Beautiful Burps

I was trying to express to Greg how I feel when I write, and the best I could come up with was that it felt like burping.  Like everything I digest in life has spent a little time jostling around in my heart and mind until pressure builds, and  I burp.  And feel a whole lot better.  It's not the prettiest comparison, but it sounds better than what happens on the other end...if you smell my drift.

I spend so much of life just absorbing, taking in, and swallowing whatever life has to offer.  I've had meaningful moments with loved ones and interactions with not-so-much loved ones.  As I move through life, I feel like I only have a second or two to respond to each significant moment before the next one hits.  This includes some of my most precious moments with God.  It's like I feel this cloud of holiness descend on me, and then my three year old yells through the fog, "I need to go a lot of poops!" Onward Christian soldier.

But when I write, life makes sense.  There is something about pausing to make sentences out of all the jumbled thoughts and words in my mind.  To pull something concrete out of what otherwise seems like wet cement.  It really allows me to reflect in a way that is good for me...to realize how God is weaving His story in me and throughout me and the ones I love.  It gives me lessons, purpose and direction.  Writing, for me, feels like burping...the pressures of the absorbed life built up and released.  And I feel a sense of relief every time I pull something significant (to me) from the the fray.

For others (like my husband), writing feels like a form of Chinese torture.  And that's okay.  But I do feel that everyone needs to burp.  It may not be writing.  For some, it may be cooking.  It may be running.  It may be coloring in a princess coloring book.  Perhaps singing.  Making bracelets.  Painting nails.  There are treasures that God has given each one of us to allow us to pause and make sense out of the life that He's called us to.  Something life-giving, that we all walk away from feeling refreshed and renewed. 

Our God is a God who loves us and sings over us with great delight.  He has not only given us deep joy in knowing Life through His Son, but He has chosen to give us treasures along the way.  Treasures and talents, to make sense of the Life He's given us.  And to know Him more.   I know that my God is honored when I sit down to write.  I know that He is blessed when I pause and let out a beautiful burp.