A week ago, maybe a few may Twitter feed and Facebook wall were lit up with red Xs. Red X in permanent marker across the backs of the hands of my friends and acquaintances. The movement leaked into my classroom; many of my students had read lines crossed against the backs of their hands.

This is not an indictment of the End it movement, the organization that encourages people to draw these red Xs. I think the work they are doing is good. I think the organizations they partner with are legitimate. I think they do good work. I even had the opportunity to talk to my students about modern day slavery, what it looks like, how it happens. As an educator, I am aware of how powerful simple awareness can be.

I just hope those red Xs aren’t the only lines we draw.

The red Xs showed up in my classroom in the midst of me teaching a book about foster care. Have we drawn the lines? Have we drawn the lines in our hearts and our heads of the state of the foster care system and the sex slavery happening in our backyards? The state isn’t the only one keep track of the girls aging out of foster care. 18 and with no place to go, more often than not these girls are picked up by a pimp. Sometimes being a sex slave looks like the best choice.

And are we drawing the lines between the girls aging out of the foster care system and our own unwillingness to adopt older children? Are we drawing the lines between the human trafficking going on in our backyard and the fear in our own hearts? Are we drawing those lines too?

As we draw the lines on our hands, are we also drawing the lines in our closets? Are we drawing the lines to the products that we buy on a whim, without thinking about it because we love the color or could kind of use another one of those?

Are we drawing the lines on our hands to the lines in our Easter baskets? As we give up chocolate or coffee or sugar for a day, a week, the full fourty days. As we dream of the first taste of whatever it is we have given up, are we willing to consider that those treats have come to us by the hands of  a slave? Are we willing to sacrifice the thing that we always have for the holiday, or are we saying we should end it, as long as it doesn’t affect me?

Are we drawing the lines, between the education system, the drop out rate and those most at risk of being trafficked? Are we drawing the lines from the human trafficking to the drop out rate, from the drop out rate to the reading ability, from the reading ability to the legislation that keeps adding kids to elementary schools we have long since abandoned as we put our own kids in the new charter system?

I know that it is easier to ignore these problems, to think of slavery as something way out there, that it doesn’t happen in my back yard, that there aren’t things I am putting in my cart at Target that are the products of slave-labor.

It is easier to believe that the only thing we can do is swipe a red X across the back of our hands and cry for those women and children out there somewhere. It is easier to believe that we are an active participant in a culture that perpetuates modern day slavery. But those things aren’t true. We have to start drawing the truth on our hearts as we do with the lines on our hands.

I love the heart of the end it movement. I am grateful they are starting the conversation. I just pray that those lines we draw on our hands are only the catalyst to the lines we draw in our lives, on our hearts. Are we willing to draw the lines that link slavery to the choices we make?

The hardest thing I ever had to do, was show up at my job for 180 days straight.

I’ve birthed two babies with nothing but water as a pain reliever. I’ve written the first draft of a book at night, on weekends, and during the summer, one eye on my children, the other on the computer. I’ve spoken publicly. I’ve moved across the country with my husband. I lived a relatively normal life with a muscle disorder. I’ve poured my guts out on my blog for 446 posts. I’ve ended unhealthy relationships. I have done hard things.

But the hardest thing I ever had to do, was show up at my job 180 days in a row. Seriously.

It was my first year of teaching. I came in sure that by the end of the year, not only was I going to have changed the life of every single one of my students, but that Oprah would hear about it, ask me to sit on her couch, tell me I was special. It was my first year of teaching and I was totally confident that I was going to to do an amazing job.

That didn’t happen. By Labor day I hadn’t even learned all of the kids names, let alone turned any hearts. Three weeks into the school year and my list of failings was impressive. A stack of ungraded papers that I kept meaning to get to was threatening to take over the back seat of my car. I was too tired at home and too busy at work to actually grade them. I had no control of my classroom. Kids came and went and talked and ate and really did whatever they wanted to do, pretty much whenever they wanted to do it. The girl who had sworn that she would never yell or threaten her students was at the board at least twice a day waving a dry erase marker in her hand and completely losing her mind.

You can find the rest of this at my dear friend Marvia’s place. Marvia is the real deal y’all. She is funny and fiesty and my life is better because I follow her on Twitter. She breathes life and truth and beauty into everything she touches.

