Your Words Matter
On January 20, 2021, I wrote these words on a Facebook post after hearing the amazing young woman we have come to know as Amanda Gorman. When she read the words to her inauguration poem “The Hill We Climb” it reminded me that words matter. Since they matter and due to the onslaught of voices externally and internally that tell us constantly that we should not share ours, I thought I would share my words albeit a little updated for a broader audience.
Words really do matter friends. They are contagious. The previous presidential administration served as an example of how hateful words latch onto people and cause so much darkness. Everywhere. Hopeful words are also deposited into our spirit and gives us a vision of what could be. A world that could be. People that could be. Churches that could be. Systems that could be.
When I originally wrote these words I cried. But I cried more for every word that didn’t make it to paper. Every word that wasn’t uttered in a poem. Because we thought something was more important, perhaps even more impactful than words.
I shed tears for every story that was never heard or read because we believed in the “it’s only” lie.
It’s only a thought.
It’s only a poem.
It’s only an article.
It’s only a story.
Or maybe it was the “no one will care” voice that we allowed to have residence in our minds, and take root in our hearts.
If you have ever felt the draw to write, to do spoken word, find the time to get.it.done.
If you feel like you need help, take a class, join a writing group, read about the craft.
But don’t die with words left unwritten, unspoken inside.
Words matter. Hopeful words matter more. They are the very tools that have built countries, healed nations, inspired individuals to rise up one more time and believe that we are indeed made for more.
I say a prayer over every potential writer, stuck writer, scared writer, waiting for the perfect moment writer, that the Spirit of God, in union with the trinity, the most Divine creative source, quicken you to get to it. The world is hungry for words. Hopeful words. It just might be YOUR words.
