THE LIFESTYLE JOURNAL

I feel like I’m breaking the writing silence for myself today and if I’m being honest, it’s a bit uncomfortable.

In some ways, it feels like a slow retreat. I feel the welling in my eyes and a tightness in my chest as I hold back a few tears.

It feels like returning to an old friend you deeply miss and you’re not sure why such a distance has developed.

 

The funny thing is, I write every single day. But it’s usually for my clients or in the “voice” of Copy Uncorked. Although any outsider could most likely see how hard it would be for your job to be writing and your hobby to be writing, I didn’t seem to think it would change anything for me.

But with writing as my profession, it’s become scarier to write about my “feelings” and experiences, despite having vulnerably shared across some form of a personal blog for so many years.

 

Writing has become strategic. Calculated. Research-based. Monetized. Something I do to help my clients make a living, and of course, to make a living for myself.

Now in my 30’s – I’m no longer in that “figuring it out” period of my 20’s. I’m fully healed from past struggles. (Not that the present doesn’t have struggles of its own.) But it’s left me wondering – What do I write about now?

Not to mention, the internet has become a bigger and yet simultaneously smaller place. Everything feels so much more public and permanent. And so I’ve shied away from writing across this blog or on Instagram.

I’ve focused on growing a business and forgotten what it feels like to work things out through words, even for my eyes only.

 

If I’m really telling the truth, I’ve never felt like much of a “writer” on my own. My own words run dry. They’re nothing special.

But when the Holy Spirit’s words are at work in me?

His words run deep. They cut through the noise and seep straight into my distracted, distant heart. The words he’s given me are the ones I’ve been proudest to share.

Yet, it’s hard to write about whatever message he’s sharing when I’m not doing a good job of listening for it.

 

I love that aspect of writing about faith. It requires that you put work into your relationship with God. It demands the authenticity of being “in the Word”.

You can’t manufacture it. You have to engage.

 

A weeks ago we’d just pulled into the driveway when this lyric came over me like a flood:

 

“I’ll count the joy from every battle ’cause I know that’s where You’ll be.”

 

I felt God’s presence envelop me as my forehead fell into my palms and I just let the tears run.

I don’t know what it is about me and the start of a new year, but I have very mixed feelings about it.

Despite my good intentions, I’m guilty of taking matters into my own hands and forgetting where my help comes from. I forget that the battles I’m fighting belong to the Lord.

I forget that my identity is first as a daughter of God, before any other title I wear. I forget the confidence that comes from having a kingdom mindset.

I forget that my joy comes from hope in Jesus, not hope in my own capacity or other people’s actions.

 

Because the truth is, what we build in our own strength, we will have to carry in our own strength. But what we build in His strength, will carry us.

 

If you can relate to feeling even remotely the same way, go to Spotify and look up any Christian worship playlist (Hillsong always brings the tears) and just let the peace and promises of God wash over you.

This Christianity thing gets so hard and even messy at times because as Bob Goff has said, “We’re trying to look the part instead of being like the person. [But] we’re not an advertisement for Jesus. We’re supposed to be proof.”

When it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is our faith expressed in our lives.

We can spend our lives walking in circles, growing cynical, searching for purpose, demanding black and white answers, or we can decide to take back what it is that God has for us.

We can count the joy from every battle because we know that’s where He’ll be.

If nothing else, find your strength in surrender because you can trust in this:

 

Your battle belongs to the Lord. And the beautiful thing is, your victory does, too.

 

x, Kaitlyn