Several months ago, upon sharing the first few chapters of this novel with a friend who has known me and my writing for many years now, my friend (basically) asked where my heart was. She noticed that my writing had changed. It didn't touch her as it used to. :( This morning, I noticed that, too. :D
I was reading and it arose in me to take the reader deeper into emotion, not to simply enable the reader to feel what my characters are experiencing, but rather to use my characters to reach into the hearts of the reader in order to let them know God has heard their cry, that they are not alone, that hope will come again, that solutions can be found, and they can and will be set free.
This is why I write.
Several years ago, God asked me, "If you could write a letter to everyone you know, what would you put in it?" I thought about that for a moment and replied, "I would look into the heart of each person, find the beauty of their true self and show it to them." And I know God touched my heart to make that so. However, through one trial or another, I shut my heart down. BUT... THEN GOD! :D
As I wrote in my status, I was closing my heart down at a rapid pace. I didn't want a breakthrough. I didn't want anything. Enough was enough. But God knew better. He set me free!
This morning, as I was editing, there was my heart again. Not the troubled one of two days ago, but the one He gave me; the one God urges me to use in order to reach into the hearts of others so they can see their own true beauty and worth.
Rejoicing over this, I had the urge to sing - as I do when happy. I mean, I don't sing, but I like to sing when rejoicing, even if it's just a heartfelt praise with words that reflect what God has done for me at the time. Upon wanting to sing this morning, I felt a nudge by the Holy Spirit and my eyes were opened to yet another healing, which brought me to joyful tears.
On the day of my very first heartbreak (which is part of my testimony), when I was about 7 years old, during the time when I attended Sunday School and had fallen in love with God and Jesus, I had been walking the hallway of my home, singing. As I approached the laundry room, I overheard my two older sisters talking to our mum. When I heard my name mentioned, I stopped singing. I entered that room to hear of something my sisters had witnessed being done to me, and the look on my mother's face, and her reaction to the news, broke my heart. God would tell me years after this event, when I finally gave this part of my heart to Him so He could heal it, that the moment my heart broke that very first time, and because of the manner in which it broke, the spirit of intimidation got in and it led me throughout my growing years, and way into adulthood. He also told me that that was the day I stopped singing.
Today He has showed me I've started singing again! :D *tears of great joy* Praise God! He has healed me!!
I'm back... The heart I was before I was broken that first time - and all the other times after it - is back. This is the heart God has never let go of. The heart of innocence (which we all have; Life breaks it and covers it over, but God still sees it). This is the heart God has always seen me as. This is the heart that God has always held close to Himself. This is the me He knows and loves - no sin tainting me/my heart, as far as He concerned.
I'm not the sin. I'm not the shame. I'm not the brokenness. And I'm not to blame for what happened to me.
I am a captive set free!
It's taken God a long time to heal me of this - and that mostly because I struggled to give parts of my heart to Him over the years. But He has done it. He hasn't given up. He never left me. He never stopped loving me. He kept the faith, as it were. :) He loves me... so now, as I did way back then, I sing...for Him, because of His great love, because He loves me, because I love Him, and because He is so very lovely, and because He is my God of mercy.
My heart is steadfast,
O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and give praise.
~ Psalm 57:7 ~