Be Powerful - Wear Your Word

Words have power.

Encouraging words have power.

And I have been encouraged in the most beautiful and empowering way.  

As I spill my soul and thoughts and feelings out onto this blog (I mean poetry- really?!), I keep wanting to quit.  I keep feeling like this is too much vulnerability to share and too much vanity to assume it's all worth sharing and I should just get my feet on the ground and do the laundry.  Or go for a walk and stop staring at this computer screen that I have such a complicated love-hate relationship with. 

Being a writer has always just been part of my description.  I'm a brunette, I'm 5'3, I like cheese too much and I write good well.  It wasn't until my miscarriages and the weird desire to talk about them online that people (besides my mom) started calling it a "gift."  Like I was this powerful girl with a powerful thing to offer.

It was awesome and terrifying at the same time because once we acknowledge that God has given us a gift of some sort, we are suddenly responsible for it. 

So I've been working through what it means to be a writer, and at the same time fighting all of this emotional junk that makes me hesitant to take any of it too seriously. 

A little frightened to take myself too seriously.

But, enter Encouragement. 

Enter the courage-giving that doesn't just pat you on the back and flatter, but speaks something over you and challenges you to do the thing that you know in your heart God is push, push, pushing you to do.  

This woman at my church, she is in it.  She is in the midst of taking these talents of hers, these gifts, and using them well. Making them bear fruits. She takes a strap of leather and stamps it with a word and paints it beautifully and turns it into so much more than just a bracelet.  Now women all over our church and beyond are walking around with these bracelets, bearing powerful words that they have chosen like: Focus, Forward, Truth, Love, Trust, Positive, Tenacious. 

I hadn't asked for one yet, but she made one for me.  

We hardly know one another and I hadn't given her "my word" - but she had a word for me.

That's the kind of encouragement that makes a person feel brave. 

I've been afraid to call myself Writer. But God whispered it to her and she turned around and stamped it deep into a piece of leather.  In big, capital letters that I can't not see and I can't tiptoe around the idea of it anymore.

And the best news? She is selling these bracelets to anyone that wants one, and the money from these bracelets is sending her to Zambia this year. 

So, what's your word?

Is there something powerful deep inside of you -a word or a gift or a calling or a name- that needs to be drawn out and stamped deep into leather that you can wrap around your wrist? Where you can finally see it plainly and say it loudly?

(If you need help thinking of one, maybe this will help.)

Email dwanalea@gmail.com or contact her on Facebook to place an order. Bracelets are $20-$30 and 50 more sales will send this lovely woman on her way to Zambia.

Let's all wear our words together.

And let's help one another to be brave in living these words loudly! 

This post is linked up to the lowercase letters blog and the One Word 365 community!

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