“The we once were, they’re coming back to us now.” –Brandy Walker

I still remember, I still remember the way that my hand would shoot up and my heart would start beating. I remember how sure I was that I would be picked, how sure I was that what I said mattered. 

I miss that feeling. I miss that the girl.

The one who came with shaky breath and shaky legs to say what she had decided she was not going to say, because she was sure the Spirit was calling her, whispering to her that someone needed to say it, and it may as well be her. 

I miss the feeling of annointing. I miss the sure but shaky breath. I miss the simple equation of He speaks, I do. 

When did things become so complicated? When did the equation become tangled with variables? With what ifs and how comes and can I trust myself to speak? I miss the girl who just did. 

I remember the way I used to pray fervently for healing. I remember how sure I was, walking away from that pulpit or stage that I was healed. And I remember how the sickness would slowly creep back again. I remember wondering why I wasn’t being healed. 

And I remember saying yellow was fine when my heart was really longing for purple, and purple was right there. Why didn’t I just say what I wanted? I remember hiding in my bedroom, doing things my mother would have approved of, playing with the old makeup she had given to us for this very purpose, but afraid to admit I was interested in. I wonder where that came from, in a house as loving as mine. I wonder how the lies of the world leaked in through the thick armor of parental love. I wonder about the lies that will get to my girls….as much as I try to protect them. I wonder if I always believed that I was too much. 

I remember crying in my bedroom my senior year. I had come home from the state speech tournament empty handed again. I had already missed the cut for nationals. I was devestated. My best was not good enough. I remember the note from my mother, waiting for me on my bed. She had placed it there before the tournament even began. Before I came home, empty handed or elated, she wanted me to know just how proud she was of me. How talented I was. How much she loved me. 

I still can’t talk about that letter without crying. Of course my mother knew my deepest fears. Of course she knew how much I long to be picked. 

And I want to take that girl I once was, hiding in the bedroom, hiding her desires, crying over dreams that did not come true. I want to cup her face in my hands and breathe the truth into her. This world is harsh, and your heart is built for feeling. It will seem easier to tuck pieces of yourself away. It seems like if you stop dreaming big you will stop hurting so badly. Don’t do that. The dreaming is worth it. Even if they don’t always come true. The believing in the impossible is part of who you are.

Your fears are founded. You won’t always get picked love. I wish that you were, but that isn’t how these things shake out. Your heart will break more than once over dreams that are not to be.

I want to warn her, to promise her: You won’t always be picked. But I promise: You are always chosen. 

This is a a post for The Story Sessions Girls We Once Were link up. I hosted an annonymous entry here. Get your hankies and head over. The submissions are truly beautiful. 

This is an annonymous post for The Girls We Once Were link up. There is some explicit language; sometimes those are the only words we have for the darkness of this world. But there is always light, and it is always coming. I think this woman handles that beautifully, and I hope you will hold her heart carefully. I am so honored to host her story here.

Before there were fairy tales, before there were courtship manuals, before there were dating horror stories, before marriage was made an idol, before there were wedding night promises, before I learned to expect my first crush to last forever, did I once believe in true love and that I deserved it? Was I once that naive?

 Before there were small hands playing at grownup pleasures, before they whispered “it’s just a game” and taught me how, and I so small, and I so young; before there were dark daydreams and darker lusts; before the screen was filled with chiseled biceps groping and bruised breasts groped; before the deep, relentless shame, was I once innocent? 

Before there were clandestine garter belts and lace beneath good girl dresses, before there were muffled groans in the back seat on a country road, before there were unsatisfied no-really-it-was-goods, before there were the guilty sounds of pulling our clothes on after, before there were late-night commitments to never again, to this was the last time, was I once pure?

 Before he tried to make me some fantasy — thinner thighs and fuller chest; before I confessed to him all my former sins and he held me tender, heartbeat-softkiss-whisper tender — until he stopped holding me at all, until I wasn’t good enough, until he wanted me but not-me, skinnier and willing to fuck like the goddamn whore I felt like already; before he begged me to then blamed me when I did; before him, was I once whole?

 Before I learned the thou-shalt-nots and knew I’d already, long since broken them, before the Lord God cast me out and an angel barred the way of my return with a flaming sword, did I once dance in Eden, naked and glad, naked and unashamed? Before the Fall, was I once good?

