what I would write.

(this is the link for the song the first part of this post was written to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvOoQ0Ff2nA)

The warmth of this little place sinks into my soul, quieting my thoughts. Many things are flying about in my head, but with the gentle music lilting through my headphones, the low rumble of people talking around me, coffee steaming from everyones mugs, children laughing, dishes clinking....the ordinary part of this day that we're all experiencing together, it makes everything in me stop and just...be.

A little tow-headed girl sits to my right, gently swinging her short legs back and forth, eating pumpkin bread and every so often, reaching for her mother's hot chocolate, sipping it through a straw. A young family walks in, a chubby, smiling little boy carried in his young father's arms smiles a toothless grin, catching my eye. He laughs and kicks his little bare feet, trying to hold my attention. It works. Coffee orders are called out, people look up every once in a while, breaking from their reading or computer screens, just to look around.

My music lilts through my headphones still, stilling my thoughts, keeping me in this moment.

I stand up, walking over to order a steaming mug of the coffee that has been enticing me for the last few minutes. A tiny little sprite of a girl stands in front of me, waiting for her big sister to order hot chocolate, while sipping her own. Leaning down, I quietly ask her if she recommends the hot chocolate or the coffee? Eyes wide, she gazes up at me, pondering if she should answer (I think my sparkly pink scarf is helping her decision) and finally, a sweet smile breaks across her little face. She lets out a quiet giggle, covering her mouth as she does, then very seriously, tells me she's not sure about the coffee because she's not old enough to drink it yet, but the hot chocolate is very yummy. I smile and thank her for letting me know. Beaming up at me, she then quickly walks back to her father and smiling, points back to me, relating what we were most seriously discussing. 

Walking back to my little two top table, I settle back in and continue to type, the music once again filling my head. 

Books surround me in colorful array, some boasting beautifully bold covers, while others possess more subdued, muted tones. Jane Eyre, The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns, The Lords of Discipline, The River Swimmer, Thomas Jefferson, The Legend of Broken, and The White Forest, all closest to me, all lovely titles evoking thoughts of memories yet to be made, calling out to be read, to enter into the worlds they hold within and to become lost in all they are. To read their stories and know their words. To fall in love with those who live inside their pages.

Surely, though we may have more convenient ways to read, there is nothing more comforting than to hold a book in your hands. To hear the creak and crack of a new spine being opened, to smell the pages full of new ink yet to be broken in, to listen to the ballad the pages sing as they whisper and rustle their stories with each turn. And I am saddened by the thought that one day, my society could lose this experience, consumed by the convenient. I was meant for a different age, when to read was to be entertained. When holding a new book in your hands was heaven itself, when the waiting for it to arrive or to be published was agony that was worth the wait. Now, with the click of a button, any book I wish will whirl onto a screen that holds far less of an experience than its page turning counterpart. Authors are changing....no longer sweating blood with each pound on a type writer's keys, now the concern is quantity and not quality. I see them pour books forth like well oiled machines, and so they must, for if they do not, their names will be lost in the myriad of other authors who write more quickly, producing more than those who would write the quality their hearts desire. And I am saddened by the readers we have become, demanding that a writer's craft no longer be his or her art form, but simply something that mindlessly entertains us. What would Hemingway, Porter, Faulkner, Montgomery, Austen, Lewis, Tolkien, Twain, and countless other authors of years past, say to our demands on those who try to write for us today? I believe we would disappoint them with the readers we have become. Surely, they would not succumb to the demands of what we want, if they lived in our age. Yet, so it is with so many things in our present time. 

So, I sit here. Surrounded by the books of those who write simply for what it brings them, of those who wrote because it was their sweat and blood and tears, of those who truly write the way those who came before them did, holding out despite the demands placed upon them, and I wonder, what kind of writer would I be? Would I write of that which I do not truly know because of what it will bring me? Would I write of what I know, twisting it into as many books as I can, because quantity is more important than quality? Or, will I write of that which lives and breaths inside me, no matter what my readers think? Will I write of the struggles, of the daily moments that somehow become more beautiful than one can imagine, when breathed onto the page by a writer who has lived them? Will I form words that come from the Father's heart even if I am never published, my name never known, my writing forgotten amid the millions of others desiring the same thing?

Yes. 

(Song change:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYsG3LDN4BY)

Because, right now, in this very moment as you read these words, you, dear reader, deserve more than me just writing meaningless words across meaningless pages sent out into the void of something that will bring no good fruit. Or have no meaning. He deserves that I use what He's given me to bring glory to Him. To push you closer to the Father's heart. So, yes. This is what I will strive to do amid the most ordinary moments of my ordinary life that is made extraordinary by a God who is anything but ordinary. 

People have come and gone since I began the dance of my fingers across these keys. Some have stayed and continue to work or read or chat with friends over steaming mugs. The day outside is beginning to wane, the sun sinking into his place of slumber behind these towering mountains surrounding me. My coffee mug is long since emptied and still I sit, thinking about all that is my life in this moment. How beautiful and uncertain these moments are. In all their quiet uncertainty, I feel how certain He is of these moments He's gifted to me, held in the palm of His hand. This thought brings a stillness and a certainty to this soul of mine that He possess. How often I fail to simply trust, to simply remember who I belong to, and that nothing that happens to me catches Him by surprise. Oh, I'm surprised...a lot!! But, He never is and the beauty and safety found in this thought is overwhelming. 

And the warmth I've felt throughout these days of uncertainty floods my soul. For He has ravished my heart with one glance of His eyes and this is all I need to know. All I need to remember. I am His. He has drawn me unto His heart and no matter what else happens in this life He has given me, this is all I need. To gaze into His eyes, to let go of constantly looking at His hands wondering and worrying what I can do for Him, but simply, simply, to gaze into the beautiful eyes of the One who has stolen my heart away, this is all I am called to today. 

This is all you are called to today. Keep gazing into His eyes. Let the world fall away, let the worry that consumes, the wondering that distracts, the future that would overwhelm, let it all go and simply, simply, pursue His heart while never taking your gaze from His. 

"The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindess.'"  

 -Jeremiah 31:3

© Jade Valcarcel 2013. All rights reserved