I link up with Lisa-Jo on Fridays for a writing flash mob…throwing caution to the wind and gathering to share what a few minutes of free writing can buy. (And after missing quite a few, I am so ready to be back to this!)
Today’s topic: OPPORTUNITY
GO.
I open the journal and inhale its pristine pages deeply. The lines are clean and light and perfectly spaced, and my pencil (always in pencil) is poised, ready to write whatever I bid it to write.
The first words are always the hardest. They set the tone and the pace and the method and the tone for the rest of the pages and I always begin a new one with a mixed sense of eager anticipation and intense pressure. I feel like I owe so much to those clean lines that are light and perfectly spaced. They deserve fluid and concrete thoughts that are written in perfect penmanship in that pencil. Always pencil.
As I write my dreams and hopes and goals for this year, I hold them loosely, like a balloon tied around my wrist, with the knowledge they can float away at any time if The Dream Maker bids them to go. Maybe that’s why I always write in pencil…for Him to know I’m not tethered to them unswervingly. That I’m willing to change direction should He need me to. That my thoughts are just that…thoughts. I am not beholden to them. They are beholden to me.
The past 12 months proved more challenging, more exciting, and more surprising than I expected on that first day of the year…as I opened the journal and inhaled its pristine pages deeply. It proved to be a year of coming face-to-face with my own faults, dreams, aspirations and shortcomings. And as I reflect on what was written on those clean and perfectly spaced lines just 52 weeks ago, I’m so grateful that I wrote with something erasable. Changeable. Because God had His way in my year. He took my penciled-in plans and rewrote the story His way. It was harder and more difficult and required more of me. But it was also clearer and more definitive and more focused.
So I bid my pencil to write my unbeholden thoughts for 2013 and release the tether and watch them fly away to divine opportunity. (<= click to tweet this)
STOP.
elevate ideas. 
Yes. Pencil. Always in pencil! Enjoyed your post & eagerly awaiting God’s infinite provision {written in stone?} for what we are here to do!!
Thank you, Grace! I’ve got big expectations for this year…hoping God writes them in in red pen even. :)
The thought of not being tethered to my thoughts is freeing. When I’m tethered, I’m bound. That’s never a good place for me to be. The opportunity for what can be is such an adventure, isn’t it? Always in pencil, of course. ;)
There is no adventure like a God adventure. You know?? :)
I recently started a keeping prayer journal as opposed to the “me” journal I have kept for some 18 years. It is a totally different outlook on life…and a complete change in attitude. And I love a new journal too. :-)
I love my prayer journal, too!! Thanks for visiting!
This is beautiful… I have been trying to hold plans with an open hand… So I can let it go if I need to … but also receive what God has intended for me.
It’s the hardest thing to do, isn’t it? Thanks for visiting!
Oooh, I so relate to the feelings of both anticipation and pressure when beginning a new journal. I love the concept of writing in pencil and the reminder that “my thoughts are just that…thoughts. I am not beholden to them. They are beholden to me.” Thanks for sharing so beautifully.