Words

I used to read. Constantly. I'd yearn for the words that would tell the stories, the thoughts. I'd live the words I read.

I always took delight in the beautifully worded phrases.

I always noticed how Lynn Austin would use three adjectives in a row, and only separated them by commas. It made the description feel like a swelling of the truth. I felt like I was wrapped up in the moment she wrote about.

I get excited to read perfectly written words.

A good song, excellently sung, or accurately sounding like the unspeakable emotions they tell... my heart aches in receiving it.

Communication is the attempt.

Understanding is the success.

Sometimes, I understand.

When the written, the sung, the attempted words reach me, I feel the entirety of the reward. I understand. I relate.

I love good communication. I love when words can actually accomplish much.

For a long time, I have felt that I'd rather write my own words as opposed to reading someone else's. Reading someone's words made me crave joining them. Writing, too. It's probably based in a bit of pride in my own abilities. I love to write.

But I think, too, it's just a reflection in the drive God gave me. I love to write. I love to communicate. It's a force, not hidden, but deep within me. I must write. It feels disastrous. I must write. When I read  words birthed of another's pen, it makes me ache to conceive my own new words. To carry them, to deliver them. No matter how wet, no matter how unkept, no matter how helpless, needy, lacking, beautiful... I want these words.

God speaks to me through words.

Sometimes through my own.

It's a way God communicates with me. He created communication. Communication originated with a God who longed to live with us, in us, through us.

I can't dispose my unbelievable desire to write. Always. Constantly. Forever.

He made it happen. So He could meet me there. Here. Where I write.

I'm very happy to tell you that I've come to a point where I almost couldn't put a book down. I'm reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I've had this book for almost a year. My friend Katie gave it to me right before I had Selah. I've wanted to read it, but I couldn't get my ever wandering mind to slow down. I couldn't get my hands to stop scratching my own words.

I might not have even wanted to read someone else's words.

But this book... these words... my laughable, dorky, author-like mind is on fire. Every line. Every description. I am in love. She is the best writer I've read. I'm infatuated with her style. As a writer, I feel enlivened. I catch her words. I notice her usage of a comma. I notice the deliberate use of a period instead of a comma the next time she says the same thing.

I love how language can do that.

For some reason, I've always held to how language is just always a lost cause when it comes to God. We can never use enough words, never use the right words to describe God. I have always felt a little disappointed in that. Of course, God is indescribable.

But can't we use the tools we have? Can't we, or those of us who love words, do a good job with what we have to use? Can't God speak to us in our attempts? Can't we be good stewards of our abilities, and meticulous overwhelming desires to try?

I feel excited.

A good author, a good writer can stir up the author, the writer in another.

Yes. I feel stirred. And I feel thrilled to read more. It's a delicious feeling.