It's in the moments when the darkness is clouding in that God sends those people who will just sit with you. It's in these moments that Christ shines. When a friend goes beyond the call of a friend, because in Christ we are family. When the fears and the pain wheal and cloud, when you're clinging to the moments when God has spoken to you clearly because even though you know you are walking alone, you feel that you are alone. Suddenly, yet slowly, like a whisper of the Spirit on the air, you know that you have family.

In this moment I realise that the painful thought process that would have happened as I sat alone in my room, the thoughts and memories that were dragged up by love and grief, thoughts that I cannot stem as they crash in on me. These things were spoken, they were voiced to a friend, who sat in patience as I ebbed between releasing the fears that tore at me and holding them back. Now they have been spoken, listened to, now they will not tear me down - at least not tonight.

Elegy to a Writer.

I do not write to entertain. I do not write for amusement. I write because the words come rising up inside of me, like the music does when I can no longer hold myself back from dancing. I write because I cannot hold myself back, but also when I do place these words into form I hope, I pray that these might inspire one day someone, probably myself most of all. When I began to write a book the aim was to write something that I wanted to read - I couldn't find anything that fitted the sort of story that I wanted, so I began to write. It let me express feelings that I couldn't, it helped me know that I had something that was mine, that could never be taken from me or destroyed.

I've been trying to force myself to do academic writing this week, I am not well enough to do academic writing and I knew it at some point, but kept forgetting. I've been hating myself for not getting words onto a page, I've been remembering every moment where my identity as a writer was threatened, I've been grieving the death of a friend who used to sit with me as I wrote. I bought a ring yesterday to wear on the little finger of my right hand - I used to have rings on that finger and the feeling as I wrote was something special, then they used to mark the paper and so I would take it off and it would sit there as I wrote then be put back on. There were four rings - the first three broke for various reasons (the two of them had been replicas of sealing rings that I used to seal things - they hadn't been made for such work). The last one was stolen, the guy that stole it told me that he'd taken it later that week, I repressed that, I had no memory of that, until yesterday, suddenly it flashed into my head, this memory.

For years writing was all I had, a green exercise book and my Grandfather's Parker is how I started to collect my stories together. Then my first A4 black hardback and then my Waterman Ici Et La and A5 black hardback books, a green twisted glass pen with a pot of rose scented red ink as well. Together those stories sat, and now both a black A5 and a blue A4 collect my stories, my poems, my prayers, my thoughts, I write now with a Waterman Hemisphere, the ink changes colour dependant on my mood and purpose, most often grey because it looks elegant upon the page.

I no longer know how to write in desperation. There is too much in my mind to let the words flow without question. Yet I want to let them, I want to let go.

How do we live when the darkness seems to be all there is? We look to the light, to the brightness of the sun, to that which God gives us to illuminate the darkest of times. We are made beautiful, we are made perfect, our imperfection, our suffering is taken up by one greater than us. We do not walk alone.

We do not walk alone.

So I sit here, I rub my eyes again, the clouds clear the sun shines on me, my eye line reaches through the windows and the sun is shinning on me. I have to close my eyes because it is so bright, the warmth of this light upon my face and I remember. I remember who I am.

The desires of my heart are fulfilled, too great for me to achieve are the dreams I have, unless they are not my own dreams, then they will be brought to light this world. "This is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And his is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed." And I pray, I pray that the dreams that fill my heart, the visions that fill my mind are not my own, but they are his.

So I know, as I sit here, that I am becoming who he made me, I hope that this pain, this anger, this hurt can be turned to light, can be turned to purpose. Right now I need to reclaim the writer, the girl who would wake in the middle of the night to jot down an idea that could not be missed, the girl who could not leave without a pen and a scrap of paper, who has a supply of Starbucks napkin poems from those moments when she ran out of paper, who would spend a week perfecting an idea so that at the weekend she could sit and write, the line, the poem, the scene, the act, the movement.

The perfect book is like a ballet, ever piece can stand alone, every word is every step and they are beautiful alone, but together the symphony builds into a movement that brings tears to the eyes of the reader.

So much has changed in my life recently I'm starting to feel a bit lost. I gave up writing depressing self-indulgent blog posts three years ago except for moments of desperate need, this might be one, but also I just need to process and to write something and keep it hidden away in a diary feels like keeping something precious, writing it and burning it feels to radical, but writing something and letting it exist away from you, but be there, that's, somehow that's more comforting, more encouraging so if you're reading this and don't want to read something indulgently self-reflective then move on to something new, if not: welcome to my headspace.

The taste like an old familiar friend, the smooth watered down espresso, the sweet syrup, the warmth refreshing, remembering. Lying on cold polished granite, the echoes of noise a distance away, music in my ears, hiding the tears from the world, in this place that no one knows of, no one sees. Until the moment when the thoughts have been enough, when the fear has passed, when I can pull myself together enough to be alright, to be alive.

Unspeakable terror, fear that has passed on generation to generation, we know in our lives in our bones the horrors that cannot be talked of, cannot be fathomed, too much for those to bear, for those who love.