writer

Hello again!

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

It’s been a minute since I’ve written in this space. (Since January of last year, to be precise.) I have been encouraged in a handful of conversations over the past few weeks about writing. So I’m going to dive in yet again.

I love to write. I’ve always loved words. Their power to capture my imagination as I was whisked away to fictional worlds like Green Gables and Narnia as a child. The way finding the words for experiences and emotions swirling within me helped me to process them. Isn’t trauma often marked by the loss of words? We hit a wall where even words can’t seem to find us and show us a way out.

I’ve been there before, but that’s not the reason for my absence in this season. I’ve been engaged in a new writing project that I’m thrilled to be able to announce, as it will be released in early October. It’s a book about something I need – and that you need – and that, in fact, we were created to enjoy.

R E S T

Wherever you are, take a moment and notice how the idea of “rest” makes you feel.

Wistful? (What you wish had more time for in your busy schedule)

Nostalgic? (You fondly remember a season in the past when you had time for such a “luxury” – maybe before kids, or before entering adulthood, or before you began the climb on the corporate ladder)

Guilty? (I know I should be resting more, but I just can’t figure out how to make this happen.)

Peaceful? (Yes! Rest helps me savor life; remember what’s good and beautiful.)

There is no wrong answer, by the way. As I write these words, I can identify with all of them. I do wish I’d make more time in my life for regular rest and that I’d live out of the grace of resting (wistful). I remember life before kids, when I did have more semblance of control over my schedule and could more easily “step away” from responsibilities (nostalgic). And oh my goodness, on the eve of completing this book about rest, I can feel so guilty for not practicing what I write (guilty). But what I’ll choose to land on is this sense of well-being that comes as I take a few moments to stop and notice the still-bright-summer-evening, to savor today’s pace that was a break in this busy week (peaceful).

It’s the absence of rest in my life that drew me to engage in writing about rest. But more about that later. Without further ado, I present to you my next book: Rest: Creating Space for Soul Refreshment. It’s part of a 31-Day Devotional Series published by P&R, with series editor Deepak Reju. Stay tuned for more details … and for now … take a moment to R E S T.

Five Minute Friday: Twenty

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 8 Comments

The essence of this weekly writing practice of Five Minute Friday: Five minutes on a weekly prompt, no editing, just free-flowing words and stream-of-consciousness. And a supportive writing community hosted by Kate Motaung – head over to fiveminutefriday.com to learn more.

Twenty years ago I was in my 20s. What an odd statement, mostly because it makes me feel so old! Although I wouldn’t go back to my 20s – let me make that clear – it was quite a decade of change. I graduated from college; taught school; volunteered in youth ministry and college ministry and bilingual kids’ ministry; pursued a different calling to seminary and counseling; got married; and lived in Chicago, South Carolina, and Philadelphia. I look back at my 20s as a decade of discovery – discovering who God made me (and who I wasn’t), who God was calling me to share life with, and how I wanted to serve the broken world in which I found myself.

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I’m going to be honest: as soon as my timer finished, I felt disappointed in how little I had written and I didn’t want to post this. Yet as someone who believes that vulnerability and imperfection actually creates connection and isn’t a barrier to it – I’m going to publish this post. Some prompts are more inspiring than others, and some days I write more fluidly than others. This is part of the struggle of being and becoming a writer. Too often it’s the polished words that find their way into my hands, and I have to remember that’s rarely where they began. Every book has a humble, often bumbling, beginning. So I’m reminding myself of that with today’s words.

Five Minute “Friday”: writer

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Last weekend I was a retreat speaker on a topic that is my story, “When good girls get it all wrong.” I hope to post some vignettes from that retreat here soon, but this week has held recovery and rest – with the unexpected twist of nursing my twin daughters to health after a dual strep diagnosis on Tuesday. It’s been *quite* the week.

So I return to my blog, to this space, eager to write and to reflect and to join you in your stories in some small way through these words posted to a screen which you will read on your screen wherever life finds you today.

*****

“Writer” – the word thrills me and terrifies me. Thrilling because it is what I’ve been ever since my aunt gave me my first journal to record life in when I was 10 years old. Terrifying because to claim “writer” is to claim a dream that may not ever come to fruition in that full definition of being officially published. I am learning (and aren’t we always learning?) that regardless of whether I write a book that would be on Amazon or whether I continue to scribble my thoughts into pages of beloved journals or typewritten posts … I will always be “writer.”

Words bring life to thoughts, give expression to emotions that otherwise can undo me and confuse me and overwhelm me. But to see them on a page, all written out neatly and in order, it gives me hope that my emotions will follow at some point. And it becomes a starting point for that process. As an external processor who’s also a bit of an introvert, writing is the perfect nexus for expression without exhaustion. It can be (not always) exhausting to try to describe what I’m thinking and feeling and dreaming and hoping with another person. But to come to the refuge of a blank page in my favorite journal or a white screen in my favorite font. Well, then. Relief without asking anything in return. That is what writing can be. Unedited thoughts written to the great Editor of my soul. God who welcomes all of it. My words can’t hurt him (blissful thought as mine too often wound the very ones I love the most). He takes them – my words and the tangled emotions behind them – and he makes something beautiful out of it. He grants me some peace and clarity in return. He promises to guard these words which are my life. He softens my raw edges (and oh, how many I have!) – he, the great Writer of my story, highlights where I’ve gone wrong and covers all of it with his love.

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Join me and the Five Minute Friday writing community in writing for 5 minutes unedited each Friday on a different topic given by Lisa Jo Baker. (Whose new book came out this week! Can’t wait to read it!)