Etching Deeper into my Heart

I woke up this morning with words running through my head.  Tumbling over themselves in an effort to be spoken or written or just noticed.  I started thinking about why I want to write and what I want to say with my words.  Tawnya wrote a post on some of her writing inspiration as she was walking around campus for her exercise and I've been thinking about them all day and apparently into the night.  

I remember the times I would sit at the top of Old Main hill just by the amphitheater so as to be out of the way, hidden almost, and feel alone with my thoughts.  It was what I wanted.  To get away from work and school for what felt like stolen moments, which made it all the more tantalizing, and think my thoughts and write what came to me.

I had visions of writing a book about my experiences.  A means to inspire those who came after me.  I could picture my future daughter reading my words and finding her own self-worth in the pages.  The right words at the right time giving her permission to let her heart be free and to follow it.

At the time I was struggling with my single status as I did often those days.  It wasn’t an everyday thing, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with me.  Why couldn’t I find a husband?  What was I doing wrong?  What did I need to change? What was it about me that the boys I liked just didn’t like me enough to ask me out?  Stuck in a perpetual hang out cycle while roommates had more dates than they knew what to do with. 

Every six months I had a breakdown.  I ended up sobbing on the phone to my mother asking the “what is wrong with me” question out loud, it having caught up with me once again.  My mother listened, she cried with me in her heart, and told me that nothing was wrong with me.  I was strong and beautiful and someday someone, the right one, will see that.  My tears would dry up.  I would remember what I had been taught so many times, what God had taught me so many times, that I had value and I was loved and that he had a plan for me and it was a good one.  A lesson that I would continue to need reminders about and sometimes still do.

I wrote down the pain in my heart and hoped that I could share those lessons and spare someone else the wondering.  I wanted to inspire worth.  To create a place of words that could comfort and reassure in times of doubt.  Words that could give permission to free the soul and let it soar above the mundane and the hurt and pain.  A soul that knew its origins and where it was headed.

Words that would help me remember my own lessons learned.  Words to spare me the pain surrounding heartache and heartbreak.  A means to etch self-worth ever deeper into my heart so I wouldn’t have to question anymore.

I’ve learned a few things since then.  Heartache and heartbreak make us more compassionate people.  We are more likely to help those around us and our experiences give credibility to our words. 

I’ve learned that it isn’t the words that etch those lessons deeper into our hearts, but the re-learning of the lessons.   Each time we find ourselves asking the “what’s wrong with me” question, whatever that may be for you, the lessons we’ve already learned are revisited and more depth is added.  We gain a greater understanding of ourselves as just us and ourselves in the eyes of God. 

The lessons become precious to us.  The lessons help us become free.