Freedom by Fire (Pt. 1)

(May 12, 2008)
I sit here with about forty pieces of paper filled with memories of my past. There used to be notebooks and notebooks with my every written emotion on them. I have been journaling since I was ten years old. I was always writing stories or poetry, or every detail that I experienced. I breathed in memories and exhaled written stories. I used to be the best letter writer ever! My ex-husband used to joke that I wrote books, not letters, to my friends and family. I guess in a sense, I did. I’d write about everything. There was no detail too small to capture with a pen and piece of paper.

Writing was always my favorite leisure pursuit. Speaking was not. There was something freeing about putting my thoughts on paper. As my pen cruised across the flat white surface, my thoughts came out clear. My ideas made sense. My tone was poetic.

My Speech??? Ha, I could not pronounce my “s” or “r” correctly, and usually stuttered and stammered over my words. Eventually, I gave up on conveying my views with my mouth, and instead, resorted to my graceful and elegant expressions with ink. Writing became my life. Dreaming was uninhibited in my journals. Visions came alive when my pen glided across the paper.

About a year ago, God had me toss the reminders of my past to the raging, consuming bonfire. Twelve years of written recollection of my relationship with my ex-husband smoldered into ashes. Records of the good memories and the bad memories were all gone. Burned and charred fragments of paper flew from within the burning barrel into the sky. Sparks soared and the fire hissed as I relinquished my right to my past. My written collection became my offering to the Lord. Deep sadness and grief filled me as I watched my “future writing material for a book” and my past burn to a crisp.
The motive behind that act was obedience to my Heavenly Father, and to burn the “bridges of my past”. It was August, 2007, a month after my husband and I had our final separation, and God quietly spoke to me. In my heart, I felt as if He told me that I couldn’t go forward unless I quit carrying around the baggage of my past....