Beginning Again

Years ago, I began a blog. Mostly because we had moved a world away from family and friends, I wanted a way to keep them involved in our life in Alaska, and I could not keep up with hand-written letters. Our family had grown, share-worthy stories increased, and so, “Tales from Boyland: stories and thoughts on life from a mom in a houseful of little men” was born.

I shared in that venue for many years as our family continued to grow. Then we upset the apple cart of life as we knew it. A move across the continent. Another move across the country. A failed adoption. Job changes. Another baby born. Failure to be settled again nearly 5 years later. Life has taken it’s toll, and for awhile I couldn’t bring myself to share the words. Sometimes the words wouldn’t come. More often, the words were there but too raw and I lacked the ability to express them. But it’s time to share the words again. Something inside me feels dead when I don’t process through words.

My love for words goes back to my earliest memories of a Fisher-Price chalk board and bright pink piece of chalk. Head-in-the-clouds dreamer, I ran through the woods and hay fields of Northwest Wisconsin surrounding my childhood home, and spoke out my stories to the butterflies, birds, beef cattle, and barn cats.

When I could spell well enough, I wrote my stories down on lined paper, and decorated them with stickers of strawberries and rainbows. I took a stack to school one day, and dreamily sifted through them at my desk. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Michaelson, walked slowly down the aisle and stopped at my desk.

“Jessie, what have you got there?” she asked. I hesitantly lifted one of the papers out of the Strawberry Shortcake portfolio and handed it up to her, waiting for my deserved reprimand. To my surprise, she did not chide, but after reading my scrawled-out, sticker-covered story, bent down and said, “Don’t ever stop writing your stories, Jessie.” My heart soared and a young writer was born.

I write to dream. I write to process. I write to share. Much of what I write is scrawled out in a myriad of journals and in a few digital files. Some things I share. Some things I don’t. What I share, I hope will benefit someone in some way. Maybe someone out there across the digital landscape will feel less alone because a thought resonates with her. Perhaps, someone will be better able to sense or see our faithful and lavishly-loving God in the midst of this crazy journey called “life” we are all on. If that is the case, my hopes in sharing in this blog will be fulfilled.