Abide. Proclaim. Bestow.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, says Isaiah*, and later Christ in the Gospels*.

The words unravel and re-weave this anointing of my flesh, the very calling of my spirit. I know deep and hard this work and this purpose.

I write to proclaim release to the captives.

I write, as Christ lives, to provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty* by pointing to freedom, proclaiming release.

It is my longing to tell you, with all of my breath every day and forever, to take heart dear friend and receive the crown of beauty. Throw open your arms and soar a while in your own sweet release, because I have known it, because it is magnificent.

But I forget, daily, to breathe in and receive. I forget to slow the thundering hooves and linger in my freedom long enough to proclaim it. I wash laundry and file papers and shepherd babies and my fingers don't find the keyboard. I make phone calls and wonder where the days go and when I will find the time to proclaim release when I'm jailing my very self with too much of the wrong kind of work and sit behind the bars of self-doubt to mold a casing around my tender heart with the liar's black clay.

I am mentally and spiritually aware that to abide is not merely to obey or to exist. This awareness, though, comes up shy of internal some days and days turn into weeks as days are wont to do.

And so I make the paper remember for the words to instruct when the brain forgets. I make the schedule to cradle a cushion to abide, a daily space for the fingers to find the keyboard: first, time to read and sit and pray and receive, then 4 hours a day of like-it-or-not writing time, beginning tomorrow. No excuses. No escape.

Because,

I am a writer before I am a housekeeper.

I am a writer before I am a chef.

I am a writer before I am an interior designer, a patio sweeper, a phone app dawdler, a grocery shopper, an iced-tea guzzler.

I am a writer before I am a Facebook junkee, a Twitter checker, a Pinterest surfer.

And? I am a mother before I am a writer. A wife, a daughter, a friend. So I puzzle the things together and remember them all as gifts. 

I must first breathe in my freedom and break through with release. First, I dance, radiant, with my flowering crown of beauty.

First?

Abide.

Then?

Proclaim.

Bestow.

And Write.

Will you join me, too, in this?

Abide, dear friend. Live in creativity. Live in amazement. Live in love. And let the rest all fall away.

And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

                                                                                                -Ephesians 3:14-19

  

*Isaiah 61:1-3, Luke 4:16-21

Once Upon a Time, Amen.

A lot of people around the blogosphere (and gah, how I hate that word) talk about "a new normal" as they learn to embrace this or that, an unexpected hand dealt them. I tried to think of a less cliché way to check in with y'all today than under the pretense of "learning to deal with our new normal" but I come up empty, so please, forgive the triteness here, as you also forgive (I hope) my absence lately.

We are learning to deal with our new normal with the foster babies and the book project, learning to morph what started out as survival-mode chaos into functional, adapted, thriving life. I am learning how this thing works and how to roll with the punches around here in the interest of not-just-getting-by.

I know now how to do dishes and take a shower every once in awhile without my house being burnt to the ground, and this alone is progress. I know that shooing them out the door after breakfast to play before the air gets thick and hot is the key to getting my daily bearings, that a bunch of stickers and safety scissors and washable markers will get little feet off the carpet just long enough to vacuum. I know which one gets diarrhea if they drink apple juice, which ones have seasonal allergies, which ones hit when no one is looking, and which items around my home are shockingly edible. 

I know that (surprise!) the 2-year-old can dress herself completely and climb up into the car seat all by herself if I can exercise the patience to let her do so. I'm working on it, and my back is grateful. I don't (apparently) know how to find time to blog or write (yet), but I'm working on that too. 

I know that teeth-brushing time is a highlight of the evening for them and for me. For them, the splash and giggle and spit business is just too fun to suppress a squeal and for me, it signals bedtime, which signals breath and Husband and I have even found time to giggle and watch a movie or two. That feels a lot like my old normal, and I'm grateful for a few small anchors like that while this ship spins and swirls, even while we're learning to "Wheeeeee!" about it all the while.  

I know, too, that the little one will say, as I close every storybook's final page, "Amen" instead of "The End" and that I won't correct her because there are days where this alone keeps me from unraveling, the tiny, squeaky reminder that every one of these stories is just a prayer out loud, just living this out loud… Once Upon a Time… Amen. 

Virtual Reality -or- How to Make a Life

I tend to live too long sometimes in this world in my head, fueled by online friends and brilliant blog wisdom, where hours are marked by hashtags and Facebook becomes a lifeline, where I register a comment count or today's subscriber numbers like a self-worth bathroom scale forever showing a number that leaves me feeling bloated and unsatisfied.

