What writing is like…

As is the case with most of what I speak, I’m not a hundred percent certain if my thoughts make sense, if my ideas are grounded in reality or if I’ve completely understood everything mentioned on any given topic.

Writing results in those feelings but tenfold. Every emotion is magnified in the process of brainstorming, typing, reading, and waiting for comments, waiting for inspiration, waiting for something to change or click within myself or someone else, and then there’s sometimes a spiral into depression where I question my abilities and worth, question if I should give up now, but wonder what if someone reads what I say and it resounds? What if it resonates in the wrong way? What if I’ll never be able to reproduce another sound, clever thought again? What if it’s pointless and meaningless, and what if this depression lasts forever because I decided to pursue writing out of any other interest available to me?  I, the worst critic of anything Jaline says and does, ask myself often, what am I doing? Who is this for? What’s the purpose? What genre am I aiming at?

Then I read, see or hear something inspiring and I want to add my voice. And we start all over again.

​I had a teacher in high school who read one of my assignments and said, ‘I hope you keep writing. You’re good at this’. I’m not sure if that was the first time I’d heard that encouragement, but it was the first time it stuck. Before that assignment, I’d started out with journaling. I attempted first to write about my day, what happened, my thoughts, writing as though speaking to the pages bound to a book. But that felt as blank and empty as the paper I wanted to fill. Then I started writing my thoughts and feelings and dreams and worries: prayers to the Lord. That’s not writing, though, I thought. That’s just processing and pleading.

I decided to listen to that teacher… sort of. In my mind, I was being wise but really I think I was a bit fearful - I won’t be able to make a living with fictional stories, I reasoned. But I can become a journalist.

Seventeen years later, I can tell you that I am currently not a journalist. But I still type out thoughts and string together sentences. And I do not regret going to school in pursuit of journalism or regret my venture into communications as a vocation. I gained and furthered skills that have carried forward through multiple facets of my life. But I do wish I’d realized sooner to pursue writing for the reason that made journaling life-giving to me.

I used to clearly hear the Lord say, “Write”, and now I don’t know what direction or purpose to pursue as before writing Pearls from the Storm. No, I don’t hear ‘Write’ as clearly anymore, but I know that when I do put words onto a page, the mess that is my heart and my head becomes organized. Fogginess shifts to clear skies. And I find myself still enjoying the process of putting pen to paper.

When I write, it’s less and less about how it’s done and more and more about connecting my heart to the Lord’s. I write because Jesus was the first to hear me  in my cries scratched out on paper. I write because I can better see what I actually meant, what I truly wanted through the ramblings of the pen. And through working out my struggles and joys in my ponderings and prayers, I long to bless just one more person. Just one.

Hopefully, that person is you today; maybe it’ll be myself in time. I also hope that whichever hobby or interest that is life-giving and benefits you and others will continue to do so without the slide into depression that I’ve known. May you always feel joy in the practice and pursuit of whichever specialty it is that brings out the best in you.