Passions

I blink my eyes, and the past month is behind me. So much of its content failed to make it onto paper, and it is easy for me to blame that on the pace at which these weeks have happened... but that would not be the truth. That is not why the paper remains empty.

- - -

Last week, my husband and I went up to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland for a short (but blissful) beach vacation. On our way there, we got in a discussion about passions... specifically, what is mine and how am I using it currently in a God-honoring way? As I sat there in the car, trying to answer that question, I kept stuttering.

It was a disaster. I would begin talking about what my passion used to be... and I would catch myself referring to in the past tense. I would quickly re-cover and begin speaking about what my passions are now... only to realize that nothing in my life consistently proves them.

Splash, splash, splash... I needed floaties, I was so obviously drowning. Somehow after a few minutes, the conversation ended and we moved into other safer, albeit shallower waters. But my thinking about it, did not end.

- - -

I used to play guitar. I used to love it. I am a musician... does anyone even know this, of me? That I used to sit at my piano, for hours at a time... melodies would form and be straightened out, scales would go upwards and downwards, and my heart would hover over and within every single note. I would lose myself and find myself, practicing and playing, dreaming on those keys. As I grew older and my skill improved, a domestic pattern began to form... my father would get home from work on certain evenings, and after kissing my mom hello and checking on dinner, he would find his way into the room where I was playing piano. He would slip into the room quietly, would lie down on the sofa behind me... and he would listen.

Now that I have a house of my own, in a city that lies 180 miles away from him... I wish I had played a little bit longer for him in those moments. I remember how it felt, to have my dad listening to me play. I miss the purity, and the joy, and the sweetness of those moments. I'm so glad he stopped, and listened.

Now...

The piano has dust on its keys. I play the same songs, again and again. I can still read the music perfectly, but my fingers fail to move as quickly as they used to. What used to feel like a dance, now feels like a march... the moment I realize this, the ache permeates. Where did it go...? Something has slipped away, through these fingers that used to express my soul. My guitar needs new strings, and I cannot justify their cost... when was the last time I played them?

I remember the melodies I used to write... I reach for them again, I grasp at something new. My hand returns empty... the melodies have ceased. My guitar rests on its stand. The piano is silent. 

- - - 

I am a wife now. I married a man whom I love, and I am passionate about being his.

But he is often on the road. When he is gone, I am still a wife, and I am still passionate about being one... but there is no one to cook for in the evenings. I contemplate working on my sewing skills, cooking skills, vacuuming skills... but the 'Betty Crocker' in me kinda fades away, every time he gets on a plane. My domestic motivation trembles, sputters, dies out. I walk around an empty house, not knowing who to call or what to fill my evenings with anymore. I know that it didn't use to be this way.

And the fact that it is different now... whose fault is that, but my own? 

It is not time for me to become a mother, even though I look forward to this passion someday. I cannot spend my days preparing for that life... it is not my life yet, to prepare for. There are other things the Lord has called me to today.

I walk around the house, in a state of expectancy... as if inspiration will jump off the walls, and make its way into my soul. I cannot look at the piano. I cannot write about the way this feels.

- - -

In college, my hands would occasionally cramp up in the middle of class, because I had stayed up so late the previous evening... writing. Pages and pages, thousands of them, saying nothing and saying everything. Because I loved to write.

No one would ever read half of it (and sometimes I would have been mortified if they did). I would wrestle my heart onto paper, I would fight battles and wars at the tips of pens, and it would be in those moments that God would teach me of His character. Realities and truths would transpose themselves onto rhythms and rhymes, and poems would find life as problems faded. God would write Himself upon my heart, with new words and phrases, adjectives and metaphors... He would transcribe Himself onto things I had seen and known, and He would become the content of every single page.

It didn't matter what the pages said. All that mattered was that when I wrote them, I felt God there with me.

And now... and now. 

My pen is poised over the page in front of me. It starts the first sentence, and it falters. My hand sweeps across the page, as if to clean off something that it is in the way. I try again. The sentence drops off, the page remains empty. I wonder, yet again, why the large things in my heart keep getting stuck at the tip of a pen. I realize it didn't use to be this way. I cannot reconcile that, to now. Doubts enter my mind... about my talent, about my audience, about my motivation. I put the pen down. I walk away, unwritten.

