I took a bit of a break from writing, even journaling. It wasn’t intentional per se. But like many things, I have found this practice ebbs and flows. Sometimes writing helps to synthesize all that is spinning in my head and my heart, and other times it’s like fumbling in the dark, more confusion than clarity.
I discovered a connection in this ebb and flow of my writing habits to the ebb and flow of my reading habits. The less time I spent reading, the less time I spent writing. I’d never thought on how reading can be a fuel of sorts. When I wasn’t reading, or just reading fumes, it wasn’t enough to power my writing. My journaling picked up again when I started a new book, one in which I quickly took to highlighting and dog-earring pages filled with new ideas. The more I read, the more it stirred things in my mind and heart, and journaling once again became relief, clarity, helping me make some sense out of the meanderings of my thoughts.
It got me thinking about my time in God’s word. Life carries on, full of the highs and lows, daily obligations and decisions, whether or not I’m steeped in God’s word. But my experience of life and ability to make meaning out of the mess is so much richer when I am reading His word. Much like reading books can fuel my writing, reading His word fuels my life’s purpose. The narratives, the bigger pictures and themes move me to see and experience my own story with more depth. His story gives life and meaning and purpose and reason, and helps me pivot to the story that’s unfolding in my own life and see it with new energy and perspective.
What a blessing to be in a season where I have been gifted the precious commodity that is time. Time to read, journal, reflect, process the stories that have been lived before me and the story that God is writing now. While I may crave to be in a different season of life, one which will inevitably reorient my time, I am choosing gratitude. Gratitude for the gift it is to dive deep into words that, have already and will continue to, shape and write my story now and to come.
