Sometimes I take pictures of food and think that maybe I’ll post a recipe.

Or I’ll see something in my house that I like, so I pretend I’m going to be a blogger that posts about how I decorate.

Or the kids.  Yeah.  My kids are cute.  And funny . . .

And then when I sit down to write, words flow out of me that scare me a little.  I wonder if it’s right to put words out there that are so personal.

Eliza gets into the markers and I don’t even notice because I’m not paying attention.  I just keep writing.

When I was in third grade, my teacher told me that I was a good writer.  Maybe I was.  Or maybe I wasn’t.  It doesn’t really matter.  What matters was that I believed her and since then, I’ve worked hard to use my words, to craft them to convey what my heart feels.

There are other days when I sit down to write and nothing happens.  Sometimes I just don’t want to.  Or I have nothing in my head coherent enough to string together.

I’ll fold the laundry and think about something amazing . . . but it’s just too hard to put into words, so I end up not trying at all.  Because haven’t we all had something that we thought was going to be the best, only to be embarrassed at how it really turned out?

And then?  Then there are times when I write something that I’m afraid isn’t even true in my life.  Am I trying to be someone that I’m not?  Am I painting a picture of the person that I wish to be, when really my life is lying in shambles around me and I don’t even know how to begin to pick up the pieces?

Don’t you see why I just want to post a DIY and call it a day?!  A picture of a few ingredients, a jar of modge podge . . . that I can do.  Couldn’t I?

So much in our lives take courage.  Courage to live, courage to be a friend.  Courage to fail, courage to grieve the failures.

When we feel our courage hanging on by a thread, we finally realize that we’re where He wants us to be.  At the end of ourselves, ready to let Him lead.

John 9:2-3 talks about the man who was born blind.

“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? 
Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. 
“This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”
I know that the hard things– the very things that I don’t want to write about– are the things I’ve been called to share so that the power of God can be seen in me.  And it humbles me.  

So I write the hard words . . . and I put that new recipe post firmly out of my head.  Maybe someday.  But not today.

What is He stirring in you?  Don’t shy away from it.  Skip the courage and bow your head.  The Hard Thing just may be your next right move.