I am in no way qualified to be a writer...

For years, my words have sat on a shelf in my guest room closet, closed up in the collection of journals I’ve kept since I was six years old.   I do not have a piece of paper that certifies me to be a writer worth reading. All I have is my story. And although I’ve always written, I've been careful not to identify as a writer.  No one cares what I have to say.  

But, whether or not there is truth to that thought, I still feel that deep longing to pick up my pen and crack open my journal.  The desire to write lives in spite of me. We all experience this creative pull. Maybe it’s painting, or  dancing, or woodworking.  And many of us question our own qualification to create.  But what I’m learning is that to be human is to create.  To be fulfilled and whole is to allow creativity to flow uninhibited.  It is the epitome of vulnerability.  So here I am.  I’m laying it out there, fully aware of my lack of qualification. 

As a little girl,  I didn’t climb trees for fear of falling.  I stayed at the bottom and called up to my friends to, “Be careful!”  I played the game of life safely, and as a reward, I got to remain whole and perfect-seeming. But, not so long ago, I sat quietly suffering my seventh miscarriage.  I recall one morning sitting in my Grandmother's antique rocker calmly sipping my morning coffee - some terrifying creature floating just beneath the placid surface.  My body clenched and cramping, ridding itself of what would have been my eighth child.   For the first time in my life, staying on the ground, not climbing the tree, didn’t save me from falling.  I didn’t know, until then, that the ground could actually just open up and swallow me whole.  

This is my story.  It is painful to write.  It will be painful to read.  But that is life.  Painful to live.  What has made it worth it is the moments in-between that reveal glimpses of the divinity of it all.  Those fleeting, misty moments that disappear as quickly as they appear.  I do not promise to be an expert in anything.  I am wholly unqualified.  Yet I wholly and completely promise to be honest.  It will be uncomfortable - for me and for you.  My most heartfelt thanks for being here.  For holding space for me to tell my story.  

In my favorite book, The Red Tent, written by Anita Diamant, the biblical figure, Dinah, ends the Prologue with a message of gratitude and vulnerability.  She says,

I am so grateful that you have come.  I will pour out everything inside me so you may leave this table satisfied and fortified.  Blessings on your eyes.  Blessings on your children.  Blessings on the ground beneath you.  My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over.  

Selah.