Recently, I found a friend in the writing world who, not so coincidentally, (because I don't believe in coincidence) is also celebrating her 2 year anniversary from having brain surgery and chronic pain issues. She and I have been corresponding over the past week pretty in depth about our situations and recovery and how writing has been a constant in our lives before and after our surgeries. I so admire how she has used writing as a tool for healing both physically and emotionally from her circumstances. Writing was something that became difficult for me because I had a hard time stringing together coherent thoughts for a long time after the stroke that I became so discouraged with writing that I gave up for a long time. I did not give up reading however, that has stayed constant in my life and because of that my devotional time in God's word has stayed present, probably more so than ever before, and also I've read through so many books that I never thought I would pick up before.
One day about 3 months ago I got really frustrated with something I was reading because I just couldn't fully understand it without creating some sort of info graph to go along with it so I did what I haven't done in a long time, I pulled out the old journal. This time I wasn't using my journaling as a vent for my feelings or emotions at the beginning, I simply was writing out thoughts about what I was reading and creating an info graph to go along with the concepts I was reading to help me along. I soon realized that the longer I journaled through the book I inadvertently was also sharing my emotions and feelings about my struggles with information processing in my journal. Funny how that happens. I kept up the journaling with the next book I read because I realized that the more I read and put things to paper as I was reading the better I was able to string together coherent thoughts so this process has become like therapy for me.
My new friend's encouragement has sparked in me a desire to try again. So this is hopefully the beginning of a new era for the blog. I can't make promises but I want to keep things fresh here, honest, open, and inviting. I will share what's going on in my world with JW & our twins, the silly stuff that happens here on our small farm and I would also like to share with you the things of God that are going on all around us; what He's doing and how we can choose to see Him and share Him in the midst of a lot of pain and crazy all around us.
Will you join me every Friday for a cup of coffee and a post update? I will update the blog sometime Thursday night so it will be fresh on Friday.
For my friend's writings you can visit: The UNEDITED Movement Blog Look for Alyssa Landreth's posts
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