5 months ago I took this photo out of a bus window and decided to write…again.

I do not miss blogging. I do not miss running a website. I do not miss taking hours to craft something visually appealing because I am particular and unappeased by the average.

I do not miss crouching in corners of the internet and staying on top of news that will do nothing to lift my soul (naturally, it only does the opposite). I live in a country where I need to use a VPN to access anything to which I am accustomed and while that can be frustrating, I quit blogging 3 years ago because of reasons that boiled down to the fact that the internet sucks. I’m not going to be eloquent – it just does. The VPN thing is kind of nice. Tossing myself into bed at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday and trying to binge on a show while my wifi signal heaves and hoes is annoying until I realize I’d rather binge on something fulfilling anyway, like the 5 books I have next to my pillow – my Bible, Unexpected Joy by C.S. Lewis, Wild by Cheryl Strayed; A Ring, a Wardrobe & a Great War or my floppy black leather-bound journal handmade by a dear friend that gets the creative juices surging just to touch it.

But I do miss writing. And I miss writing for others to read. I miss shoving my soul out to the world in vulnerable steps. I miss it even more now that I stopped craving the approval of others after cutting the blogging cord so cleanly. Cold turkey actually worked to stop those cravings…(And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Matt. 5:30) 

Instead, I have an achingly wild need to share words. In countless conversations with girlfriends over cheap margaritas and white sangria, the things for which we ache come up often. Men. Changing careers. Running away. Our children’s fears. Making ends meet. Politics that hurt. Individuals mistreated. Jesus.

I have never considered myself a “Christian writer” and still will not. I am a writer and a Believer but I am not a category or a set of SEO terms and will not seek to be. I have always desired a nearby intimate community of Believers like me and have not yet been given this. Instead, most beautifully, I have come to know and love close friend after close friend from all backgrounds and belief systems, some of those with whom even from long distances I share a love for Jesus and a passion for His redemptive justice. I read articles everywhere from Relevant Magazine, Angelic Magazine, and Christianity Today to Vogue, ElleVest, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Thorn, my friends’ brilliant blogs and websites, and even Instagram because I hunger to know more people like me who seek more and do more.

As a foreigner in a country that’s not my own, I am often lonely, but in it I have come to realize that everyone is in some way, specifically children – who are not at all unlike the 100 first graders I teach everyday. Reading and writing brings me these insights as well as prayer, our seemingly elusive and difficult conversation tool given to us by Jesus that is the greatest weapon we can ever wield and most powerful blessing we can give Him, ourselves and anyone else. The ache that tells us it is difficult is a nasty lie from the Enemy of God driving you away from using your words to converse with the Holy Spirit. When I don’t have words (which, shockingly, does occur), I remember that “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”(Romans 8:26).

If you are at like me, you feel those groanings. You do not have the words to combat the weights of the world. You do not have the strength, even the desire, nor the understanding, but you have the groanings anyway, as well as the burdens. You are tired. And maybe my understanding doesn’t help, nor do the laments of kindred hearts. But what may help is letting out the gifts you know you have, the same ones that writhe inside and need to be freed. The fire that you keep cool for various fears – fears of how people will react, fears of commitment (like me); fears of doing anything new. Try what you want to try and see if you fail. In the meantime, when the Holy Spirit places His strength on you, you cannot fail. Take it from me, a born cynicist, a pragmatic feminist, single and childless, bitter and hurt. I am all those things but they are not me, for “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Welcome to the jungle.