I am a Writer

My life was on a one-way track, moving forward and upward with every decision, promotion, decision, and goal.

Graduate from an accredited high school with honors.

Check.

Get into great Christian university.

Check.

Be involved in activities, clubs, groups, leadership AND try to graduate with honors from college.

Check.

Travel the U.S. and as many countries as possible.

Check.

Find a job out of college that I love, working in full-time ministry.

Check.

Keep growing in ministry potential & leadership positions.

Check.

Get married {okay, so this one took awhile...but eventually....}

Check.

Move into ministry & leadership opportunities as a couple.

Check.

My life was good.

I loved working with & ministering to people, traveling the world, living the dream with my best friend & love of my life. Granted, I thought I would get married a "bit" younger, but nonetheless, I grew tremendously on my own and with God in amazing ways as a single woman, so I felt that God had prepared me for where He was taking us as a couple.

Yeah, life was good.

I mean, heck, life was pretty, crazy fabulous.

And then, something happened.

I struggle to truly pinpoint a day

A moment in time

A specific instance

where I can say, "That was it. That was where everything changed."

In many ways, it seemed like I woke up one day, and thought,

What's happening to me?

Where am I?

Why is my life not what I dreamed or wanted it to be?

WHO AM I?

What would that romantic dreamer of a girl,

growing up on the sunny isle of Hispaniola

say if she could have taken a peek into this season of her life?

How did I end up here?

And so, true to the psychologist in my brain, I analyzed.

Living away from family and friends in a country where you were not raised is hard.

Struggling to conceive for over three years would disappoint even the strongest of hearts.

Battling with unknown chronic pain for the majority of the duration of living on said foreign soil until present day looms on the verge of impossible.

And then of course the day the bottom fell out....

Finding out that my island home was ravaged by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, and being cut off from all communication with my heroes -- my parents -- not knowing if they were dead or alive competed with Titanic-level catastrophe in this mortal body.

And I was undone.

I felt finished.

I think I thought I would die.

And some days, I wished I would.

It's been a long road from that space in time, and yet if I could tell you now, a reason, a purpose, a why, or a how I got to that place, it would not be any of the heartbreaks or tragedies that I mentioned.

The reason that I found myself out of alignment with my dreams was because I silenced the dreamer, the artist, the creative force inside of my mind and heart, screaming for a voice.

I.

SHUT.

HER.

UP.

In one fail swoop.

Unwittingly.

Naively, even.

On the altar of the practical, the agenda, the purpose, the destiny.

So, in the midst of the greatest pain that my soul had ever known,

a writer emerged.

Nervous.

Fearful.

Filled with trepidation,

but a writer nonetheless.

And from the ashes, Jesus has been making something beautiful.

And so I write.

Because I must.

Because it healed me.

Because it set me free.

Because the dreamer has to dream.

Because the artist must create.

Because I was born for this.

I am a writer.