 I don’t remember that girl I once was, maybe. I don’t remember the bright tall grass of Eden, a sweet, simple garden where I tended strawberries and hopes, grew snap-peas and trust. I cannot see my face there — was I smiling? did I laugh? was there no shadow of shame cast across me?

 And that tree where it started — that mean, forbidden tree. Is it fair the first fruit was sliced up and placed in my eager hand and they said, “taste, it is good,” and I didn’t know not to, couldn’t say no?

 I remember that fruit and its juices still stain me, but I can’t imagine who I was before I ate it. Naive, innocent, pure, whole, unashamed, good? Maybe I was. But that was before.

And now it is after, and who has that little girl grown up to be?

After the disillusionment, after the memories came back haunting, after the long grief; after I saw myself broken, and swore I would be whole again; after the “we’re through,” after I walked away, even when he followed me begging, even when he said “I’m sorry” and meant it; after I wandered the Earth, looking for Eden’s welcome; after I looked that angel of shame in the eye where he stood with his sword, cutting me with its hot edge, and after I noticed the shield in my hand, and after I noticed Another who’s fighting beside me; now I am healing, and laughing sometimes. Now I am trying. And I will be free. And I will be good, and pure, and unashamed.

The girl I once was, I believe she’s still here.

February started off with a bang. I hosted a Super Bowl party for anyone we knew, but mostly people in Christian’s department. I thought of it as a practice for the IF:Gathering the next weekend. Then, I accidentally set my oven on fire. Ooops.

The IF:Gathering went much more smoothly than I anticipated (I did not set my oven on fire. Though, I did accurately predict that one of my children would pee on the floor.) The conference was good, (I was especially partial to Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey.) and I took everyone’s advice and tried to keep the menu simple. We had make your own grilled cheese and I can say with certainty that sharp cheddar, cherry preserves and bacon is a winning combination. A few of my Story Sisters came to join me and hang out by my fire pit with my actual sister and some friends from church. It can be scary letting your life collide like that, I mean what if everyone comes away hating you? They didn’t. It was fine.

Food
Breakfast Sandwiches– It isn’t the first time I have made an Egg McMuffin at home, but we have been on a kick. The kids love them too, so that helps. I even served them for small group dinner with a big bowl of fruit salad.

Steak and Pan Sauce- I have been loving everything I cook out of Shauna Neiquest’s Bread and Wine. She describes herself as “not a steak girl” and then raves about this steak and pan sauce. I am a steak girl, and I can tell you that the recipe alone is worth the book. The first time I made it without the pan sauce because “deglazing” sounded super complicated. (Spoiler: It just means dumping some alcohol into a pan.) The next time I made it I decided to give the sauce a try. If Christian and I weren’t already married, he probably would have proposed to me on the spot. It was that good. Buy the book, make the steak.

Wings- On the recommendation of my friends, Alison and Mary Beth I tried to make wings for my Super Bowl party. Mostly, it worked but there was the slight problem that I set my oven on fire right when the game kicked off. The wings were still fine, but I will stick with buffalo chicken dip next time. Same flavors, less smoke.

Reading

When I am feeling all the feelings like I was after the IF:Gathering, I like to read something familiar. I took the snow-week early in February and read Harry Potter 1-3. I am now half way through 4 and will probably finish them by the summer.They are, it turns out, still brilliant.

In my classroom I read Romeo and Juliet with my freshmen. I love teaching this play, it just never gets old. If your freshmen english teacher didn’t explain the dirty jokes to you, then you are missing out. Go back and read at least the first few scenes. You will be astounded you didn’t figure them out for yourself.

My tenth graders are reading one of my very favorite books, Another Place at the Table. It is the memoir of a foster mom and it is beautiful. I’ve written and erased about ten sentences that explain why this book is important. They just don’t do it justice. If you care at all about kids without families, or what safety nets are available and how and why they fail, just read the book.

There have been a few blogs that have been catching my attention recently. The Story Sessions website is always featuring one of the women in the community and they are always excellent. February featured poetry, if you missed it you should really go look. There was also the first installment of The Well, a Wednesday blessing written by Brenna. The first entry was truly water to my soul.

