Writing

I tell him goodbye and we end our nightly skype conversation.   I say that I’m going to get ready for bed, and maybe write for a few minutes.  Sometimes I don’t have the energy, physical or mental, to actually do it.  But regardless, I always feel awkward, pretentious even, when I say it.

I could call it journaling, I guess.  In many ways that would be a more accurate descriptor, except that when I finish I plan to publish whatever I’ve written to my blog, a place where theoretically anyone in the world can read what I’ve written, though in reality it is my family members and a few close friends who do.  So journaling doesn’t seem quite the right word either.

I am surprised every time by how cathartic the writing experience is.  Surprised that when writing, like teaching or bearing testimony, the spirit is able to teach me new things.  Surprised that the process of identifying and expressing what I’m feeling and thinking in that moment so precisely is often exactly what I need to move past it.

In Sunday School this week the lesson was the first few chapters of Jacob.

And if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the people.  Jacob 1:4

The comment was made that Jacob must have felt such a responsibility about what he wrote, knowing that it would be for the benefit of not only his family and their descendants, but also for us in our day.

 

I thought about that comment the rest of the day.  In a small way (tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal) I realized that I feel a similar responsibility.  Sure, I write this blog so that I will be able to remember what fun things we’ve done and my children will too.  But I also write for a much more serious reason.  I write because I want them to know about my dealings with the Lord—that I had them.  I want them to know that I had plenty of experiences that were really hard, and that sometimes I was angry with God.  And then I want them to know that I worked to get through these feelings, that I worked to first develop and then nourish the faith to be able to believe that God’s plan is the best plan for all of us.  I may never walk across the plains, (here’s hoping) but I hope that my children, grandchildren, and whoever comes after will know that I believed, and that it will strengthen them as well.