Thwarted?

Today I came across a message from a dear friend. He wrote it in August and I had forgotten it, stuck at the bottom of the list of Facebook messages:

I've been catching up on your blog posts. I love your writing. You write just like you speak, and I can pick up on your humor, happiness, sadness and even your frustration...Please keep writing. You have something very special going on there, and only God knows how He will use you through your gift of writing.

It impacted me again, much as it did when I read it almost 4 months ago. To think that anything I had written made an impression on someone, enough to write me such an encouraging note, was amazing. But this time it was a little sad.

I haven't kept writing. The reasons are many. This has been a difficult season of life, one where every step has been met with obstacles on my path--not little ones, but those that cause me to stop in my tracks.

Rock slide in the Smoky Mtns, TN

The picture above feels like my life--what I see every day. The questioning this has brought about feels justified, born of sheer frustration. I feel thwarted.

Will God ever use me through my writing, for anything? 

I read this while I sipped my coffee this morning:

How little those know Me who think I wish to thwart them. --God Calling

How little I know Him. That made me stop and think, which can be a good thing or a bad thing for me. It usually leads to more questions, but for now, I choose to own this statement (with a prayer to know Him more), and flip the "off" switch in my brain. Time to just be--to rest in the blessing of what is, this moment.