I have an itch to write. In the past I've created blogs under the pressure of friends, only to have them linger in cyber-space, eventually unposted to and neglected. I didn't feel pressured to write this one -- I felt called. I'm told that we live according to what we know we are; it is our identity that drives our actions, not the other way around. As I rediscover the identity in me that I've doubted for so long, the deep desire to write comes up to the surface, a desire long hidden by my own doubts that say, 'you're not a writer', 'you couldn't write what _____ can/did'. I'm learning to put those doubts away; and this blog is perhaps, in some ways, a manner of trying -- of stretching into an identity given to me that I've hidden from, and reclaiming a part of the masterpiece God designed me to be.
Sheowen.
Sheowen is a word that literally means 'to see the sun through the clouds' or to see the sunny day on the other side of the rain storm. I have, for too long, lived a life focused on the rain clouds, a life focused on my weaknesses, my failures and my mistakes. I'm done with that. I'm changing my perspective -- I'm focusing on the sun through the clouds, however faint it may appear. And we who hope in Christ Jesus do not have any faint hope, but a strong God who hears us and meets our needs. I'm giving up the rain clouds, and I'm giving up the focus on whether people are looking at the light or the dark in me. Sheowen is no cloudless view, it's not God in a perfect setting, but it's a realization that in our darkest places, God is there, that there is no where, not one place on this whole earth that we can get away from God. As the Psalmist says, I could go into the depths, to the darkest place and you Lord would come and make it light. I am not alone, and try as I might I cannot be alone. Yes, my clouds -- those weaknesses, failures and fears over which I have too long obsessed -- are still there, but they do not define me or my view. I'm looking towards the sun on the other side, and I would hope, a heavenly one.