- - - 

I know the reason why the ink keeps getting stuck in the tip of the pen. It's because the writer is scared. She is afraid of what the ink will say.

The ink will remind her of the notes she used to play on the piano, and it will write out the question: "Why do you no longer play?" It will begin to write of the emptiness and the quietness of her house, and it will ask her: "What should you be doing right now, that you are too afraid to do?" It will tally the minutes she has spent on Pinterest, trying to emulate everyone else's life except her own... and it will ask her, "When did you stop being content in being you?"

And she cannot bear to know the answers.

- - - 

As a Christian, my passion is to know Christ more, and to live my life excellently as unto Him. This encompasses all that I am (or at least hope to be), and I am to set it up as the reigning passion each day -  but within that overarching banner of passion, I'm beginning to see that there is much more that I often leave undefined, because of my fears. Because of my pride.

Christ made me to love Him... Yes. But He also made me to notice things like pops of color, and misspelled words. He gave me a way of expressing things, on paper. He instilled in me a desire to learn, to read, to understand. He stretched and grew my capacity to love, so I would cherish being a wife to my husband. He placed a tenderness in my heart, which He intended for the use of building up the hearts of other people He made. He gave me a soft, pure singing voice, that I look forward to using for lullabies someday.

He meets with me on melodies and piano keys. And He daily, perpetually, without fail has given me the desire to write about all of it.

- - - 

At what point did I walk away from all of this?

At what point did I begin to compare myself to all the others who were better than me, at these things that I love? I have walked away from those unique places God created in my heart, to meet with Him... that place of melodies, and poetry, and rich depths, and hungers and thirsts where He would meet with me, and only me. Where I am still. Where I know that He is God... and I believe Him.

At what point did I choose to hide those things, like a lamp underneath a bush... when did I become afraid of them? When did I become afraid to shine?

- - -

I believe the Holy Spirit was at work that afternoon in the car, on the way to Maryland. I believe He was uncovering a stone in my heart that needed to finally be rolled over and pushed out of the way.

A lack of passion. Not a lack of the feeling of passion, or the existence of a passion in my heart... but the lack of an acted-out, pursued, demonstrated, sharpened, risk-ready passion.

One that does not compare itself to other passions, belonging to other people.

That one passion that I can't get out of my mind, no matter what the circumstances are. That talent that I wonder about the most, and pray about the most, in the secret of my heart. That art that I am often the most insecure about creating or sharing with others.

That passion that I am most fulfilled by when it's done well, and that I am most discouraged by when it's done poorly. That longing I cannot be complete without... because how can I be complete if I cannot know Him? And I have know Him most, through the melodies and the silences - when the only sound was my pen scratching on the surface of a page.

- - -

Sitting in a car next to my husband, I realized how much time I've wasted, not participating in those things God has designed me for... and although this post was certainly a lot to share and expose, I cannot help but feel that it is worth the sharing. Broken and spilled out... this is me. It's always uncomfortable when conviction rests heavy, but at the moment of surrender we can once again receive that yoke which is easy and light - the peace of knowing Christ, and knowing that He has designed us to know Him through the very passions He has already placed within us.

I'm taking steps to resurrect these passions in my life. I am playing the piano at times when my husband can listen, and enjoy hearing it, and can tell me so. I am writing something - anything - daily. I will be blogging more, in efforts to get back in the practice of formulating my thoughts and wrestling out my faith onto black and white.

For me, these are the two passions He continues to affirm and confirm... they are the ways He has compelled me to share what He has done, and I have recently realized that for me to not do them, is not okay any longer.

So.

Thank you to all of you who consistently read such confessions, and encourage me to write them more. You have not known that there has been a war going on, inside my heart - that there have been times when I would have put my pens away completely, if not for your sweet words and aptly timed affirmations. Thanks also to my dad... for listening to me play, and to my husband, for reminding me of who I am.

And to my Savior, for renewing these passions in me once again.