Doubts

Sometimes it’s ridiculously hard to be new. Sometimes it seems impossible to be new, actually. But that’s when you have to stop, turn off the tv, curl up, and simply sit in silence for a moment. Just listen to your own breathing and the sound of your fingers clicking merrily along on the keyboard. I have always loved that sound. The furious typing that signifies a burst of inspiration, a flow of pure self flowing from my fingertips. Sometimes I get distracted from my own writing by the faint image of my own hands reflected in the screen. It’s a beautiful motion. Fluid. Easy. Something it would seem I am meant to do.

After all, how many people live for the sound of a keyboard clicking? For the sound of a pen scratching across the page? How many people fall in love with the fluid lines of ink or the smell of paper? How many people long to write, simply to see the lines form on the page, regardless of what words end up coming out? I certainly don’t know anyone else quite like me. Who hears words, who has ideas, who experiences life, and cannot help but write about it. Who is seemingly paralyzed until she expresses something deep within. Who doesn’t know her own soul until she has splashed it across a page.

And yet writers are a dime a dozen, right? Jobless hipsters, holed up in coffee shops with fingerless gloves to keep their frantic fingers warm, writing poetry and prose. It’s all obscure, it’s all poetic, all romantic, all breaking the mold only to fall conveniently into another… and it all simply seems to add to white noise. After all, what is one more blog? What is 1559 page views out of an entire world full of people? Out of countless blogs, countless souls poured out, countless thoughts expounded upon, countless new ideas endlessly repeated, what does it really mean?

I’ve thought since I was a little girl that I was meant to do something great. I couldn’t tell you why that is. Perhaps because of my life verse, given to me when I was born the youngest child in a clan of six. “I wasn’t planned. I wasn’t expected. And for one terrible moment, I’m sure my parents, only beginning to adjust to “normal” life after finally leaving the hospital with their last daughter, thought, “Why, God? Why now?” I was the last thing on their minds and the last thing they thought they needed, I’m sure.

But they knew God knew what He was doing. They trust Him like no one I have ever known, and they chose to name me Esther and give me a verse that would define my life. “Who knows but that you have come to the palace for such a time as this?” For such a time as this. For a time with hospital stays, doctor’s appointments, a terrifying diagnosis, an upturned life. For a time when we don’t understand. That is what I was born for.

Growing up I was constantly assured that God knew what He was doing when He gave me to my parents. I don’t think I ever realized until right now how incredible such assurances are, and how formative they were in a young girl’s life. I adopted that as an identity – I adopted Esther as my identity. Someone created for a purpose, for a reason. For such a time as this. And from my child’s mind came the idea that my whole life would be that way. That somehow, someway, I would be remembered. I would be important. That I would do something great. For such a time as this.

I first came to doubt that in college. And I was set free from what made me doubt. But now I return to that concept.. and I wonder.. is it true? When you are a child, it is simple to say you will do something great. You have absolutely no idea what or how, nor any concept of how difficult such a thing may be. You simply accept it, rest in it. Rejoice in it. But when you become an adult, when the date of your graduation is fast approaching, when you understand even what seems an infinitesimally small piece of the world, it seems utterly impossible. And you begin to doubt.

And then you realize you actually have a dream. That, my friends, is when things become truly terrifying, when shit gets real, and when you wonder what in the world seven-year-old you was thinking. Because you see, you have a passion, you have a dream. You have a concrete picture in your head of the place you want to be, of the great thing you want to achieve, of the dream you want to see realized, and it fills you with fear. Because, quite simply, what if you don’t reach it? What if, God forbid, you simply can’t reach it? What if somehow you were horrible, tragically wrong about yourself and you were never meant for greatness? What if you were never meant for anything at all?

What if this thing you love, this thing your heart beats for, what if, well…. I hate to break it to you…. But you’re not actually that good. You’ll never get there, kid. You might as well give up now, accept reality, and move on. It’s a tragic scenario, but I think on some level we can all relate. We all know that kid in high school who thinks he’s going to the NFL. And everyone else is painfully aware of the fact that he will never. Ever. Get there. Not for lack of effort, not for lack of drive or passion, but simply for lack of talent. The artist who pours her soul into her art and well… honey… it’s just not that great. The musician who practices six hours a day and well… I’m glad you worked hard. You did your best. But the scholarship’s going to this kid over here who’s been playing since he was three years old.

