Thank You To The Moffatts

It has been some time since I have sat down to really write.
Small comments of negativity have blown the wind quite out of my sails and I have made no progress since then. Thankfully, two voices of very generous encouragement have given me the heart to carry on and remember why I write. I thought I might share these reflections with you.

I write about what it means to be a woman because I met a woman named Rachel Waters who loved that she was a woman, and woke up every morning aware of and thankful for that. At first this seemed strange to me. But then I realized that I dream for my husband to one day be very aware of the fact that I am a woman, and certainly it is more difficult to inspire a conviction you do not have. I want my daughters to be glad and rejoice in what will set them apart in childhood as girls, and in their later years, as mature and beautiful women.

I have grown in my knowledge of and enjoyment of those qualities in women that we call ‘femininity’. But just like the enjoyment of God overflows into spontaneous praise, so too my discovery of femininity is beginning to overflow with ideas and conversations. C. S. Lewis’s well loved quote on praise is always worth reading again: “All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise.... The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside... Just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?’”

Someone once said that “painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her.” What a beautiful and concise reason for us all to pursue our artistic expressions. Van Gogh is my foremost inspiration of what it means to behold beauty— to internalize it— and then to desire to share it. “If you read the letters of the painter van Gogh you will see what his creative impulse was. It was just this: he loved something—the sky, say. He loved human beings. He wanted to show human beings how beautiful the sky was. So he painted it for them. And that was all there was to it.”

Lewis, C. S. “The Problem of Praise in the Psalms” (found in Reflections on the Psalms New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. P90-98.

Ueland, Brenda. If You Want to Write. 2nd ed. Saint Paul: Gray Wolf P, 1987.