wine-tasting

tonight at WalMart, a woman touched my arm and spoke life over me.

I've never met this woman before and I doubt I ever will again. we were standing between peanut butter and hot chocolate mix and Keurig coffee cups, me leaning upwards on tiptoes for a jar just barely out of reach, her pushing a cart down the row toward me from behind.

"I just want you to know, I feel like you need to know, you're doing a good job at whatever it is you're doing." 

and then she walked away.

holy. holy. holy. 

this woman had no idea what those words did for me, the second breathing of prophecy over me in the past twelve hours. she has no idea how deeply I've been creatively pushing myself, she has no idea about the vulnerability hangover I've been nursing since I submitted my fictional short story for publication perusal on Monday, followed by pouring raw words of a far less fictional sort in yet another direction last night.

she has no idea that today was the day that I stood crying at my kitchen counter, overwhelmed with a thousand things bearing down on my shoulders. she didn't know that I've been laden with self-doubt and low on words since acknowledging my own worth. {does it get more ironic than that?}

{photo via pinterest}

I am the biggest enemy to my own creativity, to my own setting out and declaring. I'm fearlessly committed to encouraging others to embrace their words, tell their stories, pour themselves out, peel back the roughage and let their brave show naked and raw and powerful. and then I find myself at the top of a tree, a kitten who had no problem scaling the trunk and finding my cheerleading perch, but now I cannot get down and I'm suddenly stricken with unmatched fear.

I am ravenous for my own self-worth. it's there. I can smell it, the way wine drifts over from the glass and makes your mouth water and your tastebuds spring to life with anticipation. but someone convinced me that I'm a teetotaler and that picking up that glass would be death to my soul.

but the Lion is whispering, not roaring {He knows what my soul can hear}.

if you do not drink, lioness, then you will die of thirst. and there is no other stream. 

being brave enough to lift the glass, to down its contents and let them flood the depths of me is only half the battle. the second part comes when I must step forward and speak, knowing that they'll know what I've been drinking. it's a different kind of intoxication, the kind that brings life instead of death, the kind that leaves deception at the gate and ushers in life like electricity through the heart of a corpse.

it's not chasing the fear away. no, not at all. it's embracing the fear, letting it do what it must, letting it prove itself futile and watching it drift away on the breeze like ash as the brave-flames stoke higher and higher still.

if you'll excuse me, I've been invited to a wine tasting.

{inspired by a Story Sessions prompt. join us? there's always room for you here with us}