Writers Block. A Blessing in Disguise.

Every night I start to fret... what will I do in the morning, I don't have any more stories. I have nothing to say. The good words are gone. The writing in me has come to an end. I've poured out all I have to give. It's over. That's embarrassing. I climb in bed feeling restless and fearful... I have to engage in the discipline of quieting my tumultuous mind, embracing peace, choosing to believe that the Lord gives the words and the Lord takes them away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Then I wake up in the morning and there is a burning new voice. There are words. They spill out onto the page easily, freely, lightly.

It is weird.

I like it.

I'm so excited for nap time so that I get to transfer the good words I've scribbled during breakfast onto the computer.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."
--- Lamentations 3:22-26

What a blessing... to be out on a limb, dangling, and to see up close and personal that his mercies are new every morning. It's terrifying to be empty, but it's sweet to be filled. For this habitual worrier, there are a lot of good lessons here.

PS --- If you have EVER walked in the depression valley and recovered, PLEASE go (right now!) and read Lamentations chapter 3. The whole thing. I mean, daaaang. 

Here is a man who has experienced the physical, mental, spiritual anguish of depression and the beauty and liberation of recovery. He explains his afflictions as coming from the Lord, but when he searches his heart, repents of whatever he can find and knows that he is clean, he just prays that the Lord will lift the mysterious hurting. As modern people, we know that depression comes from many sources. I don't think this passage is telling us that the Lord is always punishing us, but that the Lord is always in control. 

In wisdom, sometimes he lets us be empty so we can sweetly be filled. His arm is not to short to turn the trial into a triumph, the burden into a blessing. The writer puts it into a poetry that will really resonate with your heart. Be blessed.  


(Nerdy tidbit... this is an "acrostic poem"... the verses of each stanza begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the verses within each stanza begin with the same letter. Wowza. Talented writing right there.)