i feel a big blog coming. you don't have to read.

i haven't blogged in a while. i've been aware of it for weeks now. i actually started several but never really finished them, so i didn't publish them. i've wanted to finish them, and i've had so much to say, but somehow all my thoughts and feelings were just so mixed up and everything was just moving so fast that i didn't have time to think.

that's the thing. if you catch me at the wrong time when things are moving fast and my thoughts are still all over the place, sometimes the wrong thought comes out or the thought comes out in the wrong way and it hurts others.

if you watch gilmore girls, it's why i think i'm not more like lorelai or more like luke - i'm both...at least, i know i'm supposed to be. i can move fast and keep up with the speed like lorelai, but if you don't let me pace myself and take the time to untangle my thoughts once in a while like luke, then you get what happened in season six: a broken engagement. i've realized that this semester, the engagement between the luke and lorelai within me seems to have broken.

i haven't really gotten a chance to stop and really think about this semester (even though i tried for my dad's sake for him to put together our family Christmas letter) until these past couple of days where things have begun to finally slow down. i've had quite a number of moments where i got to reflect on an area/piece of my life and learned something about myself that i wasn't about to see before.

one thing i thought of this past week was about my writing. i've always said that i've loved writing. when i tell people i'm a creative writing major, they automatically think, "she must love writing." and i've made myself believe that too. but i've realized that maybe i haven't been giving my writing all the love i could because there hasn't been any writing to love. all the writing i've been doing for the past year has been for school. there were maybe one or two times where i wrote for myself, and they were songs. i keep saying that i want to write a book, i keep telling people i want to write a novel, but where is it? where are all the hours of work and passion and thoughts and words that are coming together to form this novel? where's the sweat and dedication and endurance it takes to write a novel? nowhere. i have nothing. i just have ideas the float around. i haven't lassoed them and pulled them down onto paper to start putting them together. and that makes me feel like a hypocrite. if i weren't me, but i was someone looking at me, i'd be like, aw heck no that girl doesn't love to write. if she loved to write, she'd get up every morning and write a page full of thoughts and ideas or stories or just even an introduction....just something that would be written down. i truly believe that anyone can write. it just takes practice to write well. someone once said it was 5% inspiration, 95% perspiration. ever since i heard that, i believed it. but i haven't done it. i've always had that 5% but never really pushed beyond it.

you know, i've blogged a lot about spiritual gifts and what kind of spiritual gifts God may have given me. if you remember or look back at one of those entries, you'll see 'writing' on that list of top ten spiritual gifts. i think it's ironic how i just passed over that one as an automatic, duh-of-course-writing-is-one-of-your-spiritual-gifts kind of thing. i've always been told and i've always believed that writing is one of my gifts that God has given me. i've always believed that words hold more power than we think, whether they're written or said or even sung. it's a form of communication. and words always communicate a LOT, depending on what words are used, what context their used in, and how they're used. they can fill hearts, break hearts, change hearts. they can carry knowledge, encouragement, discouragement and hurt. there's just so many of them! see how important they are?? and yet, my high esteem for the importance of words has been jaded over time since i've gotten to college. i realize i didn't have it when i joined koinonia, i realize i didn't have it when i joined praise team, i realize i didn't have it when i was in class. and i realize that my writing has been dissolving.

dissolving to a point where i think i've buried my gift. and i've been burying it. i'm like that third guy in Jesus talks about in His parable about the talents that buries his until the master comes back. he might've been scared. like me. scared to fail. maybe he thought that if he took a risk he would fail and it would be safer to keep the talent safe, where only he knew where it was hidden. i guess that's like me. writing is very important to me because i feel vulnerable when i write. to me whether it's writing a poem, a song, a story, fiction or not - somewhere in that writing is a piece of me. and my mindset has come to a point where i feel like if my writing is rejected, then a piece of me is rejected, too. but it turns out in the parable that the servant was rejected because he didn't take that risk. and i've read that parable over and over again. see why i feel like a hypocrite?