Speaking of my story sister, Suzanne Terry has been killing it lately, and I especially loved this post about where she stands. Osheta Moore has been standing her ground in prayer. I wish the church always did this hard work this gracefully. And Mary Beth Pavlik has been posting 5 awesome things on Fridays and I look forward to it every week.

Finally, if you haven’t been reading John Blase’s poetry you need to. Sometimes, his poetry gets delivered to my email box and I stop whatever I am doing and read it out loud to my class because it is just so beautiful. They particularly liked this one.

Television

Christian and I are slowly working our way through the second season of House of Cards. I am a little jealous of all of my child free friends who are done with the season already.

I still adore Downton Abbey and was grateful that this season’s finale gave me all the hopeful feels and not all the sad ones.

I discovered Don’t Trust the B in apartment 23 when I need a laugh. I love campy portrayals of Midwesterners. I just do, especially when juxtaposed against a stereotypical New Yorker.

When I need all the drama, I have been hitting up The Borgias. It is a crazy show about the Pope and Rome and the Pope’s illegitimate children. Murder, illicit sex, buying papal votes. Good times.

Beauty

Hair oil is changing my life. I know. I wouldn’t have believed it either. My hair has always been super oily and I would never in a million years think that putting more oil into it ever would be a good idea. But my friend’s insisted I try it when I was stuck at their house because of the snowpocalypse. Sure enough, that evening my hair was soft and beautiful. I didn’t even need to wash it the next day! My bangs even looked great. My hair is softer, shinier, and the color is even browner. You need the miracle that is hair oil. (Don’t buy it there though, it is only like five bucks at Target.) The more I play with my hair during the day the better it looks and the softer it feels. I know I sound like an infomercial. I can’t help it. I love this stuff.

Crafting

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you may have noticed people tagging me in what seemed like the same pictures, or a variation on the same picture. I made a bunch of banners out of old book pages and sent them to a bunch of the women in Story Sessions because mail makes people feel loved and remembered in a very specific and much needed way. This is the one I kept for myself.

I am cooking up a spring version, so keep track of Twitter and Instagram for a sneak peek. Or you can like me on Facebook.

E-Courses

I took my friend Nicole’s class, Love and Making It. Perhaps it is weird that I am telling the internet that I took a sex class, but the way that Nicole speaks of sex and the body is so holy and so freeing. She has a gift y’all, and in a world where the lies about beauty are coming at us from all directions, you probably need Nicole’s truth too. She is re-running Love and Making it, which is designed for the married woman, and is starting a course called Babes in Godland for women wanting to explore their own beauty and sensuality in all stages of life.

March is in like a Lion

I signed up for John Acuff’s 30 days of hustle, just to see what the big deal with him is…I don’t know where I stand right now. I’ll let you know next month.

I am doing a nine day writers boot camp with Story Sessions and have decided to concentrate on a round of edits on my book. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear anything from me for a week and a half or so.

For a Lent I will be fasting following the guidelines in Jen Hatmaker’s book Seven. So, I will be eating seven things: eggs, chicken, spinach, apple, avocado, sweet potatoes and whole wheat bread. I will be drinking water. Yes, it is going to suck, but I feel called to it. I have some stuff, that is related to food that is jacking with my heart. I am sure I will have some blog posts working through this, this month.

I passed the magazine stand at the grocery store. It said something about a legacy leaving us and just for a second I thought “How did People Magazine know that my Aunt Jane died?” I took a closer look at the cover only to discover they were speaking of Shirley Temple Black. I don’t know Ms. Temple-Black personally, but I think I would take the legacy of my Great Aunt Jane.

I have heard that the world really turns on small things done with great love, and now I am sure that is true. My great Aunt Jane was notorious for doing things with great love. From the Thanksgiving dinners of 80 plus people, to the way she called all of her grown up grandsons, sons, and nephews by their diminutive names.  No one calls my dad Johnny. But my Aunt Jane did, and he liked it. Small things with great love, now that is a legacy worth a magazine cover.

Today, as my family makes the way to her funeral I find myself reflecting on the things I will miss most. The way she would smile when I walked in for Thanksgiving, even with 75 people already there, I was wanted I was loved. And the way she loved to grant the requests of her grandchildren, the way she would turn her head and smile at them and say, “Well, I think that would be alright.”

