I loved exploring when I was a kid. My earliest memory was when I was somewhere between two and three. I was sitting under wooden porch steps playing in the black Dallas dirt. Digging with my hands I found a plastic spoon. What a discovery! It was my first memory of feeling apt; I had found something.
I do that same thing with writing. I slip off to some obscure quiet place all alone to dig into the recesses of my heart and mind. So many things are hidden there. I always find something, something that somehow got lost in the dirt of busyness and things. I sometimes find things I don't want to find, filthy things I don't want there...garbage. It's a humble find.
Occasionally I find some broken thing, just a piece. It's an exciting find, I'm onto something, and I dig in the same spot hoping for the rest of the missing pieces. Sometimes I find them, sometimes I don't.
When I feel I've lost some intangible thing I put a high value on, I get antsy to get alone and dig. This is usually a major dig and requires a healthy hunk of time. Oftentimes I don't find it, but in the process come across something of infinitely more value. A genuine gold nugget, a pearl. Hmmmm. A "value adjustment" you might say.
I believe God uses who I am and places those nuggets, those pearls where I will find them. Funny. He gave me those very traits and tendencies, that bent toward creative digging, so that I might find the pearls he placed there.
Sometime it is easy, like it falls right out of your sleeve. Othertimes, it is tedious, tiring, frustrating and yeilds little. Oh well.
Yes, I have a bent toward digging. I can only wonder if that discovery process did indeed begin at two in the black Dallas dirt. All I know is, I find things when I dig. And it's vital to know what's in your own dirt.
everhope
that's okay because i love writing.