In this neighborhood and since it's my fantasy, my quaint old chippy farmhouse with miraculously leak-less faucets is nestled right in there with awesome neighbors like Emily and Sarah and Lindsey. I lunch with Anne and Ann and Annie and Anna and we break bread and talk about life and God and gratitude. My kids hang on the neighborhood monkey bars next to Shannan's and Lisa-Jo's. 

I camp in the woods in invisible tents with Emily and Suzannah and their beautiful families. Tamára, Preston, Nish, and I debate microbrews at the backyard barbeque. My pretend writer's group meets at the corner bakery where Jeff and Mary and Dan and Shauna, over bites of something buttery, offer brilliant insight on this tricky manuscript, which I can't wait to share with my make-believe agent, Rachelle.

Because this is sorta what it really feels like for me to live here in this online space. To wander from house to house and blog to blog, to eat my lunch beside you folks and nestle myself into your reality, make you part of mine, let your words make mine somehow come out a little better next time. Like a fantasy. Like one of those dream sequences on TV marked by foggy edges and a twinkly soundtrack.

It's not merely virtual, though. The real-life encouragement, support, prayer, and tangible love that floats across keyboards and computer screens is not make-believe. It is substance and it is depth and most days, it gives me strength I haven't had before.

But I have a real life too. I carry spare pairs of cartoon underwear and emergency fruit snacks in my purse. I have foreheads to kiss more often than I do, and toilets to clean and filters to change and sunscreen to apply and more book ideas floating around in my head than time to write them all down. I have dirty carpet and friends I need to visit (the kind who knew me when I wore leg warmers and slap bracelets and crimped my hair). I have movies to watch, stories to tell, a husband who keeps me one step ahead of psychosis every day. Somewhere, there is probably chocolate I should be eating too, regardless of what my protesting belly pooch has to say. There are real books with real pages to read and holy moments to be had.

There is life to be lived, and you have one too.

Is virtual reality overshadowing actual reality, in your life?

This is a struggle for me. I'm a writer at heart, and at times, I think I need to set up camp in this virtual space to "make it" and make sleazy flashing billboards to get my voice heard. Everyone is trying to make a name for themselves out there, and the Internet never sleeps.

But flesh and blood does.

It sleeps and cries and laughs long over good wine with good friends. It turns the laptop off sometimes to paint toenails with pigtailed daughters, to play in the rain with fuzzy-haired sons and attempt daring new recipes. It kisses your husband long and sweet, and dips its toes in river water. It leaves the bedroom window open and listens late to crickets and rhythmic breath and cars driving past. It star-gazes and goes out dancing. It eats the moments of life like bites of a sweet summer peach.

Be careful not to miss it.

Don't trade your life for eye-strain and carpal tunnel syndrome. Don't sell your soul for another Twitter follower if you aren't bringing your whole heart into the world beyond the computer screen. Virtual reality has a funny way of reflecting actual reality. If your life is empty, your work will be empty. Live.

As much as I love my fantasy neighbors in my make-believe neighborhood, I have real neighbors I've never met, ones with pet roosters who wave enthusiastically every time I drive by. I have a lonely grandma who could use a lunch date. I have avocados to savor and dandelion heads awaiting the breath of a small boy who doesn't yet know about making wishes.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off go make a living… and make a life. 

What Lightning Has to Say

{written yesterday} 

Source

I have lived a lifetime this week and it is still only Monday.

Baby Girl (who is 9 these days) was baptized in beauty and love and living water, surrounded by family on Sunday as she said yes to Jesus. My open-aired barefoot church split at the seams with family old and young, and even the nonbelievers among us lifted hands to Him and it was the kind of beauty that is still making me weep 28 hours later.

I was asked to be a part of somethingso incredibly close to my heart, so vital to this blog community, so honest and real and out of my league that it, too, made me weep for good things.

But I am weeping today for things that don't feel good or right at all, things I don't know how to justify or make sense of, things that shouldn't be and searching to find God in it all.

A phone call with our adoption caseworker left me sobbing into the phone, as muffled by red tape as the pleas of our boy caught in the system have been, and equally as unheard, then later, louder, into the nape of my husband's neck with pounding fists at the injustice of a child whose future is reduced to manila and copy paper and black ink while his heart swells with anger and nobody hears.

