When I told Pastor Debbie that I would be presenting to a group of teachers at our District Inservice Day and that part of my presentation would be making them write about their experiences as students, Pastor Debbie laughed.
“You’re always trying to get people to write.”
Yes, I wanted to say, because I know that writing heals.
And I know that for me and for many, writing heals not just the big stuff, but sometimes the tiniest splinters of wounds, the ones we didn’t even know were there, but have festered over the years.
Madeleine L’Engle writes about healing in Walking on Water. She says, “Wounds. By his wounds we are healed. But they are our wounds too, and until we have been healed we do not know what wholeness is. The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort toward wholeness.”
Though I had been writing short little stories since the first grade, it wasn’t until fourth grade that I grasped the idea that writing could heal. When I was in fourth grade, my mother was in and out of the hospital. Virtually every day after school, my dad and I would drive to the hospital to visit her. It was an hour long trip one way and on the way home, I would frequently recline the seat back and try to sleep since it was too dark to do anything else.
When you’re a child, a parent’s illness can be very isolating. As an only child, I had no one to talk to, no one who could understand. Afternoons and evenings spent visiting my mom, meant there was very little time left to play with friends.
One night, though, on the way home from the hospital, I started writing a poem, composing it in my head. I had never written a poem before, but that didn’t stop me, because when I wrote, I could be anywhere.
A dark, cold car ride home could become a trip to the beach instead. So when I got home, I started writing. I could only find a piece of graph paper and I meticulously filled in each box with a letter until I had my poem written.
Here I am upon the shore,
Listening to the waves roar.
And as the tide sweeps across the shore,
And the seagulls screech,
Peace.
It’s a poem you’d expect from a Florida girl, except that we were living in upstate New York, far away from any beach, sometimes seemingly far away from any sun. We had visited Florida the Christmas before and the image had stuck.
That poem became the first of many. And by many, I mean … many. If I was breathing, I was writing and I can say that it was a gift from God because poetry sustained me for many years. It spoke the words of my heart when my heart felt too wounded to speak. It gave voice to my fears and eventually became a reflection of new hope.
Words healed me. And I thank God every day for those words.
So when I encourage others to write—sometimes I actually nag others to write—it’s because I know the healing power of words, how those words heal us and how when we share those words, they can heal others.
