I’ve been writing since I learned how to construct a sentence. One of my poems was published in school magazine when I was nine years old. It seemed like, in the millisecond, my happy childhood ended, as the verbal and physical abuse at home escalated. Coupled with being raped at 14 years old, I was emotionally silenced and sequestered by the secrets. I remember making a vow to myself—“No one must ever know.” Therefore, the written word became my saving-grace.
As I grew older, I attempted to show the world a well-adjusted, funny, and extraverted woman. It was only in my writing that my real voice could be heard. It dared to whisper a different story. Words befriended me, flowed from my soul, and spilled onto thousands of pages over the years. However, as if by tried by a jury with my warped sense of self as foreman, most of my pieces were sentenced to life in file folders neatly stacked in corrugated boxes and exiled to the backside of closets.
Resurrected Dreams, one of the stories in my memoir, I Say a Prayer For Me: One Woman’s Life of Faith and Triumph, best describes my relationship with the written word.
“Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. In my forties, writing found me again. It helped shatter the chains of my painful and shameful past. Words fed my starving spirit and soothed my aching life. In spite of the fact that I abandoned the words and left them to die by the side of the road, they waited for me at the crossroads of life to point the way, ‘Just believe!’ they insisted that we and you are one.’ The itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.”
As an exercise of my belief, I send my words out into the world.
Dear Heavenly Father: Give us the progressive vision that You have for our lives. Protect our minds against the invasion of negative and nonproductive thoughts that seek to defeat us. When the harshness of life seems to wash us out, remind us to get up and look up to You. Help us to inch our way back up the spout again and claim Your victory with every step we take. Thank you that our lives do have meaning and purpose! Breathe life into our dry bones and fan the flames under our smoldering dreams. Help us to believe that it’s never too late to follow that dream and vision for our lives. Order our steps and how us that we can do all things with You as our Helper. Thank you for creating talents and gifts within us that we may use them to your glory. Amen. So be it!
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:6-8 (New King James Version)
(c) 2007, Stanice Anderson
for booking info, contact Mike Tucker at [email protected] or 202-487-MIKE
Really moved by your testimony here. Blessings to you and amen to the prayer!
Posted by: Victoria Gaines | October 12, 2007 at 01:38 PM