For almost 13 years, I’ve written on Facebook. And for a little over 10 years, I’ve written on this here blog.

That’s a lot of words.

But, more than words, it’s a lot of striving. And it’s a lot of heartfelt giving of my most vulnerable self. To sum up, there have been a lot of winnings and losings.

There are many ways and reasons to write. Sometimes we write because the words burn in us and we must scribble them down somewhere. We are driven to make a mark. Proclaim with a post or a picture and a caption, “Look! I EXISTED!”

Isn’t this part of the human condition? We all want to matter. We want to make a difference here in the atmosphere around us. On the plot of ground where we dwell for a little while.

But, the striving part. Oh, that part I want to be free from. The part where you post and then you check 100 times afterwards to see if you made an impact. The part where you write something meaningful and even beautiful and good that will help another soul grow stronger, but in all your craving to be useful, you lose a bit of your soul in the tallying up of likes and comments and retweets or shares.

It’s maddening. And frustrating. I have felt so condemned.

But, for the girl who wants to write, she must work through these things. She has to say out loud what all the motives are. Lay them out on the table and sort through them. Pray over them. Work with Jesus, who calls Himself the Word, to kick the conceited, ego-driven impulses out. Then, she must give herself a heap of grace and keep going.

After all, she doesn’t want to imagine a world where she can’t scrawl out words.

For, it’s in the jotting down of words that she understands her life. That she finds out what it is, she most wants to say. What it is she truly believes. It’s in the scratching of the pen and the tapping of the keys that she reaches another soul and that person whispers back to her, “Thank you. I thought I was alone. But, now I see I’m not.”

For the girl who wants to write, may I offer one word?

Abide.

But, why that word? And what does it mean?

To abide is to inhabit a place. To settle there. And I mean what John 15 means. That Jesus, who is the Word, wants you, dear writer, to keep on growing and to keep on going. But, not to try so hard to matter, without Him. It’s in making your home in His heart that you find your truest purpose and value and significance.

For Jesus says, that just as a branch of grapes can’t produce any fruit unless it is attached to the greater vine and gets it’s nourishment and life from that vine, neither can you bear any lasting impact, unless you are continually getting your inner strength and sustenance from Him, the true Vine.

My loves. Let this new year change the way you come to the page. Or to the screen. Or to the journal. To the space where words are waiting to be born.

We have struggled long enough over the impact of our words. Let us rest now, no longer fearing obscurity if we don’t post or publish or are shared enough times.

Let us abide. Deep contented breaths. Because the God who first breathed life into us, breathes into us even now. Sees us even now and is able to take our words, however humbly they come out and do far more with them than we can even imagine.

To the One who is the only Way and the real Truth and the most vibrant vivacious Life–let us pitch our tent in Him. Build our nest. Set up camp. Forge our home.

And as we put language to paper, may our good Father bless that bit or articulation and cause our words to flow from a place of fullness and confidence in His great love and acceptance.

Keep writing, little love.

And may the Lord bless us both to be able to write from a place of rest. For the sake of Jesus. (Amen.)