new seeds

I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust it will emerge as I write.

Henri Nouwen

This is a new beginning. Maybe it’s the spring in the air that has me inspired but really, this change has been coming for a while. These seeds were planted a long time ago. 

Because over the past year, as I’ve written many words and deleted most of them, and struggled to answer my friends and family when they asked What are you writing? I knew I had to figure out the answer to this question that loomed over me: What is it that I want to say? 

The writing gurus say “write what you know”. But I’ve also heard it said, write what you want to know.

And so I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking about this question A LOT. What do I want my life to be about? What is my heart searching for?

What kind of person do I want to be?

Journalling has been my best tool with this inner work of excavation. As a friend of mine once told me, she journals because it’s the only way she knows what she is thinking. Which is why I’ve spent hours filling page after page in my dollar store notebooks, and this past year a recurring theme started to emerge. Tangled between the stories about the kids, the complaints of having nothing to write about, bits and pieces of an argument my husband and I had the night before…were questions about my faith. I called myself a Christian but my faith didn’t go much further than that. My journals began to reveal something that surprised me –  I was ravenous for a deeper, more present spirituality. I desperately wanted a closer connection to God.  

Wow, I actually have a soul! I remember thinking. I had plenty of doubts, but what I really wanted? What I really wanted was to set out in the direction of faith and see what happened.

It hasn’t been easy, or perfect, but choosing faith was like going from black and white to living in Technicolor. I finally understand that faith is meant to be at the centre of my life and without it my life lacks purpose, and I lack vitality. When I am pursuing God I feel like myself, and that is a wonderfully liberating thing. 

Which brings us here, to this space. To these words I’m writing and which you are now reading. Whether you’re full of faith or doubt or a crazy blend of both, I want this to be a place where we can pause in the midst of our busy lives, in a loud, distracting world, and just breathe. To take a moment to believe together. I am always on the lookout for sources of encouragement and inspiration on this journey, but like buried treasure they can be difficult to find.

I hope this place, these words, will be a source of both. I believe writing can do that – can move us, awaken us, change us – because it’s done this for me time and time again. 

This is about letting that fire inside of us  – of Love, and Light and Life – grow big and bright. 

xo Andrea