Hello world!

WordPress always starts you off with a big statement, as if this is the first step to a grand introduction to all of humanity. “Hello world!” is the title followed by this statement.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

Surely, the whole world won’t be paying attention. Probably not. I wrote a book once, that hasn’t sold a single e-book copy in nearly two years. Yet…I still feel compelled to write.

What do you do when you aren’t sure where to start? Just be honest and share exactly where you are at? That sounds a little bit dangerous. How honest do you really want to be? You’ve been that before. Honest. Open. Vulnerable. Hopeful. And, eventually maybe even crushed to the point of despair.

Yet, honest is still good. It isn’t ignoring the dinging sound alerting you that there is something wrong. Stuffing the truth only works for a time, although it can be prolonged, until it all finally breaks. Truth is often revealed slowly over time. It’s always there, but it isn’t always revealed. The unveiling involves time and awareness. It comes in trickles and floods.

I don’t have a vision for this at all yet, but if I wait for that, I won’t write, nor will I share something that might let someone else know that “yes, life is painful and hard, and no, you are not alone or the only one.”

Two things I am sure of: 1) Jesus wasn’t joking when He said “it is finished.” He really did pay it in full to die for our sins on the cross, and 2) I am very much unfinished in terms of what He needs to heal in me during my days on this earth. Finished and unfinished. I don’t believe I thought I was unfinished, but I may have missed how deeply my body has kept the score; an abandonment wound that seems like an infinite loop of “you’re too much…and you are never enough.” Sometimes I wish my body had dementia and would just forget the score.

“Hello, world” might be too big a stage, but “hello, fellow strugglers” might be more than enough.