Dreams, are for daring them true--SheSpeaks

I wrote poetry and prose and hid them for no one to see but me. Braving only a few eyes other than mine to read one or two, my face would flush hot about mid-way through those words.

Between rhyming lines I was afraid. As if another's opinion of my verse somehow valued me. Labeled me good or bad, a success or failure. It was difficult to breathe when sharing, so I saved myself the agony.

Then I quit. Destroyed my piles of poems, prose, short stories and became a blank slate of living life and leaving words out of it.

No words, no risk.

And for a season, I needed safety to live and rebuild and risk my heart with Him. Not my words.

But things change and some take years. It's been a rebuilding of who I am, of how I'm a Bride and how He calls us each to this, and I was wooed back. His words drawing me to edge of all I knew safe.

To risk again.

I'm terrified. But isn't this what dreams are: for daring them true?

Don't we all have something God has birthed right there, deep down in the dark recess? How we are all different parts of this Body and I need your gift too. This is why it's worth risk. Why we need to pull out these God-dreams and have courage to share them. Because holding back means your hidden gift also hides the blessing.

My passion for words has been rebirthed and only He could've resurrected this thing once dead. And holding them back is like a dam needing a spillway and I only want to pour Him over.

So I risk. To be faithful however He calls, knowing I need yours as much I need mine.

The way He restores life after devastation and I clung to this Hem which heals, these are the words I want to tell. It's the way childhood trauma defined me in so many ways, until I dropped labels, hurts and was refined by a Word.

The way in which a past was cleansed by saving Grace and I continue to search it's depths. How others showed me this, many someone's with their words revealing His and I want to repay them with mine.

It's how beauty from ashes isn't just scripture, but Truth-in-action and I want you to honestly know it. My own prodigal waste returned me to my Father's house (more than 13 years back), to only be--servant. It's all I counted my worth in His kingdom, eating crumbs from His table and not much else.

But He values us more than we value ourselves. It takes looking into His mirror to really see how we truly are and I want to hold the mirror for you.

We need eachother to spur us on toward the race set before us and this is why SheSpeaks. This is why I risk and you do too. God birthing something, not for boasting self, not for worldly gain, not for just one lonely us, but for the One and only.

As scary as it is to admit to the world-wide blogsphere, I'm entering a scholarship and I might "lose", here I am.  All those old labels want to list off why I shouldn't. And succeeding has it's own host of fear.

But we're all winners in Christ. It's why risk is worth anything at all.

Although flesh knows failure, my spirit knows Him and there's the prize. And this is why SheSpeaks, speaks to me. To know the Prize.

And speak.

"She Speaks Conference is about women connecting the hearts of women to the heart of our Father God and that your heart is to serve Him and His daughters, as He leads."  --Ann Voskamp 

For more scholarship info click SheSpeaks at Ann's. (so I hit "publish" and feel a bit queasy --ack!--)