“…It is written…”
Wow. These words really stood out to me tonight. I had such a wonderfully full day of homework, church and spending quality time with my sister, and I ended my day with reading out of a book that my friend Ali let me borrow. It’s called ‘You Are My Hiding Place”, a collection of writings from Amy Carmichael, a great Woman of God. (Ali actually mentioned this very book in her latest blog by the way).
Moving on…
I began to read a section titled ‘If Only There Were Mountains’. Within this encouraging passage there was a Bible verse, which contained the words it is written. Instantly such a mixture of emotions overwhelmed me. Just these few, simple words caught me off guard and challenged the balance of everything inside of me.
Let me back up a bit. Last night we had youth prayer. I hadn’t gone in such a long time and it was so nice to spend time in God’s presence with so many people that I love. And not only was it great to just be there again, but last night was seriously an amazing night of prayer. Pastor Natalie had everyone pray for one another, and everyone was going around the room, holding hands, touching shoulders, and reaching out towards one another with prayers of encouragement and agreement.
There were a handful of people that prayed with me, and the one thing that rang loud and clear through each individual was that God was giving me ‘visions and dreams’. This has been spoken over me so many times and for some reason I didn’t pay much attention.
…. Not until I read the words ‘It is written’.
I’m sure many of you have heard or read that I am writing a book for my senior project. This was not my idea. I take no credit. Last year, around May, I felt this weird feeling that I needed to write a book for my project. My first initial thought was ‘No way José!!’ I thought I must have just been acting silly or something. I ignored the thought for a while. But then the thought began to sit at the back of my mind like a mud puddle. It sat there, unmoving really, not bothering me much. But still, there it sat, waiting to be noticed and splashed into. A few weeks went by and I brought this random idea of writing a book to a really dear friend of mine. They said that it was the absolute best idea they had ever heard. They said they believed in me. They are the reason the thought of writing a book became a nuisance. Thanks a lot, huh?
This idea stopped just sitting the back of my mind, and instead rolled around like a steel marble. It rolled through my thoughts like a pinball machine, the gears of life prodding and shooting the idea into everything I did. I couldn’t escape! Pretty soon, youth camp arrived. As always, camp was wonderful. I believe it was the third or fourth night we were there, and we were having a really good time of prayer. I can’t fully remember exactly what I was praying for at that moment, but I know it had nothing to do with writing. And then the fingers of God himself pulled back the pin attached to the spring, and when He let go, that steel marble raced through my body as though my organs, veins and muscles had formed into the pinball machine itself.
“Write a book for your senior project.”
“No way! I can’t do that. I don’t even know how.”
That was the end of that conversation. Except, it wasn’t really over because those words rang through my mind louder and stronger than anything I had ever experienced. Well, school started in September of 2010, and I could no longer ignore His voice. I, Taylor Renae, was going to write a book for my senior project. I had barely any knowledge on the subject, and I had no idea what I was really going to write about. But I had settled it in my heart, I had no choice really, that I was to write something.
I will explain the rest of this story later. Don’t get all antsy on me. But I must get back to my original thought…remember the ‘It is written’? When I saw these words, read them a few times over, I was flooded by visions. No, not the white lighted Jesus in a bathrobe holding out his hand to the children of America kind of vision. This was different then other things I’ve seen. Pictures, more like movie clips of myself raced behind my eyes. I saw myself, countless times with an idea. An idea to write in my blog, an idea to tell someone something, an idea for a skit, a story, a painting. All these ideas I get every day that I do nothing with. Yea, once in a while I’ll decide that maybe one in a hundred of those ideas are really worth taking the time to write down, but then I either lose it or completely forget about it. But every day – no exaggeration – I get ideas. Simple, subtle, extravagant, intense. And honestly, most of the time I feel like I should blog about these ideas. But what do I do? I blow them off. I think “ nah, that’s not really much to blog about, and besides, who’s gunna read it anyways?” or the famous “I don’t got the time”.
Tonight, I heard God say to me “ I have given you visions and dreams. What are you going to do with them?”
I saw myself as a faithful blogger. Someone who runs to her laptop to ramble about an idea, a thought, or a story. A blogger who could possibly encourage, inspire, or enlighten someone. I believe, with all my heart, that I have been called to write. I’ve always heard that ‘words are powerful’. For some reason I only applied that saying to the spoken word. But how easily I forgot just how powerful the written word is. It is written was spoken by Jesus himself so many times through the New Testament, referring back to thousands of years of Gods word, which had been written, established.
So, allow me if you please, to apologize to you all. I am sincerely sorry that I rarely blog. I am so very sorry that I haven’t shared an idea that might have helped one of you through your day. I’m sorry that I didn’t grasp hold of the visions and dreams that God has so faithfully given to me and I didn’t share those things. Forgive me?
So, let this be the beginning. How about I kind of, oh I don’t know, start over? Yea, yea, so cliché! I know that I could find at least 5 minutes to post at least something! Whether it is a verse or a few thousand words of an idea, I want to share it with you. You know what? Today, I’m challenging myself.
Taylor, I challenge you to write in your blog AT LEAST 4 times a week. If not more. Be sincere and respectful to your oh so faithful followers.
No comments:
Post a Comment