Can one experience writer’s block while traveling the world?
Each day you are surrounded by incredible new cultures. New food, new people, new smells, new languages, new buildings, new animals, new trees and even things as simple as new textures. There is more than enough to be captured in words and hundreds of peoples stories to be told.
Yet, I have nothing to say, or is it that I don’t know how to capture what surrounds me. I am overjoyed in every moment. I am amazed by the work of our God. Yes, there is much sorrow in this world. Yet, God has given me eyes to see his hand in it all. In the simple pleasure in life like hands covered in purple juice from a fresh mangosteen, or the complex realities of his sovereign hand for justice. There is so much to say, so much that is seen, yet in the more I see the less I have written. It is not that this has become my usual, because the work of God is never simply usual. It is not that I have seen it all, or done it all, because that will never be a truth. It is not that I have become bored or complacent or even for a lack of time to get it done. I have free time, I am never bored and this heart will never grow complacent. Yet, I do not have the words. I stare at open document after open pages in a journal with a single title and a few verses, but every word I write is scribbled out. Nothing seems to be capturing these opportunities quite right.
How did the authors of the gospel do it? How did they capture the most profound moments of history, and find satisfaction in their descriptions?
God has given me a passion for writing, but when I write without him it never makes sense. Is he teaching me to open up to my other senses? Is he trying to teach me to hear him in new ways? I do not know, but as of now there are no words to explain the incredible journey that I have been gifted, and until they come without challenge I will not write. For it is of little use to write without him.
What do you do when you face writer’s block?
What is your way of communicating with God, and processing the events that surround you?
