Words {Part 1}

Everything I experienced at the Influence Conference is still swirling around my brain.

That conference was a marker for me.  I’m different now than before I went.

I’m freer.

Wow that word looks strange.

It’s supposed to read “free-er” as in more free.

Let me rewind for a minute…

I love words.

I’ve loved them since probably around 3rd grade when our homeschool curriculum initiated me into grammar boot camp.

That language arts program was the bomb dot com.

Very thorough with lots of rules…it was just my style :)

Oh I’d whine and complain about having to write papers (right, mom?), but once the research and outline and boring crap was out of the way, you couldn’t tear me away from writing the paper.

I would become consumed with the process.  Thinking of just the right word, reading and writing and re-reading and re-writing…by the time I’d finished the paper I had read the beginning about a hundred times.

I still write like that :)

There was something captivating about weaving words together to convey ideas.

I still have papers that I wrote back then.  Crappy handwriting and all.

Some things never change…

I still don’t have the patience to write neatly which is one of the reasons why blogging is so awesome.

Keyboard, baby.

At 8 years old I loved words and at 33 I love them even more.

I honestly get a thrill when someone says, “What’s that word?  You know, the one that means…”

My brain fires up and starts rifling through all the words inside looking for the right one.  And if I find it?

Well, I’m all too pleased to shout it out.

Words are my thing. 

I love them.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve been blessed to hear so many good words.

Words that convey who I really am.  How truly loved and precious I am.  How I’ve never really been alone.  How I’m not messed up beyond repair.

Those words have been a balm to my soul and I treasure them.

I’ve also heard lies.

Words that convey false ideas about who I am (screwed up, inconvenient, desperate) and what I have to offer (second-rate imitations, things someone else has already done better, nothing).

I try to be full on the truth so that I can’t bear another bite when the lies sit before me, but I’ve gobbled them up more than I realized.

Lies like…

You’re just a small blogger.  No one cares what you have to say.

You could never be a food blogger.  You don’t have a fancy camera, and you’ll never take pictures that are good enough.

It’s totally narcissistic to publicly write about your life, post pictures on Instagram, tweet your random thoughts, Facebook about what you’re up to, and pin recipes that you’ve made.

You are too old to post selfies.

You are too bright and gaudy and not nearly minimalist enough or chic enough for people to give a hoot about your outfit, so stop taking pictures of it and leave that to the truly fashionable women.

Good Christian women don’t spend time on the internet.  They are busy cleaning and cooking and having tons of kids and reading their Bibles all day long.

You’re the mom on the iPhone.  You know, the one that everyone is judging.

Some of these things may actually be true, but that’s not the point.

The point is that I believe God planted my love for words deep inside my heart.

I think He made me this way for a reason and I don’t think I’m supposed to squander it.

And I also think that words are very important to Him too.

Afterall, He did SPEAK the world into being.

He could have created things any way he wanted to, but the Bible says he spoke.

More on this in part 2…