We sat next to each other, facing the blank wall before us. “I shouldn’t write about my family anymore.” I was talking to myself really, or to the wall. His voice when he spoke up startled me.
“I don’t think you should either.” We sat silently, and I nodded although he missed it. I really was nodding to myself. “Why do you do it?”
“I don’t know. I think just because it impacted me so much. My mind just drifts to it when I brainstorm.”
“That makes sense.” He nodded slowly.
“It’s just easy to write about.”
He turned and looked at me. “You shouldn’t write about what’s easy. You write about your family, a topic that inherently evokes a ton of emotions. Your stories about them only evoke just one emotion.”
But what if that’s all that I know. Silly thoughts, really. I am well aware that I’m capable of feeling more than just frustrating confusion.
Lately I’ve been having these dreams. They’re dreams of my family – of my dad talking to me. He looks young and healthy, but sad. His sadness is contagious, and I’m fighting it. I have an urge to fix him, but he’s trying to fix our family. He only adds salt to the wound.
I wish I had the gift of prophesy, the ability to interpret dreams.
“It’s easy to write about the hard things, hard to write about the easy things.”
“Exactly,” he nods to no one in particular. “So write about something easy.”
I was sitting on steps along a hill that ended abruptly at an open field. I sat on the top, with my phone in hand and earphones plugged in. I had an hour before we would all meet at the dining hall to officially start our summer conference.
The plan was to listen to some Hillsong and journal a little before heading over, but halfway through a song I pressed pause and placed my journal beside me. Nothing was coming to mind, and I was stuck.
I waited. I watched as friends from my fellowship strolled along the lake or in and out of their cabins. I watched as the sunlight kissed the ripples of the waters, disturbed by gliding ducks. I peered along the mountainside, delighted when I saw the looming cross of a chapel peering through the trees. I waited.
I waited, understanding that I wouldn’t have a spoken answer. Rather my answer was a light silence that danced around me, the silence that stilled the ever vibrating thoughts in my mind. What I typically would have overlooked as boring was suddenly peaceful.
I knew this was the calm before the storm. God had much in store for me, moments of explosive laughter and endless cries, but in this moment he was sitting on the step beside me, telling me to enjoy the wait, and peacefully anticipate what was to come.
“What you write doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. Do you get what I mean?”
I thought back to the peace I felt at that moment. It was earth-shattering in a quiet and unconventional way.
“It’s hard to write about nothing.”
I recently read Acts 2, which recounts the story of Pentecost. From what I understood, the apostles and other followers of Jesus had been waiting and hiding in a room, overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty before the Holy Spirit came. They were faithful, yet unanswered.
I wondered what the purpose of having them wait was. I wondered what the apostles had gained when God chose to send the Holy Spirit at that time rather than the second Jesus had left.
“I spoke wrong,” I sighed. I spoke to myself before I spoke to him. “It’s hard but essential to look for something in nothing.”
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