I thought I wouldn’t write today.

But it felt like I was holding my breath.

And then my writer me wanted to pop my holding my breath me like I was a big balloon.

So I stuck the sharp pin in and let out all the air. It felt like there was something there that needed to be released. And it came gushing out, like the whoopie cushions we used in grammar school.

Like walking without seeing the all along the way, was moving through the day without breathing — that writing part of me.

The words became little oxygen holders, like place the mask on yourself before you help your children, or the passenger seated beside you. Like miniature oxygen tanks on wheels for the sick.

Like an asthmatic needs an inhaler the words became vital, life-giving.

Maybe when He lights the passion He doesn’t intend for you to hold your breath. Maybe if you were meant to encourage and give and serve and love, that if you stopped you might pop too. Or feel like you’d explode.

Maybe you get your breath back when you are obedient. The steady breathing resumes and the heart finds a peaceful rhythm when the artist gets on with making art or the servant gets back to serving. Or the doctor keeps on healing.

If doing the passion thing He gave gives life,then stopping may diminish it in some way.

Like the film went from color to black and white silent in a flash.

I thought I wouldn’t write today. I worry readers tire of the black marching words like ants at a picnic. They tread where they’re not wanted.

But then I recall the One for whom I write. And the one who called me to.

And I trust that He both steadies the hand and the heart. And the one lone traveller on the journey would stumble here if they were meant to come. And He could say you popped, you breathed, you are no longer blue from holding it in.

That the details rest with Him and the marching words bring back to Him a worship from an uncertain hand. The writer.

Who found that writing felt like breathing. And that not was not an option.

Just for today.

Until we cross back into tomorrow and He leads me back–to the page. And breathes words and thoughts and the what to write. To honor Him.

Or until He says, stop, wait, rest, no.

Joining Kris at Always Alleluia dot com