Chasing Butterflies

I spent most of my childhood trying my best to disappear. To blend into a crowd. To be overlooked. I hid away in books as much as possible. If I wasn't reading, I was daydreaming. Those were safe. Real life and real people were unpredictable and scary. They could, and in my experience often did, hurt you. At 15 years old I began to write and by putting pen to paper I began to vent. To exercise some emotional demons, so to speak. My confidence built and I took my first tentative steps into highschool socialization. I made friends and began to date. At 16 I took off the training wheels and at 17, I fell. Hard. The kind of fall that's not easy to get up from. The kind of fall that breaks a person. And it broke me. I put the fake smile back in it's place and I tried to ignore the pain, the sadness, the disappointment in myself. But no matter what I did or where I went, it was always at the edges. Threatening to come flooding in and overwhelm me. I put down my pen for fear of what would come out if I began to write. But, writing is what I love. It's part of who I am. Over the last two years God has been mending the broken parts of me. It's a job that only He could do! While watching my daughter play outside yesterday, God spoke to my heart. As she laughed and ran and squealed in delight at the butterflies fluttering through our wild flowers, I realized that it's time. Time to let go. Time to pick my pen back up. Time to go chasing butterflies. You're welcome to join me.