Here We Go!

Hello! Here’s the deal. I have been doing a personal blog now for over a year now, and after several people encouraged me to make it public, here I go. I am not exactly one to do a lot of sharing on personal topics, but I am going to try and stretch myself here =] I will post the last two posts I wrote on here…so enjoy hah.

I also realized that I have been very hypocritical lately regarding the topic of letting others read my writing. I love to write. I really do. It is one of my greatest passions. I don’t really let others read my writing too much; there is something daunting about letting someone have a window into your soul, but as some of you know, one of my personal goals as of late is to be more vulnerable and let more people in. In my fourth grade classroom, I always have the students write at least 8 sentences after my language arts lessons. The last topic I had them write about was their Christmas wish. I told them they had to use at least 5 ‘colorful’ adjectives, 5 ‘powerful’ verbs, and 5 specific nouns to make their writing more interesting for the reader. As I walked around the room helping, several students ran up to me over and over again to show me their ‘colorful’ adjective and have me read their writing. There is one adorable little boy in my class with red hair and lots of freckles with a sweet, shy personality. I noticed that he never came up to show me. I also noticed that he kept covering up his writing with his hand every time he looked up. I walked behind him to see if I could try to read at least of piece of what he was writing. I only saw a sentence but what I read was beautiful. I was so impressed. I sat down next to him and asked if I could read what he was writing. He shyly and nervously shook his head no. The little girl sitting next to him said, “Jacob never lets anyone read his writing.” I did not want to push him, because I could sympathize with him. I told him that I am sure what he wrote is wonderful and that I would love to read it when he was ready to show me. He said okay, but him and I both knew that it would take an act of God for him to share with anyone what was on that paper. As my lessons continued each week, I always went up to Jacob to ask if I could read what he had written. He always politely said “I don’t think right now.” I was slightly disappointed, but I sat down again with him and talked to him about it. I told him that I thought he was a great writer and he should not be nervous to share with me. I told him that the stories he had to tell and the ones that were important enough to get written down are too beautiful to keep to himself, and that if he wanted someone to read them, I would love to. He did not let me that day, but yesterday, my last day in this classroom, Jacob nervously came up to me with his writer’s notebook and simply handed it to me. He let me read one of his journal entries. Needless to say, I was proud of that kid, and honored that he finally let me read what he had to say. His writing was great. Like anyone’s, it was not perfect. But his story was beautiful and let me see his personality.

So, like I told Jacob; I know it is scary to let people in and see what you are feeling, but sometimes it is through those stories that you write where you can touch other people and let others in. I finally realized yesterday after that precious little boy showed me his story that it was probably time for me to start listening to my own advice.