My Writing Story

At first glance I was tempted to say I started writing when the 4^th of our 6 children was suffering from debilitating eczema.  I wanted to chronicle all that we were doing, to keep track and to be able to remember what worked and what didn’t.  It was 2006, and I had a much-neglected blog on homeschoolblogger.com so I just used that.  But when I began to really think and search my writing history, I realized that my love of writing started much earlier in life.

It’s funny how easily we can forget things when life happens.  This past summer we moved from the suburbs to “the country”.  Kind of by choice, mostly by necessity - that’s a whole other story.  But as I was moving boxes around in our very-old-but-new-to-us home, I came across a few boxes labeled “memories”, which had not been opened since the last time we moved 8 years prior.  I broke the seal of packing tape and found the box was full of notebooks.  Upon leafing through them I realized many  were my old prayer journals.  Journals I’d kept, but forgotten about.  Journals from before becoming a wife and mother. 

As I read these journals I was astounded by the depth of what I’d written; the depth of my relationship with God; the time I invested in pouring out my soul to Him on paper each day.  I could hardly remember that being part of my life.  But I did begin to remember.  I did love to write much earlier in life than I thought.

I think the beginning of my love of writing was my junior year of high school.  I started out in the “advanced” literature class.  But I was so intrigued by my classmates in the “normal” composition class, carrying around those plain black composition notebooks that just looked so interesting to me.  I don’t know how long it took, but I did eventually drop the advanced class to join the ranks of the non-advanced, and I got my own prized composition notebook and began writing.  We were required to complete 3 journal entries a week.  I’d never been much of a journaler before.  But this, I loved!  And I found the other writing assignments that year to be so enjoyable.  It was never “work” to do English composition homework, though challenging.  It was fun!  That teacher both inspired and encouraged my writing.

I hadn’t intended to put down my pen, but it happened.  The kids came fast and furious, and by the time we had our 4^th in less than 5 years, I’d forgotten I’d ever written much at all.  I’d lost my writing self, my voice, among many other pieces of myself.  Our 4^th child, with his 24/7 pain and itching, required me to give what little of me I had left.  But I did re-kindle that love of writing because of what we suffered through together.  After he began to get better, I continued to write. 

Over the years since then our family has faced crisis after crisis.  As I’ve written about our experiences here and there I’ve had more and more people encourage me to write a book some day.  Until last year I always brushed it off, taking it more as flattery than anything else.  But the crises and challenges of the last 2 years especially have awakened a new writing desire in my heart.  Not so much the crises and challenges, but the overcoming.  The hope and joy and peace I’ve found in the midst of what often feels like my world crashing down around me.  These are the things I want to share, because my life experience has taught me that we are not alone in our struggles - even the darkest ones.  Everyone has their battles, and most of us keep them well hidden.  My desire is to write about what I have overcome so that others can know they are not alone and they, too, can have the peace, hope and joy that I have found - regardless of circumstance.

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This has been written for a writer's group I joined through (in)couraged.