// releasing all over again

{via pinterest}

i used to blog every single day.

before the season of my life when i was pregnant with our daughter, i was hitting publish every single day. and it was less because i was prolific, and more because i had a simple selfish goal in mind: i wanted to be famous.

at the time, i was barely out of my teens {which, if you want to be technical, i'm still barely out of my teens} and was shuffling my way around the youth blogging world. and let's be honest, there are some amazing young bloggers out there who are really putting their voices out there.

and of course, i wanted to be just like them. i've wanted to be a famous writer my entire life, and i suppose i thought, if i can't get a book published, i'll put my blog in the limelight instead.

but i lost myself somewhere in that process. i can remember staring at the laptop nearly sobbing with fear :: i don't know what to say. i'm out of words. but i have to write. 

my pregnancy which started out my 2012 spun me for a much needed loop. and down i came from my self-constructed pedestal , striking a lot of rocks on the way down that rocked me to the very core. my husband calls it the demolition. i call it the dark night of the soul. my wrestling with the Most High.

:: it was here that i started to find my voice.


the poet-king wailed his psalms, his poetic voice. and like David, wrapped in a cave in the side of a mountain, i started to strum my soul's strings and things started to come out. scary things, things that intimated me, things that made me want to shut down and give up.

but something told me not to do it, that maybe there was a purpose in this little internet corner that was about more than being famous, that was about reaching out and smearing warpaint on the cheeks of those who needed to know there was more, that they were more....and that they were seen. 

there is a gush of sacred, an embracing of selah, and the screaming wailing war-cry akin to giving birth. because it's a hard process, and it takes incredible strength. and it's okay to reach out, to take the hand of a soul-doula and press your forehead to hers and let it pour.

maybe it's not about the amount of words i can pound out in the space of a week. because i've started to find my groove, less posting but more writing. my word for 2013 was release, a word that i did not fully understand until these past couple months. a word that has been gripping me by the heart and speaking in the voice of the Lion that i adore

:: let. the eff. go. 
release to Me, you lioness.  
because I promise, I have not failed you yet.

and i've started to exhale, feeling all of me unclench and the surrender coming like a broken dam that brings a lot of tears and a lot of clinging to the One who is counting every single drop. the One who is seeing my awakening and is stroking my hair while i let it all go.

the King of Kings is holding back my hair.

and i'm not done yet, not by a long shot. i'm still working on my book, a dream that i have never given up. i have a brand-new jar of warpaint and a beautiful tribe with their hands on my shoulders.

and i'm ready.