permission to write {page four}

{via pinterest}

ever since i started writing, i've had that little itch. the one that leads to names on covers and best-seller lists and signings in book stores where people match face to paperback and whisper, "that's her. she's the author."  

i can't help it :: i want my writing to mean something. i want to make it onto lists and to be seen, for that hand to go around another's shoulder and point, "see her? she writes for Glory." i just wish i knew how to leave the fame-wish behind and put the influence dream in my pocket for later.

but then, maybe i don't want the fame. because i'm messy, and messy is it's own thing. see, people want to see that woman behind the table as someone put together, something just like them except way more collected and tidy. they want the ones with the smooth hair and perfectly straight-lined scars, the ones that speak softly, i was broken, but i'm okay now. everything is in place. 

but i'm not like that. my scars are jagged, messy. there's nothing tidy about my story, no straight lines and smoothly paved roads. my roads are the country ones, up and down with hills that keep the valleys invisible until you're in them, with twists and turns and the occasional pothole. there's paint in my hair and one of my heels broke on the way up that last cliff. 

it's like there's an invisible line of church people, queuing out the door, murmuring in that way that blends together in that strange buzzing roar where the words can't be distinguished. i don't have know what they're saying, not really. i can see it in their eyes.

she has a lot of questions. she said...that word, that one i can't say. she doesn't fit, not anymore. her veil is falling off, it's sideways. someone should go fix that for her. 

my hair is a mess because i've been wrestling, and there's dirt on my face and tears in my eyes and it's streaking down and dripping muddy water off my chin. i'm wearing Grace and not much else, and there's fingers pointing from all directions. and sometimes, i'm so raw that it hurts to be touched because i've been clawing off one layer after another and it burns like Fire. 

then it comes, the ripping, the throbbing, the tearing. and it's not pretty, it's bloody and messy and there's scales on the ground like broken glass and i don't recognize myself. and then i see the flash of gold behind me, and i know. i'm being reborn, and everything is shredded and sideways, and those scales are gone, right off my eyes and i'm blinking into beams of Glory.

and that's how i know i need to write. how i know the permission that has been set in my soul since before i learned to hold a pen. i need to write :: for the imperfect, for the ones clinging to the hem of the only One who sees them. for the dirty, for the messy, for the thrashing. 

for the ones like me.