She heard, though. She heard me when I said I will fight for him, lady, and keep fighting and sucked breath sharp and mean and bit my lip to keep the rest of it inside.

Brokenhearted people have to clean their floors too, it turns out, so I mop the floors with tears and soap and scrub like I can lift the dirt off the world with elbow grease, taking out anger on the tile while polishing it with apple-scented solution and somewhere in here is a Garden of Eden metaphor but I'm too tired to find it.

I nauseate and the sky tumbles dark and green too and bolts of lightning flash in the distance, sky all sad and angry and it's Him to my heart saying, "Yes, I know, dear One. Me too."

----

Linking to Imperfect Prose, a sacred space where our souls can breathe... so, so blessed to be a part of this. Join us over there, will you, and be blessed?

Acting Like One

"You Are a Writer, So Start Acting Like One."

At least, that's what Jeff Goins tells us to do. He believes in his message so much, he's hosting a contest for his readers at http://youareawriter.com... and he wrote a book about it.

{Go buy it. I'll wait.}

So about this contest...


What's the craziest thing you've ever done to tell the world you're a writer…to tell yourself and make yourself believe it? 

Oh boy. 

This, perhaps?

I've been a writer as long as I remember, scribbling stories about elves on ripped notebook paper in my childhood bedroom, then later, heart-bare teenage angst about boyfriends (or the lack thereof). I never stopped writing but at some point I stopped believing I could "make it" as a writer and tucked my work into journal pages and computer folders, never to see the light of day.

I poured over the craft, unleashing myself to the words, to the page, and gazing starry-eyed at the authors I admired, the ones whose name splashed across book covers in block letters, the dream I couldn't dare to dream.

Until I did.

Someone once said that people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. I think, too, people are about as successful. Your definition of success may be different from mine, but all in all, your state of mind and what you declare about yourself has a lot to do with where you are and where you're going.

I was tired of people asking, "What do you do?" and not feeling the freedom to tell them I was a writer. I believed you weren't a writer until your name was on the cover a book and I believed I wasn't good enough for that, that I'd fail miserably and lose the only thing I was good at.  

The problem with that attitude, by the way is that writers write books. There will be no book cover if you aren't already a writer. I always knew I'd write forever, it was as much a part of me as my elbows, my eardrums…or more so. But fear paralyzed me from taking myself seriously and no one read my work. I didn't dare bring that which I loved most onto the chopping block. It was too sacred.

With no one to write for, the words became few. I talked myself into a more sensible career and tended to my family… and ached with the weight of what was trapped within.

To save myself, to save my gift, to resurrect the dream... I had to become what I already was. 

I made a choice I couldn't hide and I couldn't back down from and did what any normal, totally sane person would do and headed for the tattoo shop, branding myself with what I shied away from so easily. Making a declaration to the universe, to myself, the needle rose and fell, depositing lifelong ink beneath the skin of my wrist, blazing the badge that told the whole world. 

I am a writer.

Because when people ask about it (and everyone does), I have to declare myself to be what I am branded with. I have to present myself, despite my fears, as that which I know I am. I have to submit my work and keep trying because every day I see it, every day I explain it, and every day somebody asks what I'm working on. It's been a helluva motivator, I gotta tell ya.  

Because I fight hard against the odds, the fears, the failures and internal messages that threaten to kill the dream for me and this…this reflects the message that I cannot separate myself from writing. It's in me, it's on me, it is me.

Because when I grab the remote control or write checks or text on my cell phone, I see it. It reminds me what my hands ought to be doing. 

It was and is my only tattoo. Before I got it I hadn't published a single thing. (Daring move, I know.) I wasn't a writer yet…not by anyone else's standards, but I couldn't start there. I had to be a writer, believe I was a writer, to become a writer.

After? I published three magazine articles the month I got the tattoo, the first three I ever submitted. I started a blog. I won contests. I got sponsorships to writer's conferences. I had several pieces accepted for community book projects. I found serious joy in the thing I believe I was put here to be and to do.

After the joy, after the belief and the declaration, others started to believe it too. Publishers. Strangers. Tomorrow, I will be sending in a book proposal.

Now? The name-on-the-cover thing is just icing on the cake. It doesn't validate me or give me value, it simply confirms what I have already declared, what was declared about me when I was being created.

I am a writer.  

I don't believe anymore that you have to be published to be a writer. What I believe, though, is that you have to brand your mind and your heart with a permanence and a declaration and that you have to believe it to be true about yourself before anyone else will believe it about you. 

