I’m currently in the middle of an ugly case of writer’s block. It’s like one of those bad dreams where you’re at the start of an Olympic race and the gun cracks but your legs don’t move. Or you’re on the foul line at the end of a tied basketball game and suddenly realize you forgot to wear socks.

Everything I write sounds funny to me, like someone else wrote it and I have the unfortunate task of cleaning up after them. I’m not sure what’s going on with my brain, but it’s hard not to be impatient. I sit at my desk and try not to squirm. 

Write, you fool! my mind screeches. Jack is finally asleep and the clock is ticking! 

My desk is planted at the front window of the house with a view of a live oak. Most mornings I find myself sipping coffee and watching the light shift through the branches more than I find myself writing. By the time Jack wakes up from his first nap, the sun is high in the tree and my page is empty of words.

That motherhood has changed me in the last seven months would be an understatement. I’ve discovered that some things are more important than creating for myself. I’m a mom, a wife, and Believer first, and there’s an unexpected sort of freedom in that. 

The words will come eventually. They always do. 

But until they make an appearance, I try to fill the nooks and crannies of a busy life with other creative ventures – short stories and journal entries and good books. I recently started reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art.

She opens with an image of a dying tree orchard that has been “winter killed.” She writes, “When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling me of the death of trees, the death of planets, of people, and what all these deaths mean in the light of love of the Creator, who brought them all into being, who brought me into being, and you.”

I like to think that this season of stifled creativity is God asking me to listen. To set aside my grandiose plans and the whirring machinery of story and to simply be. After all, I’m merely a conduit. In the purest sense, a writer is a recipient rather than a creator. 

On some days, stories and characters fill my brain with such certainty and tangibility that they effortlessly transcribe themselves onto the page. And other times, like now, I boot up the computer of my brain and find a blank screen. 

And so, I rock my baby to sleep. I pray. I read. I listen. 

All good stories have meaning borrowed from a higher meaning, like Jesus and his parables. God teaches us through story, regardless if the work is overtly secular or religious in nature. We resonate with the stories of Victor Hugo, Charlotte Bronte, and Alexander Dumas because without saying “Jesus” or “religion” or “church,” we sense truth. We cry through the ending of Les Miserables because we see in print what it means to be a created human in all its frailty and struggle and hurt, but in all its hope, too. 

We get a glimpse of “what all these deaths mean in the light of love of the Creator, who brought them all into being.”

Since his birth, I have treasured every single time Jack fell asleep in my arms. I have memorized the crinkles in his eyelids, the slackness of his mouth, the tiny hand grasping my shirt. I have rocked back and forth, oftentimes with tears burning the corners of my eyes, and thanked God for the moment. 

To put it simply, holding Jack in my arms is like holding an answered prayer. Beauty and joy that have become touchable. In that moment, I am listening. I am learning a completely new side to love, how pure and powerful and inexplicable it can be. I may not be writing the next bestseller or crafting a stellar blog post, but I’m being. 

It’s hard for me to accept that the season of cradling a slumbering baby is already over. At seven months, Jack is big and brave and wants to be put in his crib to fall asleep on his own. I knew the day would come, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I couldn’t have known which nap would be “the last time.” It was like his first tooth – suddenly here and hurting.

And therein lies the other lesson I’ve heard while rocking a baby in a quiet room – Time is a gift and there’s never enough of it. All we can do is recognize it for what it is – something to cherish and thank God for – and endeavor to use our gifted Time well.

 Slow down and listen to the Spirit, spoken through good books and unfolded laundry and dirty dishes and gossamer light climbing through tree branches.

Thirty-four thousand words of a new novel sit untouched on my laptop. I’d love to add to them. Create something. But as a humble conduit with a funny case of writer’s block, I’ll wait and listen for now.

Someday I’ll write, but not today. And that’s okay.

Photo credit: The One and Only Tommy Lyvers

Affiliate links: Evidence that I don’t always have writer’s block