that thrill like music

In 1916, in a letter to his lifelong friend Arthur Greeves, C.S. Lewis penned the following question onto paper: "Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you - almost apart from their meaning - a thrill like music?" 

I first read that question in a book when I was 16 years old... and the impact it had on me, awoke my soul. I remember where I was. Upstairs in my old bedroom, at my old house, where my parents still live... I was lying in bed, propped up by some big pillows I was then using as a faux-headboard - and I remember it hit me like lightning.

Up until that point in my life, I had largely understood my love of reading and writing as something merely personal, between me and God... something unique about me, sure, but mostly just a hobby or something that didn't really mean much or impact much - and perhaps if I was being really honest, a hobby that I allowed at times to separate me (or rather, shield me) from that other, more difficult alternative known as high-school, or in other words, real life.

In secret, I liked being smart, and being the girl that read and wrote a lot, who knew how to put words together... but it hadn't exactly gotten me anywhere, and I often felt stuck (even sometimes imprisoned) in my own head. Girls (and, okay, a fair share of boys) liked me because I was kind, and spunky, and I had cool haircuts - but they also didn't sometimes know what to do with me. Friday night life didn't appeal to me, nor did big parties, or sports, or pretty much anything else that seemed to appeal to the majority of my friends. It was not uncommon for me to really begin to doubt myself, and the value of my interests... and although not evident on the surface, there were some rough years for me and my faith.

In the meantime though, there was a whole life I was living inside pages, upon them, between them, and because of them... and often what I understood was that my life at school, at home, and in youth group sometimes had very little in common with the life I lived inside my books.

And then one evening, I came across that sentence, inside of a book, written by a man I've never met... and I wept.

In that moment, I came to understand. There had always been something about the way certain words were formed, that moved me and captured my breath from within my chest. A pretty phrase could surface tears to my eyes, quicker than anything else. My soul would ache as I would read certain books, and up until that moment, I hadn't quite understood why.

But I came to understand in that moment - that it wasn't ever only a sentence itself or the formation of words that had the potential to move me - rather, it was the larger Word and Truth that beckoned to me from beyond them. (This is still the way God seems to get to me and reach me the most.) For the first time in my life, I wondered if perhaps I had been designed to find beauty in words, and the world that they directed my heart into. I saw what had just a moment before been a private, internalized, dusty old hobby spring to life and stand up tall with newfound purpose. Could it be...? Was there a beauty that I had been looking at all along, there in every page of the books I was reading, that could actually awaken me and draw me into the beauty of He who is something more?

I felt like I had found a secret tunnel, straight into the heart of God. It was a tunnel called words, literature, metaphor, description, vocabulary, study, expression, poetry, articulation, and verbal imagery... my heart finally had found the song that matched its beat.

Writing became a passion, literally overnight - and it is one that has grown and deepened (sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly) ever since. I became suddenly aware of a desire to contribute. I wanted to make an impact on the kingdom of God that I had recently become a part of, at the age of 14.

And I wanted to do it through words.

Throughout the past 13 years since that night, I've continued to grow more familiar with other brilliant writers like C.S. Lewis, such as Madeleine L'Engle and Richard Foster, and also newer names like Nichole Nordeman, Donald Miller, and Ravi Zacharias. My faith has grown deeper from their insights, and the way they wielded words together, forming something that meant so much more than the words themselves...

And there has been a thrill like music, in my soul.

- - -

I write all of this out tonight, because I've been praying a lot lately about my writing... and where to go from here. I have no answers to those prayers yet, no particular leadings or leanings, no signs or directions, other than to just write. Write about what I know, what I love, and Whom I love... write about the Love that found me first, and claimed my life as a testimony of His own.

I've recently begun an educational course at my church that has further re-awakened all of this. I'm digging into Scripture for homework, answering difficult questions about my faith and Jesus, and re-discovering who He said He was, rather than who I've come to believe He is. The beat is quickening in my heart, and I feel it surge forward again each time I open up the Bible or my text books to study. None of this is happening by accident... and none of it ever was.

On paper, fast-food napkins, computers, and scraps of gum wrappers... write, pray, and write some more. This is all I have for now.

Put the words together in such a way that maybe someday, if God wills it, someone else's heart might come alive or awaken to their purpose. That they too might come to hear and understand that Holy hush, that Spirit's whisper... that funny combination of words that gives them, almost apart from their meaning,

that thrill like music.