You are a writer.

Now start acting like one. 

Get. This. eBook. http://youareawriter.com
Do it. Right now, Slacker. Time's a' wastin'.

What's the craziest way you can think of to declare yourself a writer and announce it to the world? 

The Kind of Girl Who Brings Herself Daisies

Daisies droop, dying over the edge of the hurricane glass, the one with the hotel logo on it from our family vacation last October.

Some of them with broken stems, some jut out in odd directions, some curl around themselves to get a better view of the light.

I am trying to become the kind of girl who brings herself daisies.

On Mother's Day, I set into the side yard with red-handled scissors. The blades are sticky with popsicle residue and I guess these are all the signs of summer before me. White pedals crawled with aphids and spiders, yellow pollen torturous, but allergies or not, sometimes a girl's just gotta have flowers.

I gathered two bundles, one for the hurricane glass and one for the porch deck, in a red polka-dotted water bottle. Those were dead by Tuesday, even with the air and the wind and the sunshine pouring upon them. The ones inside survive, barely, but they're here, rag-tag and awkward and a lot like me.

Writing is what writing does…and writing, today, is bringing myself literary daisies, quietly rejoicing in all the signs of summer.

Listen for Inspiration

Source

I have escaped from the circus.

My husband gave me leave this morning to slip out before the kids had even woken up (thanks to a strategic stay-up-late free pass from Mom last night). I have five blessed hours to write uninterrupted, except for the occasional table-wiping, since I'm sitting at a fast food restaurant and siphoning their free Wi-Fi…at least until I start getting long glances from the staff. Then I'll shuffle over to the library. A writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do. I'm working on a book manuscript and every second counts.

Unfortunately, the toughest time of writing hits right about now. Laptop is out. Coffee is hot and sugary and delicious. Fingers are poised on plastic buttons. The conditions are right and now I wait for the floodgates of inspiration to open and fill blank pages with wisdom.

So far, this is all I got.

It has me thinking about inspiration, about how the work of writing is sort of really just herding inspiration, catching a muse and riding her wind. Where and how do you find it? What can you do when the words won't come?

My advice?

Listen.

Not to me, but…to everything.

Listen to the silence, to the wind, to music. Listen to your kids when they don't know you hear them, listen to what they think of the world. Listen to a bird's song or the conversation behind you at Starbucks. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Listen to the washing machine swishing around in circles and let it take you somewhere else. Let the rain on the window or the hum of the ceiling fan open doors in your mind. Get carried away. Daydream. Wonder.

And remember that hearing is not the same thing as listening.

Then, get it on paper. It may not be what you set out to say…write it anyway. Sometimes our writing is blocked because our brains are…because something needs to get worked out in our brain before the thoughts can come, like a clogged artery.

Take time to listen today, and write what you hear. For me, it's the chiming of the french fry machine and the rhythmic scritch-scritch of the worker's broom across the fake brick floor. It's the elevator music that reminds me of junior high school and the gaggle of uniformed FFA girls here on a pit stop and the slamming of bathroom doors as patrons shuffle through them. This is just sound, life-music, but it is full of inspiration, sparking memories and giving me much to ponder.

How do you find inspiration? 

Be Authentic, For the Love of God - At BibleDude.net today

I write the truth. I have written a lot of words over the course of my 32 years on this planet and I find one element that binds them to those who stumble onto them. One string runs down the middle of my ramblings and (to God’s glory), that string can be a lifeline to people who feel alone.

Authenticity.

For the rest...visit me over at BibleDude.net today, friends. 

Book Review: Beautiful Battle: A Woman's Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Mary DeMuth

Mary DeMuth is one of my mentors, even if she doesn't know it. After reading her honest and raw memoir, Thin Places (which I highly recommend), I was shocked at how closely my early life experiences so closely resembled those she journeys through in her memoir. Mary's writing ministry is powerful and I pray that God will allow me to encourage and inspire others through authentic writing the way Mary does.

When I dug into the pages of Beautiful Battle: A Woman's Guide to Spiritual Warfare, this same phenomenon gripped me to the book's pages. How did she get inside my head and tell a story about exactly what I went through? In the book, Mary uses the lessons learned in her dark and painful time of service in ministry in France to encourage other women facing spiritual warfare.

