How do I say this? For the first time in a long time, I am not dissuaded from writing by the realization that writing cannot be my refuge.

Writing has been a refuge for me for as long as I could write. I have turned to the blank page as my confidant and impartial listener. I’ve written prayers and plans. I’ve scribbled my life sucks in permanent marker and drawn hearts the next day. I’ve scratched out (terrible) poems and jotted random ideas. Made lists. Raged in a way that I think I know has scared people. The blank page has been the place I could go to sort out my feelings and understand myself a little better — for years. So many years. Years represented by books upon books filled with words upon words.

I’ve gone through so much that has pushed writing to the margins for me, made me doubt my own voice — a scary thing for someone who identifies as a “writer”. And I’ve even passed off my silence as spiritual. I can’t see why God would have me write. I’ve seen this process of tapping out words as selfish, self-indulgent, an escape. And maybe it has been at times. But it’s also a way to testify to this Christ who I forget so often is not real to so many people. In all I write, whether its theme is particularly spiritual or not, is this thread of grace.

I’m not ever going to be a Christian blogger. I don’t have my life together enough to hold up as any kind of example, and I’m not into handing out cute little life lessons packaged as blog posts. This type of writing is inspirational and I am an avid reader of these types of blogs. They are like a soulful oasis in a desert of snark and sass. But it’s not me. And maybe, I’m finally realizing, that’s okay.

Because writing is not my refuge, I can write from a place of refuge. There is freedom in placing my heart in the right hands. When I rush to the blank page in search of healing, I do find a shadow of that substance. Something vaguely resembling healing comes out of putting words to the jumble of feelings in my mind. But it’s a short-lived experience; I must come back again and again, rehash the same things over and over. When I run to Christ, He has a way of settling things.

And tonight, He has settled something that has left me unsettled for years: why to write at all.