letting it marinate

Everything takes time to become something.  And everything needs a specific length of time to become something it's on its way to becoming - it's purposeful something.

If pulled back too early, a band-aid can inhibit healing.  If awoken too early, a restful time can become more harmful.   Time is required of all things and sometimes its immeasurable time.

Writing to me is like water - it's necessary to my being.  I'm one of those people who needs to be watered regularly and often.  (If you're paying attention, those really are two different and distinct things - regularly and often.)  I can't just drink one time and call it a day.  Oh, I do sometimes, though!  But I become withered and my brain becomes mush; my attitude lioness-like.  I have to drink often.  Writing is like that.  It's a have to.  It's a must.  And kind of like water, I have to write often and regularly.  But my kind of writing is the random kind on note cards with scribbled little phrases, thoughts and ideas.  I've got several little pieces of paper that follow me around until I've got something more to capture.  Then it goes in a notebook for more brain-dumping.  Marinating.

Ideas become seasoned and just like food, the flavors of the ideas come together.  My regular and often writing isn't seen by most folks as regular and often.  It's marinated until its ready to be tasted.  Like my cooking, it isn't perfect by any means, but hopefully it has flavor - sweet flavor that awakens the senses when savored.

It is my desire to make a difference.  Is that ideological to believe I can?  In this world of a billion-whatever-only-God-knows-how-many people, do I really think that little insigificant-feeling-me can make a difference?  That's like saying a single drop of rain in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is felt by my friend dipping her toes in the beaches along the Sarasota shore-line.  It's like believing that when I pray for someone, she can feel it.  Well, I kinda do believe that.  I'm one of those people who truly believes that anything is possible.  Anything.

And so, in my desire to make a difference I truly want to help someone come out of a feeling of hopeless dispair and into a light of joy and gratitude for the situation that is that angst.  I so much desire to help someone see the beauty that can be made from ashes, and the purpose in every single part of their story.  I want to help bring someone closer to Hope and Love and Peace and Grace, and it is Joy that is the decision to help see those virtues.  Joy decides to accept the story for what it was, what it is, and it's joy that looks to the future with a natural belief in hope.

In my longing to help others, I admit that selfishness and pride creep in.  I want to be noticed.  I want to be someone's savior, in a way.  I want to know that what I did helped them.  And yet, I may never.

I may never know if the hours I spent listening and talking with a few of the boys who I chose to love and invite into my heart - the boys who are given A Better Chance academically - if they will remember the things I said and be moved and helped by having been given a different perspective that will help them forever.  I don't know.

I don't know if the words I say today to my son will stick with him and help him later on, or if what I said two years ago will creep up into his mind if he ever parents his own child years from now.  I don't know.

I don't know if what I pray will give someone peace...or if what I said hurt someone when it was intended for encouragement...or if what I write will be noticed and helpful to someone today.  I don't even know for complete sure whether that God I worship is really there.

Faith is the evidence of things that are unseen.  This I read in the Bible.  And it makes so much sense.  I believe in God wholeheartedly (most of the time) and yet I'm still amazed when a friend calls me after I've just been thinking of her.  Faith never leaves me and I understand how I didn't choose it.  Try as I might, sometimes I try to shake it, but it remains a part of me and I believe in the Hope.

And so, although I often think I'm not noticed and I'm not valued, I know that's wrong.  As much as I tend to navigate toward living in the darkness, kinda like how I run - early when it's still dark and I can't be noticed by many -  I know that's not living wholly-me.  To keep to myself, even my writing, is wasting this life I've been given.  It's my choice.  I won't be loved any less if I don't live out loud.  But I'll miss out on so much, and potentially will so many others.  So, I'll keep on - letting my ideas marinate and then serving them up to be tasted - believing there is purpose in this life I live.

Letting ideas marinate and having Peace in the Faith that those ideas will have flavor, is progressive.  Ideas go somewhere when we let them have their way and become something in time.  And so, I believe that as I continue to marinate and become who I am intended to be over time, there will be an effect that may not be seen to me, and yet it doesn't matter because my choice to Trust and live wholly-me is my worship.