There are now more of my grandmother’s generation on that side of heaven than this. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but they are certainly my greatest generation. Full of farmers, teachers, nurses, everyday people who loved with a  love that was greater than love, who sent cards and baby blankets and hand carved salt and pepper shakers to the obscene amount of great-nieces and nephews because they wanted to, because they loved us.

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Recently, I made a bunch of banners out of old book pages. I sewed them together with a white and red thread and tucked them into the mail with a note on the back “the banner over you is love.” I sent them on their way and forgot about them. I did it because I like to keep my hands busy while I watch television, because I like to see trash become treasure with just a little bit of work, because I love the women in my online community and I like to presents and mail and surprises.

So, I sent out a bunch of banners, and didn’t think twice about where they might land. The craziest thing started happening. People started asking me how in the world I could have known. How in the world could I have known that a red thread was their thing? How could I have known that this is their life verse or that is their favorite book? How did I know that they were having a bad week or they were struggling to feel seen? How in the world did I know?

I didn’t know. I like making crafts out of abandoned objects and I happened to do that with love. The responses filled me in a way that re-tweets and blog stats never will. I am trying to hang on to that. I am trying to learn the lesson for myself that I have watched lived out for me my entire life.

Anything done with great love is worth doing. Loving is what leaves your legacy.

“Put down your sword sister, your seat is right here.”

It was me who said it. I was talking about someone else (not completely kindly, ahem). But the sentiment cut me straight through. To the core of who I am, to the core of what I am afraid of. That one flippant statement sliced right through me, hit all the tender spots, the ugly spots, the places that I am hiding, or ignoring, or both.

I am afraid I won’t get chosen. I am afraid I am not really wanted.

And then I make all kinds of qualifications for what counts as chosen, and what does not. I used to think that if enough people read my blog a day, I would feel chosen. Then I thought, if the right people noticed me, asked me to write a guest post, featured me in their link up. If I had enough or the right twitter followers, if I were involved in the right projects, if I were sought after to do this, or advertise that, then, then, I would feel as though I were chosen.

But here I am, on the other side of some of that, and….I still feel like I am fighting for my place at the table.

Put down your sword sister, your seat is right here.

I have been guilty of coveting the things I see in other people, their book deal, their audience, their reach, their re-tweets. I have been given some of the things that I am sure will satisfy me, and they are not enough. I have been using a magical measuring tape, like the one Mary Poppins pulls out of her carpet-bag. Only mine doesn’t say “practically perfect in every way” it says “this isn’t good enough” no matter how big I grow.

No wonder I picked up the sword, determined to fight my way to the top.

I spoke it about a different situation, but it pierced my own heart. Abby, put down your sword.

God sometimes does this thing with me, where he uses my children’s behavior, to show me the state of my heart. (Is there anything more perfect than a toddler, to manifest one’s primary emotions?) It isn’t humbling at all to see the deepest places of your heart are no more grown or mature than your two-year-old mid tantrum. Not, humbling at all.

My Rilla-girl sometimes looks at the thing she has and decides that she doesn’t want that. She wants the thing that her sister has. And I suppose I would understand this, but lately I have been buying and giving everything in pairs. Two strawberry yogurts, two apples identical in size, two cookies, two boxes of juice, two pink fairy wings from the Target dollar bin, two blue ones. But she doesn’t want hers. She wants what I gave her sister, and if we switch, she still wants the thing that is in her sister’s hand. The realization that I am guilty of this, happens at about the same time the apple gets thrown across the room.

I don’t want that!

Because what she wants  is what belongs to her sister. And I am sure, as the apple thuds at my feet that I have done the same thing before God, slung my portion at His feet as I point at the exact same thing in someone else’s hands. What you gave her is better.

Put down your sword sister, your seat is right here.

I am learning, in this messy internet world where we fight for re-tweets and yell to be heard, that God isn’t very interested in the numbers we hang our worth on. And even now as I write it, I roll my eyes because, isn’t that the thing we used to say in Sunday School. God looks at the heart.

Sometimes there isn’t anything truer than the felt board.

God wants to know and love my heart.

I was sitting at a coffee shop when my friend started talking about stages. “I don’t know, Abby, if you will ever speak in front of thousands of women, but you have a stage right here, you have a stage in your backyard. People let you speak into their lives, why doesn’t that count? Why isn’t that good enough?”

