Tension.

I feel it a lot in my life. I read recently that it's central to growth, center to becoming more Christlike.

Perhaps that’s true. There’s plenty of people who know far more than me, but the human part of me doesn’t want it to be true. The human part of me doesn’t want to live in the tension any longer. 

Tension is my source of disappointment. 

Tension is the place my failures are birthed. 

Tension is the place where I am called to die to self, to die to the life I’ve idealized, for the reality of God. 

I avoid doing a lot of things because it confronts places in me I want to avoid. I want to avoid the tension. I’m currently struggling with the tension of feeling called to write, but what comes with that is immense disappointment, and a large propensity to feel missed. 

My heart isn’t in the things I do, it’s in the things I feel. It’s in the experiences I have, it’s in the way I come to express my story. The way I come to know God, and therefore know the world.

And I can’t bear the thought of my story being irrelevant, of what I’ve learned, of what I think, of who I am - amounting to nothing. Not mattering. I can’t write, I don’t want to write, unless it gets to be shared.

But there is no reason for anyone to read what I have to say. I am not special, I am not unique, I do not have the most beautiful, elegant prose. 

I want to touch hearts with my words, I want to whisper to someone who needs to hear it, that they’re not alone. I want to meet someone in their darkest night, and help them to feel seen. To know there is hope. 

I want to share hope the way I have received.

Words have saved my life, they’ve saved my soul, and I can’t bear to put mine down and to find out that they weren’t enough. 

Tension - between my deep desire and my deep fear. Between the thing I feel a calling towards and the thing that feels overwhelming and big. Of the place that lies closest to my heart and the place where I could be let down the most. 

I am nothing more than anyone else with this dream, with this heart. So many are gifted in this way. And each time I come across one, it makes me want to run away.

What I want is for my words to catch people. I want people to know they are never alone, 
But I feel so unable, paralyzed by trying to be better than everyone else, unable to believe that God you would use me in this beautiful way.

This is my biggest place of vulnerability - and it’s why I feel paralyzed. I don’t believe I have any reason to be listened to, any reason to write. But it’s what I want to do for a living. I want to change lives, by meeting people.

I don’t think I’m good enough. But I have a heart to write.