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For today, I have been thinking about how many people have asked me to blog daily and help others to journal and join the process I have begun here. I have also been encouraged by many now to take the blogs and write a book.
The funny thing is, if you bought my book, "Soul Poetry: The Big Book of Small Haikus for Reflective Journaling," you know that in my introduction, I proclaim my inability to read, no less write, devotionals on any kind of consistent basis. Yet, those who have been mentoring me have said that this process of mine IS an offering of devotionals. Which caused me to re-think what I have previously decided constituted a blog/journal/devotional.
This encouraged me to go back, way back, to when I was pregnant with Dylan, who is now 20, and the beginnings of what I felt was God's call to write a devotional book. Yes, I knew even then. But in typical Bonnie fashion, I put up my hands, after writing just a small few, and said, 'yeah, not for me, I don't do devotionals.' I can only sit here and laugh heartily at my arrogance as at that time God probably laughed just as heartily right back at me.
All this to say, when we write, in whatever manner, it comes from the heart. It is a gift of ourselves to God, to the life He has given us, and to all that He calls us to be. It is also God's gift to us. Why? Because it is, as I have said many times, our prayers to Him in written form. It is our one on one conversation with Him. It is our way to share our soul's pain and suffering, grief and sorrow, joys and triumphs with the one person who listens to every single word we utter. This is clearly something to consider as we pen those things that may be buried deep within. We are heard! I will repeat this...WE ARE HEARD!
As I said in my first book, I have committed to not rejecting God's call anymore and will, sometime later this year, be publishing my second book, "Give Me an F: Perspectives on Family, Failures and Faith." It will be, gasp, a more traditional devotional book that encompasses some of these blog posts with plenty of new ones, ones that I began 20 years ago, and it will incorporate my haiku poems with each devotional.
But for today, I encourage each of you, in whatever manner fills your spirit, to write those things on your heart. Write to the God who loves you and listens to all you have to say. I encourage you to not be afraid to yell and scream and question and ask for answers. You will not be disappointed. You will be heard. And it will give you unimaginable results!
"Writing from the heart,
Unburdens the soul within,
Allows it to soar!"
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