And the answer is simple, because I am afraid that means I am not good enough. I am afraid that I will never be good enough, and I push that pain forward instead of dealing with the lies at its base.

That conversation won’t let me go. I have almost 200 students I speak into every day. I have people I love seeking my opinion. More people than I ever expected read this blog.

My seat is right here. I can put down my sword. The things I am fighting for, they have already be given to me. I am free to love and write and speak and sit, at my place at the table. The one that has always been here for me. 

Sister, put down your sword. Your seat is right here.

I am trying to teach you that words matter. I am sitting at my desk or standing behind my podium or waving my hands with the dry erase marker still in it.

Look at this author! Look at what she says here! Look at how he said that! Words matter! These words matter! I am trying to teach you the power of the pen in an age where you no longer need one of those. Finger tip to phone, your tweet is heard round the world before I even know you hit send.

Some people would say this ignorance of mine is a gross failure of me, the teacher, the authority figure in the room. They perhaps do not understand, that there is an entire generation of students who can look you in the face and text under their desk, all the while answering the questions you pose.

I am trying to teach you the power of words, of the words of the authors we study yes, but also of your words, your own words, but you are too busy texting and tweeting to notice.

Words are easy in your world, thrown out into the world without a care about what they really say or who might really read them. I would tell you I don’t know where you learned this, but that would be a lie. You learned it from the adults in your life, from the politicians on your tv, from the way the world works.

We aren’t very careful with our words.

I want to blame social media, and kids these days, but these word problems have been around since the beginning.

A girl in my high school took her life our senior year. She just couldn’t take the words. The ones that were flung at her starting in the third grade. She just couldn’t take the words anymore. I remember the announcement and the hush that fell over the room. I remember my friend turning around to face the girls who had been flinging the words since elementary school.

I hope you are happy. She said to them. Because this happened because of you.

I remember the hush that fell over the crowd then. They didn’t even bother denying it. We all knew it was true.

I am sure that the reasons were more complicated than that. Things are always messier than we want them to be. I am sure this girl was fighting demons none of us knew about. I am also sure the ugly words slung at her on a daily basis didn’t help. I still wonder about the second set of girls. I wonder what kind of demons they faced, as they realized what their words might have done.

They didn’t think it was a big deal.

They were just joking around.

And now? Now there is an app for that. Say whatever you want, whenever you want about whoever you want behind the shield of anonymity. I stand at the board with a marker still in my hand and make some public service announcements, about how the internet is forever, even after the delete button, about how you aren’t as anonymous as you think you are.

But really what I want to say is, your words matter. Your words are shaping your life, the lives of your peers, our future world. I want so desperately for it to be a kinder place for you.

You can hide behind the anonymity of the internet all you want and insist that it is just a stupid app and it isn’t real. But you need to know that if you’re not kind on the internet, then you’re not kind. And I have taught you for enough days now to know that on your good days you are kind, you are smart, you are ready and able to make this world a better place.

But I also know that you are human, just like the rest of us, perhaps even more so. At my most vulnerable don’t I also say I feel like I am 16 again? I know you are longing to be seen, heard, known, loved.

There aren’t enough up votes and likes to give you the love you are longing for. It will never be enough for you. The things that you are looking for, they don’t come from hits on an anonymous site. They come from relationships that are true and honest, authentic and grace-filled. What you are looking for comes from a life you can be satisfied with.

I know that living is hard some days. I know that life is always messier than we want it to be, and sometimes you are just so hurt and tired it seems easier to participate in the destruction of it all.

Please, take what it took me an extra fifteen years to learn, you are already loved, you are already heard, I promise you there are people who see and hear and love you. I am standing at the board talking with my hands, telling you that your words matter, but what I am really trying to say is that you matter. YOU MATTER, your words and actions and thoughts and feelings are important and matter greatly to this world. Even the anonymous ones. 

You matter, you are loved, and you are better than the things you are saying about each other. You are better than the havoc you have been wreaking. Your words matter. Make them words you are willing to stand beside, no mask needed.

I am afraid you are about to spin out she says.

This friend of mine. She tells the truth, the whole truth and always the truth. She can’t help what she sees, and she just wants to let me know. I am headed perhaps for some black ice and I am about to spin out.

She wasn’t talking about my epic road trip. She knew at the time that I was inching along, but that is not what she was talking about. She wasn’t that worried about me making it home. She never doubts the homecoming, it is the state of the journey she is concerned about.

