wonderful occurrence

When I was young, I had a severe allergy to mosquitoes. Strange, I know. The allergy is still there, however I have a little more will power to avoid scratching than I did at seven. I remember when it first started I was miserable. There was no distraction worthy enough to get me to avoid scratching. I inevitably always made it worse for myself.

It wasn't until the day I discovered writing that I was finally able to overcome the pain. It was a delivered blessing. God used a terrible occurrence to draw out my passion for words. The writing started slowly, cheesy poems about flowers and trees. I was young and in my mind they were masterpieces. I would sit and write for hours, and somehow the allergic reactions started to bother me less and less.

As the years went on I became allergic to more and more random things, but just the same I became more and more invested in writing. I wrote short stories and longer poems that had much more to do with life than just flowers and the oak tree outside my window (though it was a beautiful tree).

It's been almost fifteen years since then and I am blessed to remember the moment that I was captivated by fiction. Just as I can remember the moment I gave my heart and my life to the Lord. Even in all the years of writing I rarely share my words with others. I have kept them hidden and locked away for a long time, the feeling of vulnerability enough to make me tuck them away in a dark corner. Yet time has slowly weakened my resolve and I have felt that the Lord gave me this passion for a reason.

So, for the past year I have been a part of a forum that houses authors like me, who simply want to write for the love of writing. I have been tempted to post stories time and time again, but I always manage to talk myself out of it. I'm good at that. But today, I felt a little more confident than I have before and so for the first time I published a story for others to critique and review. A public forum that hopefully will give me an equal balance of constructive criticism and confidence to move forward.

It was a big day for me. A wonderful occurrence that I actually pushed "publish."

We'll see what the next few weeks bring. As for now, I feel pretty good.

Blessings!