The search for inspiration

Sometimes finding inspiration can be so hard!  If I am in a 'blank' mode I panic and use every delaying tactic possible to avoid having to sit in front of my screen not knowing what to type.  The irony is that I love new notebooks and journals and when in a stationers may pick up one beautifully bound journal after another exulting in the clean unblemished pages, imagining the words that might soon adorn them.      

Words that might be powerful to inspire others, release laughter, bring comfort, move to tears, encourage, thrill, excite or challenge...How exciting to think that as I write (or type) one letter after another, forming words, sentences and paragraphs, that those who ultimately read them might be so changed - What a privilege?
So why then do I go blank just when I need to write and where can I find my inspiration?  Beating my brain up just gives me a headache, staring at the screen makes me cross eyed. I search frantically within, thinking how can I say I'm a writer when I've no words to write? Is my inspiration hiding in a drawer?  Will I find it in someone else's words?  Well, they may inspire me but I still need to find my own voice.  Shall I intercede in tongues or get all my friends to pray? Make that 10th cup of tea or have yet another piece of chocolate? 
Well, all of these may help (especially the chocolate!) But what I really need is to relax in living my day, for that treasure of inspiration is within me, just as surely as God's Spirit is within me. In fact, it's so often His Spirit's whisper that brings alive the fleeting glimpse of an idea,  a noticing of something that is there but I haven't seen yet; a turning of my attention like a butterfly bobbing from one flower to another. If I follow that fleeting glimpse, where will it lead me?
So often I just dismiss it; I'm busy cleaning or trying to look busy writing...  Why take note of random thoughts that just waste time? But repeatedly I find its that very random thought that I need to capture.  It just may be the beginning of inspiration, a wonderfully unexpected path to explore.
When I walk Goldie, my dog, any gap in a fence is an enticement.  No matter that the path we're already on is full of interesting sights and smells, he must explore the unknown, so he squeezes through that gap and is gone - a minute, five minutes or more until he returns satisfied. That's my lesson in finding inspiration.  Will I dare to notice that gap, go through and follow to see where it leads me?  Just a minute or five minutes and I may be amazed at what I discover.

Tracy Williamson lives in Kent, sharing a home with her friend and ministry partner Marilyn Baker, plus Tracy's Hearing Dog, Goldie and Marilyn's Guide Dog.  Tracy has written several books about Hearing God's voice and experiencing inner transformation.  She has a blog www.journeyingod.blogspot.co.uk  and her ministry website is: www.mbm-ministries.org