hi.

it's me. the blog writer.

i'm sitting in my college library. i'm supposed to be working. writing the last big paper of the semester. instead, i'm just staring at my computer screen. trying to talk myself into typing. trying not to eat my optimistic words from yesterday about rain.

i can hear the research librarian - coaching other students through the online catalog, offering help to passersby, wishing rotc students a happy veterans day. he just asked a student how their semester has been so far...and whenever he finishes helping someone, he says, "happy researching." calmly. he's not overly enthusiastic, just stably cheerful. it's not only today, either. he's been like this for the whole year and a half that i've watched him. the quiet backbone of the library.

i could use a backbone today. someone to coach me through, not even to tell me how but just to look into my eyes and say, "you can make it." because even though i know that i *can* do it - i know that the paper will be finished and done with - i hate doing it alone. out of my own emptiness. i hate (mentally) slapping myself into shape and ignoring the tiredness and the ache for love and just doing it - doing it just to survive. doing it without my heart present and accounted for. so i could use that backbone. someone to lean against and just to be with me and believe in me as i write, as i tell my story.

the story feels so close today. it's not a chapter i've told here on my blog, even though this voice i have here is something that came through the tale - a result of the happy ending (that was - is - really a beginning). somehow leaving the house in a downpour and driving through the storm and walking around campus huddled against the rain...somehow sitting here in the library while my feet turn to raisins inside my sneakers...somehow with cuw this morning being about how, even when we don't hear His Voice or feel His Touch, we aren't alone...somehow...the story feels as near as a wind that brushes my cheek and lifts my hair.

i don't want to run away from that. from the memory, from the wind. i want to stand here and face the gusts tugging at me, and stretch out my arms and let the wind blow against my body...and feel my roots hold fast. feel my soul lift, fly, even against the strain. i want to remember the story not because i am bound by it, but because it has set me free. i want to stand, victorious.

but i'm not the one who has won the victory. He is. my story only set me free because He wrote it. the one way that i *can* do it - can do it out of a wholeness of heart, with nothing missing or broken - is because He is my Backbone. my Roots. and my Wings. my Freedom. my Victor. and the One who Loves me.

it's Him. sitting here with me in the library. reminding me who i am, because of Who He is.

hi. it's me. His girl. free, secure, loved. safe. whole.

and going to write my paper. with Him.

{written this morning.}