freedom :: press send {220-227}

no one told me it would be this hard.

barely two days, and this thing of brave already has my fragile fingers shaking. and all it took to make my heart beat faster was pushing that button. 

:: send ::

because the first thirty pages of my book just went to an interested publisher. it took a precious one in my life to get me to get the courage to click that mouse and let it fly from security to unsure. it's my fragile soul, a month of bleeding onto the paper and turning thought into word and imagination into fiction. 

and now it's out of my hands. and i'm petrified. because i don't do rejection well. 

really, does anyone? 

but i'm bad at counting blessings etched on my soul when i'm too busy shaking in the corner with fingers draped over eyes whispering

please don't let me fall

i can't do this.

but i count anyway, one and two and three and four...

• 220. courage. knowing that courage is more than doing, it's being. 

• 221. vulnerability. 

• 222. the voice of a precious friend, urging me to be brave and leap. press send.

• 223. grace. so much grace when i deserve it not. 

• 224. warm soup on a day so cold that noses go numb and fingertips shiver. 

• 225. fresh starts and clean slates. brand-new year, 2012. 

• 226. puppy kisses and The Bachelor on winter nights. 

• 227. healing tattoos, eternal reminders of my place on His palms. 

so i still count. because nothing stops my racing heart more than drowning in eucharisteo, in letting the focus slide away from fear and up further, in further. 

because it's being brave. it's being, all on its own.

it's surrendering in the darkness, waiting for the Light to come again.

{linking with Ann and my sisters in gratitude today}