We all know these stories. We all think these stories are sad, but, if we were honest with ourselves, completely justified. Despite what those motivational posters told us in high school, we can’t do everything we want to do. We can’t realize all our dreams. We can’t be everything we want to be. For a select few, their dreams will be realized. They will achieve their highest goal. But for most of us, we will have to settle for something other than what we dreamed of. And we will simply have to learn to deal with that. It’s better than being delusional, right? Better than being that guy who still thinks his novel will get published, better than that girl who still thinks the art gallery’s going to call her any day for a show. Oh… honey… sorry. Better luck next time.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s what people think of me when I write. If they think, Oh… honey… that’s nice. If they hear me speak about being a writer and think, Yeah, cause that’ll actually happen. Have fun working in a coffee shop the rest of your life. If they think that all I write is emotional fluff with no value. If it’s simply the ramblings of a girl who can’t deal with her ex or who is far too dramatic about, well… everything. And I wonder these things.. and I begin to doubt.

Last Friday was hard. I put myself out there with my writing, and, well, got put back in my place. I cried. I complained. I stopped talking about it. And for all practical purposes, I got over it. But it won’t stop coming back. It won’t stop intruding on my thoughts. What if all I write really is just fluff? Just personal, emotional, un-theological, un-brilliant, un-meaningful fluff that will only ever appeal to teenage girls who just broke up with their exes? It’s a terrible thought, to be sure. But one that has been constantly working its way through my brain lately. Living there like a parasite.

I used to think God sort of, well, wrote through me. That He was the source of my inspiration, that He directed my stories. That when the words seemed to flow and I would come away with a product even I couldn’t have predicted.. that was all Him. And it made it all seem beautiful. It made the dream seem possible. It made me confident. But then there comes the moment when your professor tells you that you simply said what you wanted to say and didn’t actually exegete the text you were supposed to exegete and while it’s all true it’s not theologically sound….. sigh. Then you begin to wonder about things.

And so I’ve been doing a lot of wondering about things. And that’s where this all started I guess. Wondering. Wondering how to be new. Wondering what the truth is in all this wondering. Wandering. I wonder as I wander? Yep. That may in fact describe my life at the moment.

But here’s the thing about Friday, about the moment that instigated all this doubt. I struggled greatly writing that sermon. I struggled because I felt there was a story that I needed to tell. There were words that needed to be said, and in moments of reflection and prayer, they were the words that wrote themselves. I loved those words. And I knew, deep down, they probably weren’t going to get me a very good grade. I knew that. I even wrote that. But I chose to tell the story rather than write for a grade. And then I still expected to get the grade. I wanted the best of both worlds rather than accepting the consequences of my own decision.

So maybe it wasn’t the disaster I thought it was. Maybe it was exactly what needed to happen. Maybe someone needed the words I spoke, Maybe I needed the words I spoke. Maybe I simply needed to let go of a grade. I guess the question is, will I trust?

And maybe my writings aren’t overly dramatic ramblings. Maybe that’s what I do every time I have meltdowns and my writing is, in fact, the way I bring logic and truth and wisdom back into my life. Maybe it’s organizing the chaos, sorting through the emotions, pouring out the drama. Maybe it’s facing my real, ugly, pathetic self, and realizing I can be new.

And yes, maybe 1559 page views, in comparison to the entire world, the entire blogosphere, in comparison to the thousands, millions, even billions of words penned every day, every moment, is nothing. Perhaps it is utterly insignificant. But that fact is, I know that people have been affected by my words. They have caused people to stop, to pause, to wonder about their lives and how they live. To contemplate how to live better. To laugh, to cry. To actually shed tears. My words. MY words, the inspiration pouring through me, has caused people to weep.

They may in fact be helping to change lives. To permanently alter the lives of those around me. To fill a need, to heal a wound, to give closure to a question long asked and never answered. Maybe it’s just me that they’re changing. But I have to think that’s worth it. I have to think that a God who knows the number of hairs on my head, who rejoices over one lost sinner who has been found… rejoices when this lost sinner gets a little more found. When this broken soul gets a little more healed. A little more new.

So I will continue to write. Perhaps it is foolishness. But perhaps in the hands of God the foolishness of this world will be used to shame the wise. Perhaps the heartfelt outpouring of my one little soul will be used to change the world. Perhaps it will only be used to change me. Either way. I’ll continue to write. To write in faith, in continuing faith that it is worth it. That I am worth it. That my words are worth it. That somehow, someway, even if I never see it or understand it, my words will be used for great things.

Who knows? Perhaps they are needed for such a time as this.