As I read about these experiences, my still-raw heart flooded with memories of my time in ministry in Texas, the dark and difficult time of spiritual warfare I endured there, an experience I am now recovering from and resting in God's victory of that battle for my heart, mind, and emotions. My experienced seemed to mirror the one she details of her time in France, and while reading, I wished over and over and over again that I had had this book to help point me to the Truth I needed to rest in during that time.

I have to admit that spiritual warfare is not a topic I enjoy reading about. Like many Christians, I tend to avoid the topic of the Enemy altogether, dismissing evil as mysterious and scary and a terrible thing to waste my time pondering. Still, at some point in every Christian's life, we find ourselves neck deep in warfare, and from experience, I can tell you… Being ill-equipped to handle battle is not the best way to trudge through it.

What I enjoyed most about Beautiful Battle was that Mary did not simplify the intricacies of faith or warfare, nor does she make excuses for why God allows such suffering. She does not present a wham-bam formula or an oversimplified, one-size-fits-all version of how to emerge victorious. She does not focus on the Enemy but rather on the Lord, inspiring us in our darkest hours not to consume ourselves with the how of spiritual warfare, but instead on the who – the One who holds the power over defeat, and what it looks like to protect ourselves with His armor.

Something I appreciate about Mary's writing is that in all her books I've read, she isn't afraid to tell the truth. Mary doesn't sugar-coat things or put on a Holy Holly Christian face that I find hard to relate to, the way many Christian authors tend to do when writing from an authoritative perspective on a spiritual matter. Mary is quick to share her real struggles, bare the rawness of her heart and experiences, admit her failures, and expose her own brokenness that we might see ourselves in her (I know I do) and connect with what she has learned to help us take another step in growth.

Authenticity is what I admire most in a writer, and Mary's got it. As she says on page 86 of Beautiful Battle, "Authenticity is our declaration that we will live in the light." Amen, sister! Another of my favorite quotes in the book appears on page 135, "If I keep my heart in fear's forest, I'll never fly."

Mary urges us to not just read the Word of God, but to claim it in its full power. "What would life look like if you truly believed the words of Romans?" she writes. "To live as if nothing fazed you in light of Christ's amazing love? Not even the demonic can separate you from God's love. Rest in that. Believe that. Live that." (Page 140, Beautiful Battle).

Whether you're currently experiencing the terrorizing emptiness of spiritual warfare, you have in the past, or you're headed there in the future, I highly recommend keeping a copy of this book tucked under your armor. Mary only points to the truth of Scripture as weaponry against evil, but she is a wise friend to keep beside us in battle. You can purchase Beautiful Battle, Thin Places, or Mary's other books through the links on this page. 

I blog for {you}

Have you had days when you wondered whether blogging was worth the effort?

I have.

As a busy working mom with a to-do list a mile long and an insatiable need to scratch my creative itch by writing (not to mention an emotional complex having me feeling guilty for every single moment I spend being nonproductive), I can get around to wondering whether the time I spend blogging is maybe, a tad bit… wasted.

I don’t have a million readers, and as of yet, WhimsySmitten hasn’t earned a nickel.  I’m often too busy to be completely “plugged in” to the blog world, and there are plenty of days when blogging doesn’t “pay off” for me the way it does for some more devoted bloggers out there.

But all this Relevant hooplah on my mind, watching the feeds and allowing my excitement to make me giddy, reminds me why I do this.

I do not blog for money.  I do not blog for stats.  I do not blog to get noticed, to make a name for myself, or because I have anything life-changing to say to anyone.

I blog for community.  I blog to reach across wires and space to tangle up inside your heart and head.  I blog so you’ll know, so I’ll know, that we’re all in this mess together, and to spotlight some of the beautiful moments on the journey, and some of the darker ones, too.  I blog because I love it more than laundry.  I blog to make sense of it all.  I blog because, along the way, I’ve discovered that you and I…we’re a lot more alike than different, and we’re all just trying to do our best and gather some wisdom as we go.

I don’t always have time to keep up with my blog subscriptions, but when I carve out time to read, in a matter of minutes or hours, I am transported to a world of kindred spirits, of creative inspiration and words that challenge my faith.  I am among friends…friends who, like me, haven’t had a shower in two days and have grape jelly in their hair, who start more projects than they can ever dream of finishing and find immense comfort in a cup of hot coffee.  Friends who love words and love Jesus and love this invisible space in the universe where we bare all to the whole-wide-world and watch the love and fellowship pour down all around us.

I blog for you.

