Write, Eesh. Just write.

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Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
"Write your book, Eesh. It's Your Time."  

This is the text I received today from a good friend. She is actually one of those friends who knows me on a deep spiritual level. If you saw us side by side, you would put us in line to be cast  for a remake of the 1988 classic "Twins" featuring Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Through the years, we have often joked around about our synergy, connection, and overall passion for life . We also take these things very seriously. We don't talk everyday. We don't talk every month. But when we connect, it is always deep, straight to the heart, and fills my heart, mind, and soul.

So imagine my surprise when I received this text from my good friend.  Currently, I am on vacation for two and a half weeks. Did you hear me? I. AM. ON. VACATION.  I want to rest. I want to sleep. I want to look out of the window. I want to watch so much HGTV that I convince myself that I missed my calling as an interior designer. As a preacher, writing is central to what I do on a daily basis. I write sermons, newsletters, articles, emails, social media posts, post-it notes, dreams, ideas, and I even doodle. It took me MONTHS to squeeze out one chapter for a book on church planting set for release this year. Writing is part and parcel for the course. But my friend isn't talking about writing for my vocation as a minister in the church. She is talking about my need to write for my own healing, for my growth, and perhaps to a help to somebody else. 

Here's the funny thing. She is so right. While I must take the time to write for ministry, I need to write for me. Just the other day I decided to revisit this very page to see the last time I had written a blog. It has been over a year. And it was while I was on vacation. I had to laugh at myself.  I felt a little bit of guilt and a little bit of hope. Anything we have started can be revisited. Any of our little dreams can be reimagined as something that can begin again. And so the day after I dreamed about reviving my blog, my good girlfriend felt led by the Spirit to give me a nudge. "Write, Eesh. Just write." She didn't say it in that way but that is what my soul interpreted in those short messages. I know that a blog is not a book, but I do trust that this could be a space for my continually healing. And if you are here with me, maybe it will guide you in your healing, too.

I will leave you with this. One hour before I received this text, I was relaxing and looking out of the window. I decided that I needed to rename this blog to Flourishing with the following phrases in mind - living, loving, surviving, and thriving.   The last phrase, Uncovering Light, comes from a two-word naming exercise developed by a great life coaching course I took last year. (lifeyounique.com) Today's text message from my good friend and the timing of her text reminds me that it is my heart's desire to discover what is means to flourish and bloom where I am planted in every phase of my life. And my big, big desire is for you to do the same.  So let's write, sing, dance, create, build, dream, rest and accomplish all that God has intended for us. And yes, let's do so even in the midst of it all. - A.  #flourish #justwrite #justlive #justbe

















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