' names and agency titles, I was free to let words flow anonymously.  Mine, but not really and I got to practice my craft.  And the passion grew and burned and became an overpowering flame.

And still these days, my page stays mostly blank.

[That's five minutes, but I'm going to continue...]

Fingers hovered above a keyboard, trembling.  Still afraid to write.  Because who will read my words? 

A different question than before.  No longer how can I keep them hidden, but now how can I see them exposed?  Flung into the world, will they even be relevant, significant at all?  I don't know.  And that makes exhausting work harder and leaves it undone.

But I am reminded that I am not the one in charge.  That there is One who is author, editor, publisher, reader.  That these words inside should be let out and entrusted to Him.  That the words I saw a girl today, legs stretched out, and a man hunched over her feet, shining her boots will rattle around until I release them.  And I only need to let them go, not worry who will receive them.

Because I know He read my words when they were written just on my heart.  And world aside, He reads what I write today.  And writing for an audience of One is more than enough for me.

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Read my first take on the Write prompt here.

Lisa Jo Baker invites bloggers to freewrite for five minutes each week on specific prompts. And then to share with the world what's on the page when the buzzer sounds. Learn more about this anxiety-inducing freewrite flashmob here.