I'm back and (perhaps) better than ever.

Well, I’m back.

And to my frustration, none of the things I thought I’d be saying today are coming out at the moment. I have been sitting here tinkering with the keys on this keyboard for the past several minutes, and I have ended up deleting much of what I’ve written because this morning, nothing seems to really communicate the things I want to say.

So, instead of over-analyzing this setback and beating myself up over it, I’m letting it go and letting my hands loose. Sometimes when I let them do the work, they just go, clicking away so fast that I lose track of them, and before I know it, there are things on the page I hadn’t planned to put there.

In the end, those are the moments I relish, the moments when something comes out of me that I did not know was there, and when confronted with a blinking cursor the next time around, I remind myself that it is not a writer’s curse. A blinking cursor doesn’t mean the words have run out; it is a signal that something is in progress. It is a signal that when the next thought is formed, it will be ready to act. A blinking cursor is not a curse. It is a patient friend.

I have realized over the past few weeks (in large part to those of you who were so kind to encourage me) that the words I write are important because they are mine. Shocking, isn’t it? One would think I’m a little nutty if I am only now figuring that out. But I can’t help it—it was revealing to me. These words represent thoughts all my own, thoughts that are unique and meaningful because they represent something real—they represent me, my thoughts, my life, my interests, my choices, my perspective.

But in a world obsessed with self, I sort of panicked that if I continued to write about my own little world that I would seem self-involved to the outside observer. In a celebrity-obsessed world where ordinary folks are vying for a moment in the spotlight, I find myself questioning how much of what I see of them is real. Even on blogs, I am left wondering how much of it is for show and how much of it is real. I don’t want to leave anyone wondering if what I post here is real or not. I don’t want to create a façade, or make my life seem more perfect than it actually is. I don’t want to seem like I think I am more important than I actually am, and yet, I found myself long for significance. How do you marry those two thoughts? Not wanting to seem self-important and wanting to be significant at the same time?

In the end, I realized this: what I say matters, not because I am something important on my own, but because Jesus made me something special, and he has called me to do exactly the thing I fear most: bring Him glory by being who He created me to be.

Here is my pledge: I won’t pretend here. What you read, what you see—it will all be a real taste of who I am as I learn to live out the gifts He’s given me.

So here I am, an open book. Feel free to read.