I used to.

I used to write.

The keywords there are “Used To”. The Lord used to lay thick words weighty on my heart, and would compell me to expel them out of my fingers and onto a blank computer screen. My heart seeped out in the form of nouns and verbs, enunciating words that Jesus painted vividly into the crevices of my soul.

Throughout high school, the Lord would ever-so-sweetly burden my heart with passages and paragraphs of Truth, meant to seep out for others to read. He permitted my words to be distributed as devotions for my youth-group for years, incognito. He would escort my eyes to scripture and move my heart to form rhythmic beats into words. The blood pumping through my veins transformed quickly into pulsating syllables, taking up space in the atmosphere. As my fingers skimmed across a clunky keyboard, the Lord spoke. He breathed out. He sang. Then, all of a sudden, I just couldn’t bear to do it. I couldn’t.

As I entered a new season of walking with Him, words didn’t drip out of my heart quite as easily. My time spent snuggled up in Jesus’ arms was not meant for words to articulate or illuminate. Trying to pull fathomable sentences out of those intimate moments with my King was nearly impossible.. It was like trying to draw water from a well as dehydrated as the air in the desert.  Attempting to solicit words from a weary, worn down heart was painful. Excruciating. Heart throbbing. Agonizing. So, I stopped trying. Desperately disheartened, my hands ceased from forming words. I ambled away, defeated.

That season of darkness- oh. Much too grim to speak of. An episode in my series soaked with salty, warm tears. In a matter of months, I became a girl drifting around aimlessly in the snares of anxiety, trying to wipe my eyes clean...  eyes that were stinging and blurry from nights crying out for my King. This age of my existence was marked by tear tarnished pillowcases and leather bound journals occupied by shouts out to my Father.

Before I knew it, I was standing upright with my two size-7 feet established in a shadowy place. My eyes were immersed in the dimness of my season.  Me, a sinful, selfish girl, had preferred her sin over her sweet Jesus. She had chosen fear of man over fear of Him. She had made a decision to worry, instead of a decision to believe. Turning my head from left to right, no light could be found. Then… a spark. A little bit of a glimmer is enough to see again. A little bit of light wrecks any darkness & ruins it for what it was. When light rushes into darkness, it just isn't darkness anymore.

He rushed in- like a doctor after a coding patient on the table, and he brought life. My heart rate began to drop, and He wasn't going to watch me give up. With both hands on the paddles, He shocked my heart back to it’s normal cadence.. He brought it back in synch with His.

Reader, I can’t promise you eloquent words. And if your eyes are searching for something special, you may want to go ahead and exit out there at the top right hand side of your screen. I am just a redeemed sinner-girl. Nothing more, nothing less. I am a girl hanging on to the very hem of His garment. I am the girl healed from her nasty, sinful choices that have stained her for years. I am marked by redemption and pursuit. I am nothing but a story of a rescue operation conducted by the Creator Himself. I am a girl who has been freed, that just can’t help but talk about it.