I am just afraid you are about to spin out.

I received the email because my car was inching along at a snail’s pace, my phone attached to a local mechanics guest wireless. Normally, I am pretty good about not checking my phone on the road, but the road was really more of a parking lot. I promise, it wasn’t hurting anyone.

She was right. She usually is. It is this book that I wrote, that needs re-written, that won’t let me go, that won’t let me forget. It is this advice that I keep being given from no one and everyone about platform building and blogging regularly and branding and making space and time like I can somehow conjure those things if I just had the right recipe. It is all the noise that I can’t. stop. hearing. It is that if I close me ears I am afraid I will miss something.

I’ve been spinning my wheels for a while. I don’t really know how to let my foot off the gas and I have been spinning my tires even when there really isn’t anywhere to go. My frustration has been leaking into my life-like that terrible burned rubber smell. Even after the spinning stops, the smell is still burned into my nose. Creative frustration is like that for me, it tinges everything else.

In the car, with the crazy synthesizer mix tape we were listening to on repeat I asked God to show me something, about my creative process, about this journey I am on, about the ways He is working.

Some people commune with God in nature, and others through quiet time and meditation, my sister most often hears God through song. I’m not picky about the ways God speaks to me, but it is most often for me in daily struggles, in mundane situations. It turns out, for me, all ground is Holy. Even the ground I am doing everything to get off of, is the place where God is interested in meeting me. Probably, especially there here.

I asked God to show me something about myself, about the metaphorical black ice I too could tell I was screaming toward. I needed to get home in more ways than one. Two hours later we got stuck on a hill, and a man told me that I better turn around. He told me that the time wasn’t right, that there would be a truck coming through in the morning and I needed to park myself in a safe space for a minute and wait for everything to re-group.

I’m pretty sure I already knew this about my creative life, that the time isn’t right, that I need more space to re-group, that I need to stop and rest for a minute and just wait some things out. I say that I already knew this, but I for sure wasn’t acting on it. Instead, I was putting the pedal to the metal, sending chapters to my critique partner, attempting unsuccessfully to burn the midnight oil as I stare at the screen and decide that writing a book was the dumbest decision I have ever made. Not having the guts to admit that to anyone, not even myself.

I asked God to tell me some things about this creative journey of mine and He told me to turn around and wait it out. To go get some coffee and find shelter in this storm. I think I was ignoring Him, I think I decided I would rather burn rubber and try desperately to get up this hill myself.

Waiting. I am terrible at the waiting. At the not yet, at the in between. That is the thing about letting God go before you, sometimes He doesn’t move when you want Him to. If God is going before you, the only thing left to do is follow. Let me tell you, you don’t always agree on the pace. I suppose this is the part is the part where I talk about how sweet it is and how special this time is, and maybe I will get there eventually, but currently, this waiting feels about like sleeping at the Home Depot and hoping for free and mediocre coffee.

It is scarcity again. It seems to always come back to that. I am afraid that if I go back for shelter, that by the time I get out it will be too late. I believe that there are only so many opportunities and if I don’t go get mine, that it will never come. I believe that there are only so many stories of dreams come true, and if yours just did than I am less likely to get mine. I need to be the first in line, because one day the dream river is going to dry up.

It is just so freaking hard. The waiting is, but it becomes desperate when I believe that the scarcity is true. I’m just sort of waiting, on the time, on the distance, on the words to come, on the door to open. I am waiting because it is the only thing to do, really. But I am also waiting as an act of faith, that I believe in a God who does not withhold good things for me, that the things I do matter, regardless of how many people see them.

It is the waiting that is the hardest part, but the obedience that is the most important part.

When we got back on the road there was a different man on the hill. He had me roll down my window and told me confidently, “soft like a whisper.” (Incidentally, my friends have been fighting over this man on the off-chance that he is single. So, if you know the man in a yellow ski jacket and glasses who was helping people up the hill on Holcomb Bridge outside of Park 83 apartments, and he is single, please let me know.)

Same hill, different time, different advice, better circumstance. It was time. Soft like a whisper. Easy does it Abby.

I think this post might be a mess. But I recieved a prompt I couldn’t ignore from a community I love. If you would like to join us there is always room.