i think i haven't been writing because i've been stuck. i've had a writer's block for a really long time. and that writer's block is me. i've been standing in my own way. i was watching one tree hill the other day (okay, so pam & i have been watching one tree hill season five like...every day since we got home) and one of the running plotlines is that lucas scott wrote and published this book he wrote which was basically about his life and basketball and high school and stuff. and it made me think about my own writing (or lack thereof). and it made me think...why couldn't i even write anything? and i thought of anne shirley from anne of gables and jo march from little women and lucas scott from one tree hill and it hit me - all of these authors became great authors because they wrote what they knew and they wrote from their heart. and that's where they needed to start to get the ball rolling. but i know a creative and master designer God of whom there are endless ways to express who He is and His character through writing. so if i could write from my heart AND use the inspiration and words that God gives to me to write, how much more powerful could my writing be? how much more could i share God's good news and His unfailing love and desire for us to be His heirs with others? but i've been afraid. i've been afraid of judgment and criticism and rejection.
i was kind of doing what i wanted to do for in considering e-board: i wanted to avoid the whole criticism thing altogether by skipping out on the nom com interview and just shutting down the possibility of criticism by avoiding it before it got too far. and for my writing, i've been avoiding the possibility of myself or my writing being criticized by not writing altogether. but i've missed writing. i usually got away with it by blogging or journaling or writing songs. but it's not the same as writing a novel or a short story.

when i first started writing stories when i was 9 (or 11?), i spit out books like there was no tomorrow. i didn't care what other people thought of them. i just wrote from my heart. and if you take a look at them now, they're terribly written and terribly unrealistic, but hey, they were finished. they were something. right now i have nothing. at least with my old books, you could work with them and edit them and tweak them and fix them. but i have no writing to fix.

i was flipping through black book to when i first started writing in it. the bulk of it was written when i went to basileia. and during the retreat of silence i wrote that i wanted to give up some things that were really important to me and hand them over to Him: my voice, my writing, and my attitude. i prayed for that. i prayed that God would take those things and mold them in me to be used for His glory. and i think He's been opening my eyes to how He's already been working through those things, and how i need to keep giving those things to Him and trust Him to use them for His great work. but not only that, but i need to keep putting those things into practice in order for Him to keep working through them. i need to keep using my voice, keep writing away, and keep shaping my attitude to be a worshipful, obedient one, in order for Him to shape each one. He does, after all, give and take away, so just because He gave me a gift doesn't mean i'm guaranteed to keep it forever.

so i'm itching to write something. unfortunately, my laptop caught the hardware disease that's been going around digman 2east and died just last week, so i'll be laptop-less during the whole break because my dad said his claim will take a few days to get through, then a few more for them to accept it, and then it'll be a few weeks to order and receive a new laptop. i am blessed, however, to have all my data backed up on carbonite (thanks to my genius dad), and pam's old laptop to hold me over until i get my new laptop. right now i'm on pam's current laptop, and i'm using my brand new travel lapdesk and wearing these really really soft pants that make me feel invinceable and an out-of-character sweater that has fur on the hood, but i really really like. pam's sitting next to me, trying to finish a book and my mom is watching "what not to wear" while heating up some of the many many leftovers we've accumulated over this past week. the cold i've been recovering from has returned and although i'm not coughing, having a stuffy nose and a sore throat isn't something to be proud to have. i've been pretty tired, too, even though i've barely done any hard labor and have gotten a lot more sleep than i have all semester. my body's exhaustion from the semester is catching up, i believe.

but i'm not going to let the laptop disease hold me back from preventing myself from burying my gift. i'm going to start writing again. and not be afraid to do it.

so going back to my other reflections, there were a number of other things i've realized about myself and way i've been acting towards others. and i know that i've hurt others because of my selfishness in the way i deal with my feelings, but at the same time i wish they'd understand.

nevermind. i'll save that one for next time.