Finding the Writer's Voice

Achieving a dream

is about more than

what you accomplish.

It's about what you become

in the process.

-J. Maxwell

Yesterday, when I posted that prayer, I felt raw. Like I had peeled my soul's skin back and left it open to the air.

"Dear God," I thought, "What am I doing?"

Here, I am writing so "close to the bone" that there is nothing left but bone, and the secret spaces where I draw my breath. People I have never met can read it.

"What will they think when they see me running out in the open like that?"

But this is how I find my true writer's voice. Spare nothing. Make it real, as real as the blink of the eye, the gulp in the throat, the moment awake in the middle of the night. Then I can hear myself speak. The sound resonates all the way through to the ground under my feet.

This is about becoming, about going back to the beginning, about seeing the future. All at once. It is hard, like the grip of a climber on a rock that barely holds his weight. The balance is maintained as long as there is forward momentum.

"Don't look back. Don't stop. Don't overthink it. You were made for this. You were made to climb, to strain for the vision with muscles shaking and mouth dry, to find the space that only you can hold."

As long as there is light, I must work.

As long as I work, there is light.

My heart pounds and rises with the upward slope. My eyes focus on my next step. The way is beautiful and dangerous. There are things on the path that would take me out: pride, self-pity, fear, laziness, selling short, being satisfied too soon, ways of defending myself. But the heights are filled with the joy of becoming. Every step makes me stronger.

There is a life I will live because I have accepted the challenge, because I have undertaken the battle, because I have stepped out into the open. I will be changed by it. The gift of the battle is not the victory, sweet as it is.

He who loses his life will find it. This is the thing worth dying for. This is my heaven on earth.

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I'm indebted to Kelly @ {this} restless heart for the quote by J. Maxwell. I first saw it on her blog.