Writing as a form of Stewardship

Some things became real to me only after I wrote them down

I love to reflect. If you know me personally, it’s almost weird. I tend to look back at things and review over and over the way things would be if this, or how things would’ve changed if that. A lot of these reflections have been countless journal entries, so much so that for some moments, my journaling simply has to go from paper to typing. I value a pen to paper moment, but there’s also something so satisfying about free flow typing (at least for me). A few of these very thoughts, and entries have been published on this very Substack. (Hi, I’m Bianca if you’re new here, and if you’re not new, thank you for coming back <3) 

I’m currency sitting in a coffee shop in the city of Chicago, and truly these are the moments that I thrive. Sitting in my solitude and just processing. Sitting here, I’m processing the way I feel about writing and what about it draws me in. Writing in a non-performative way. Writing in a way that merely documents, and if someone can resonate I’ll know that the Lord is using it. I’ve never seen myself attracted to anything like the career path of journalism, but I’ve always known that writing is where things just start to make sense to me. Sometimes things only begin to make sense when I put them into words, I feel like this is when I hear the Lord speak to me so clearly. I’d imagine because this is a moment where I’m fully silent, and I truly listen. Listening to my thoughts, thinking about the frustrations I’m enduring; I’ll even take a moment and ask God to make things plain to me, speak to me, reveal to me..boy does He ever. In a lot of my moments of writing I find myself in tears, in awe, laughing, or all of the above. 

Writing is a form of stewardship for me. Stewarding the moment to come out of this constant state of hurry, to come out of this moment without worrying  about stats, analytics, algorithms, and all the things that have slowly become my life (and yes, I love every minute of it), and that’s not to say that I don’t think about these things at all when I hit publish but what I am saying is that it’s not at the forefront of my sitting down, with classical music, and the stillness of my thoughts.  A lot of things only become real after I write them. Like this moment of clarity as I process in real time. Some of my most trying moments and need for decision making have been processed through writing. I encourage seeking wise council, I encourage having community, and even mentorship. But I even more so encourage simply inviting the Lord into your space and get to putting your thoughts into words. 

So if in any way you can resonate with a form of expression that allows for your  thoughts to simply make sense, and that the loud world around suddenly goes silent, and you can begin to hear the still, small whisper of the Lord in your heart, I encourage you to not look over that. I encourage you to take that and treat it with the reverence it deserves. Your words matter, and if that means writing them down and never sharing them, that’s great too. Like I said, a lot of my entries have ended up on this very substack, but countless entries remain in the archives of my heart and a variation of a journaling app.