I am writing my Thesis. Right now. Well. Not this second, but I was a few seconds ago, and I will be again in a few more seconds. But I’m taking this moment, to use words to help me remember to breathe and rest and not waste these last few days before I’ll hit send and wrap up my stint as a Masters student.
I was watching a reality TV show last week and there was a woman on the episode who kept telling another woman she had forgiven her and that she loved her even though it was so obvious that she wanted nothing to do this woman because of what she had done.
I kept shaking my fist at the screen. I guess I’m a little bit weary of people confusing words with realities. As if saying ‘I forgive you’ means we forgive someone. As if saying “I love you” fulfills that command.
Dear Fabs,
I know you hate it. I know you hate that panicky feeling that sets in when you watch people leave the conversation and you know you won’t be able to control what they do next. I know you hate that fierce flash of anger that floods your soul and offers to protect you from the fear you actually feel when you hear what someone else is saying about you; how they’re telling your story with words that feel wrong and inaccurate.
“I wish you would write again!”
I hear that sometimes these days, at parties or when I bump into people in coffee shops.
Oh, the thought comes thick and fast in my mind with a little bit of an edge to it, I’m writing.
I’m writing. Hours and hours of writing. Writing my thesis, writing blogs, writing stories, writing books. Pouring words onto a page that I thought would be hard to find but are hard to hold back. Trying to wrap words and narratives around these experiences that make up this thing we call life.
I wrote these words on a dark day. I wasn’t thinking of you when I wrote it. I was just writing. I didn’t need to share. I wasn’t trying to be saved and I wasn’t looking for comfort. I was just trying to find words to wrap around reality.
I know there are those of you who church ‘won’t work’ tomorrow. Cause they’ll talk about a Gospel and a God who offers to save you from the dark and you will wonder why that doesn’t work in real life. Why dark still comes so swiftly and silently with all its suffocating strength if He is who He says He is.