And your comments, knowing you’ve taken the time to read what I’ve put out here, makes me smile the kind of wide smile that means all is right with the world, because I’m able to connect with amazing, beautiful you.  

Thanks for reading, friend.  You are the reason I blog. 

Writer's Workshop at (in)Courage tonight!

Friends -- I am so very excited to share a wonderful resource with those of you, like me, that love to write and those of you, like me, that can find the writing/publishing/blogging world to be a bit frightening at times.

Myself and the very talented Mary DeMuth will be hosting a mini writing workshop Q&A session tonight on BlogFrog, at the (in)courage community, at 9 pm EST.  Visit (in)courage today for a preview and more info!

Grab a cuppa somethin', throw on your jammies, and settle down for some great info and fellowship with an awesome community.  Join us, will you?

Just... wow.

I was floundering for community.

I wanted to tell the truth.

And my experience in the Christian community is that we {women} tell the happy truth and smile and encourage and "pray about it" but we're afraid to get messy... down in the dirty nitty gritty that is life to say what we really need to say, to hear what we really need to hear.  And my heart was heavy with the search for the okay to say all the real stuff, the good and bad and ugly.

And then I found {in}courage... this virtual beach house where we're all invited to put our sandy feet up and laugh and cry and get real... and tell the truth.

So I did.  I told them who I was, that my passion was for you, that my fervent prayer was that my mess would connect to your heart and we'd all just go along doing life together, arm in arm, all these sandy feet on the table.

And this morning, I got the happy news that {in}courage/DaySpring honored me with the writer's craft sponsorship to the Relevant 2011 Conference, in my favorite quiet spot in the world, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania this October.  Something I dared to hope for more than I probably should have.  And I am encouraged, and it feels like a beautiful day after a dreadfully hard weekend.

Can't wait to meet you sister-friends that will be at Relevant, too.  And introduce yourself.  I don't yet know anyone else that will be there, and I so look forward to all that this sponsorship, and this conference, holds.

And.... wow.  Just... wow.

If I Knew I Could Escape

Linking to Gypsy Mama’s Five Minute Friday.  Writing for 5 minutes, without regard to perfection…

The topic, today… If I Knew I Could, I Would.  I should say something selfless.  I should say… if I knew I could sell my possessions and give them to the poor, I would.  I would feed the hungry.  I would live like Christ.  If I knew I could, I would adopt Ukranian orphans or go to seminary or any other altruistic act of love.

Today, though, that’s not the truth.  Today, If {only} I Knew I Could… I’d escape.

I'm under the weather this week.  Head clouded, pressured, pounding.  Eleven kids in this house that felt, yesterday, like seventy two, all the needs, all the words, all the wounds.  So much to do.  So drained, so tired.  Today, I’m dreaming of retreat, breathing deep to fight the urge to puddle on the floor, to yell, to grump and gripe, to crawl in bed and stay there awhile.

Today, if I knew I could… I would crawl away to a cabin in the woods or on the beach or anywhere really, with a couple of candles and maybe even a glass of Riesling, and I’d pour over the Word while it poured back into me, filled me with what I needed, and I’d write and write and write and write until I was empty of words, and I’d sleep and wake and write and read some more.  And no one would whine or vomit or poop or bleed or hunger or argue or need me at all.  I would sweep dust from floorboards and words would float all around and Word would float all around and I’d be restored.

Real-Life Mother Hubbard, Sans Shoe

Ernest Hemingway could tell a story, in six words:

"For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn."

I'm challenged to do the same, in hopes of winning a scholarship to the She Speaks 2011 conference.  I am a woman of many words, but six well-placed ones?  Tell a story, elicit emotion... with just six?

Oh, there are just so many options.  I could tell innumerable stories in six words, but... which to tell?  My story?  Let's see.  Any of these would suffice:

- She didn't sign up for this. 

- A one-woman Marco Polo game

- Real-life Mother Hubbard, sans shoe.

- Need me?  I'll be folding laundry.

- Broken. Divorced. Abandoned. Emptied. Sanctified. Redeemed.

- A River in a Paper Cup
- Learning to love a Divine assignment.
- Inspired to count gifts, discover joy.
 
 

Or how about...

-Ten kids.  Little sleep.  Send help.

-or-

- Kids need to eat every day?

I kid, I kid.

On a serious note, how about...

She bowed lower and thusly... soared.

Check out the other entries, or tell your own here at the She Reads blog. 

Tell me, what's your six-word story?