Writing in Red

I have two blue pens in my bag—and have I managed to lose them both? All I have are these red ones from my school bag. I don’t like to journal in red—It doesn’t last.

Jay’s grandmother had written out the story of her life years ago. She wrote it in red and the ink faded, and by the time we typed it on a computer file—that’s now probably obsolete—you could hardly make out the words.

So, I don’t like to write in red.

Because—

I think, some year my daughters will take these journals they’ve given me for Christmas over the years—they will take them to again hear my voice.

But, they will learn more about me than the words on the page—They’ll see all the mistakes I’ve made—both in writing and in searching—wondering, doubting. And maybe that’s the part I want them to hear after all—

That you can stumble and get back up—that no one is perfect, even those we love best—that sometimes bad turns good—We just have to wait for it—that for me waiting has always been the hardest.

I don’t like to write in red.

I look for my blue pen—Because blue lasts—

It’s like the Colorado blue sky over the mountaintops that I see from the condo we’re staying in. 

Sometimes that blue sky gets overshadowed by clouds, but you always know that brilliant blue is right behind them—that it’ll be back—that it’s always there.

Blue lasts. Blue reminds me of a daughter’s love.

“Peace is not the absence of the dark…Peace is the assurance of God’s presence in the dark.”

“I forget peace is a Person, not a place.”

And these Ann Voskamp quotes were the reason I was searching for a pen in the first place.