Transformative Power of Words | Overcoming Adversity through Writing

Describe your most memorable vacation.

As a child, I never really experienced vacations. Unless visiting family that I didn’t even know counted. However, I was always traveling with every sway of my number two pencil.

I believe that God works in mysterious ways. When I was in middle school, my friends and I were obsessed with this boy group called Mindless Behavior. It makes me cringe how much we loved these guys. First of all they were way older than we were, but I guess that added to our obsession.

Around the same time we were also reading stories on Watt Pad about them. If you are not familiar with Watt Pad, it’s a website were random people publish eBooks. These books were everything to us. They would make up stories about Mindless Behavior with normal girls, and we loved it.

This inspired me. It wasn’t enough to read about some random girl, I wanted to experience this for myself. So, I started writing. Not only did I write about myself, but I added all of my friends in the stories. Each of their personalities, things they would say, and even matched them with their favorite guy. Needless to say, they were stressing me everyday for the next part because they needed to know if they got the guy.

So, I would spend hours writing in composition notebooks, after completing my homework of course. It got so bad to the point where my mom couldn’t afford to buy me anymore books to write in. Just imagine middle school girls chasing me down the hall for the next part, only for me to tell them I ran out of room to write.

This too inspired me. So, I started writing the stories on Facebook. My friends were so happy to see their names in the stories, but it didn’t stop there. They would share my stories and girls I didn’t know would message me to be added into the stories. So, I would add them to build conflict because there were only four boys in the group.

These stories allowed me to meet other teenage girls all over. One of the girls would Skype me and my dad would always ask who she was. I would tell him this is my best friend, even though we never met in person.

These stories allowed us young girls, living in the projects of one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, to feel as if we were on vacation. At that time, those composition notebooks and Facebook post were our vacations.

I love where words can take us. That’s why I choose to read God’s Word everyday. Regardless of were I am in life, I have joy and peace. His Word is living. It frees you from wherever you feel trapped. Paul was in chains, but he knew he was free because God’s Word frees us.

Earlier, I stated that God works in mysterious ways. I say this because I have always wrote in order to escape my circumstances, even as a young child. I would write raps and motivational speeches, but I stopped as I got older because I didn’t see any value in it. My environment made me feel as if reading and writing was for “nerds” or uncool people. So, I did what I know how to do best, I adapted to my environment and suppressed who I truly was. I prayed to God about my purpose and He led me here. So, here I am writing again.

Let me know in the comments if writing has changed anything in your life. Also, leave me some words of encouragement that you read or someone may have said to you that changed your life.

Happy Friday!

I love you all!