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Tag: inspiration

Magical Places

Tracey Dyck 31 Comments

There are places I feel connected to, places that my restless heart grabs onto like a wandering magnet finding its match. I can’t explain how or even why, whether it has to do with being an INFJ or if it’s just me or if it’s something everyone experiences. But there are places in this world that feel like home.



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Firstly and most obviously: my actual, physical home. When I’ve been traveling or even just busy, and I finally drag myself through the front door, my whole self just sighs in contentment. (Or relief, let’s be honest. #hobbit) It’s lived in, our stuff is everywhere, it’s comfy, all the sunshine streams through the picture windows in the front, and there are usually the voices of the people I love most filling the rooms.



[sorry, this one and the remaining pics are from Google Images; I saved them
on my phone and neglected to keep the URLS, so I can’t give proper credit]

Trees. I’m not a super outdoorsy person, I’m not into camping (though I love the idea of being capable of roughing it), but there’s something about a forest that draws me in. Green everywhere. A quiet thrumming of insect wings and birdcalls and paws rustling in the undergrowth and life growing. In a forest, it feels like an adventure could be hiding around any given corner, but it’s also a place to pause and drink in the peacefulness.

Water. Not being in it so much as being near it. Put me on the shore of a lake or the bank of a river; send me on a wild goose chase to track down a trickle of water, and I’m happy. The sheer bigness of a body of water whose opposite shore is somewhere unseen past the horizon fills me with awe. Even the sound of snowmelt running down the drainpipes in springtime awakens hope in me.

Mountains. These crop up in my stories all. the. time. and I don’t even live near any. I’ve been amongst mountains so few times I can count them on one hand, but they fill my imagination and utterly fascinate me. Just like forests, they practically sing adventure; and just like water, they are awe-inspiring.

Someplace in the middle of nowhere, on a clear night when the stars are bright and close and the Milky Way breathes brilliant dust across the sky. Living in the city, I don’t get to experience this much, and sometimes I stare longingly upward and wish to be away from streetlights. But there was one night in particular, at a tiny cabin with my family, when we lay on the grass and just gazed at the stars for a while. I felt so small. So at peace. So full of wonder.

Cutesy coffee shops awaken a little bit of hipster in me. The smell of coffee grinds . . . the hum of conversation . . . the clink of dishes . . . oftentimes, the rustic timber and adorable knick knacks and the atmosphere of people pausing long enough to enjoy each other’s company. Plus, it’s kind of the picture-perfect place for a writer to pen those words. (At least, the romanticized writer that proooobably doesn’t exist in real life.)

Great architecture & history. Preferably a castle (I’ve never visited one YET), but I’ll settle for legislative buildings, museum buildings, cathedrals, anything made out of stone, anything with arches or domes or spires or tall, skinny windows. Yep. Take me there, and let me stay a good long while to soak in the stories seeping through the walls.


Whichever place on my list I visit, once I’m there, I want to be there long enough to enjoy it. These are the places that make my heart sing, that seem to speak a language without words. Somehow, they fill me with inspiration–magic tingling in my fingertips and fire glowing in my chest.

What are some of the places you love with all your heart? Do we share any?

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Worth the Cross

Tracey Dyck 16 Comments

Today we celebrate a cross and an empty tomb. A death and a resurrection. The darkest night of all, when the hope of the world seemed to be extinguished, gone forever . . . and the brightest morning ever beheld, when that Hope returned victorious.

We wear crosses around our necks and hang them from our cars’ rear-view mirrors. We sing about the empty tomb and the risen Savior, and these things are beautiful–truly. But I, for one, often forget the power behind these symbols and lyrics. I forget that Jesus went to the cross for me.

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

He surely had seen Roman crucifixions before–the excruciating pain of the lashing, the slow suffocation–and I’m sure He could well imagine the spiritual pain of bearing the sin of the entire world on His shoulders. But knowing all that, He still gave Himself up willingly. And as the whip fell, as the crown of thorns dug into His scalp, as the nails were driven through His wrists, as a hail of insults flew, as He lost sight of His own Father . . . He could have put a stop to it at any time. He could have called legions of angels to His aid (Matthew 26:53), and who knows what He could have done Himself. Going to the cross was not one single choice. It was a choice He made moment by painful moment–again and again and again:

YES.

For you, yes.

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross.” What kind of joy would keep the Son of God nailed to a wooden cross? What kind of joy would fuel His walk up the hill of death? What kind of joy would He hold inside though every nerve screamed for relief and every crevice of His heart reached for a Father He couldn’t see through the darkness?

I’ll tell you what kind of joy. It was the joy of redeeming you.

The possibility of bringing you home, of building a bridge across a chasm you could never cross, of wiping the dirt off His precious child’s face and crowning you royalty: that is what brought Jesus joy.

You are worth the cross.

God said so. His Son showed you in a way more powerful than anyone ever could: you’re worth it. And I sincerely hope that you and I let Him convince us that’s true. We all struggle with feelings of unworthiness, of thinking we’re not good enough. And honestly, our behavior isn’t good enough. Our thoughts and attitudes and actions aren’t good enough, and that’s why Jesus had to die.

But don’t for a minute feel guilty because of that. Those burdens aren’t yours to carry anymore. Because through all of the sin, all of the mess-ups and brokenness of humanity, He saw who we are.

His.

And by the very nature of being His, we are worth it. You are worth it.

Happy Easter, dear friends! He is risen!

(I’ll leave you with this beautiful Easter medley by Anthem Lights.)

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Why Fiction Matters

Tracey Dyck 24 Comments
[Pinterest]

“By words the mind is winged.”

-Aristophanes

Why do we love books so much? Why do we spend hundreds of dollars buying them and thousands of hours reading them? Why do we fill our bookshelves? Why do we browse libraries and bookstores, why do we create book blogs and write reviews and form communities centered around our favorite genres?
It’s because of story.
And it’s because story reaches in and speaks right to the heart.
Stories are an escape. They are journeys and adventures. They are safe places to think and feel and question, places where we dare to risk it all in a hypothetical situation, to see how it plays out. They prepare us for the real places that ask us to risk, to fight, to love. Once we’ve practiced in fiction, we’re a bit more ready to choose the heroic path in life.
Dry information is not remembered. Yet information attached to strong emotion stays with us for years. You may not even remember the plot of a book you read five years ago–not the names of the characters or the twist at the end–but somewhere in your mind, the feelings and concepts are there.
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The hero who laid his life on the line for the helpless.
The antihero who struggled uphill and found redemption.
The villain who spiraled ever deeper into darkness.
The girl who found true love.
The orphan who found a family.
The emotions behind those virtues and vices, victories and defeats, stick with us. In those universal emotions of loss, joy, love, conflict, frustration, and triumph, pieces of ourselves are brought to light. Me too is perhaps the strongest element in any story–that realization that we’re not the only ones who’ve been there. Because if a character feels like I do, that means there are countless others in this world who have trudged the same valleys and climbed the same mountains. I am not alone.
It’s in stories that we often learn what life is, and what it should be. Even when a novel makes no attempt to teach an overt message, we are learning. We are vicariously experiencing another world and another life through the characters.
That’s why stories mean so much to me. In them I’ve lived hundreds of lives. I’ve been a victorious hero. I’ve succumbed to a fatal flaw. I’ve offered mercy and received mercy. I have lived, I have died. I have seen the world through many eyes, felt pain and joy so like my own in many hearts.
I’ve found more than just companionship in stories. I’ve also seen glimpses of God, in the spaces between the lines where imagination intersects with the holy. It astounds me that He would use stories humbly imprinted on paper to speak to us. Of course, the Bible is where I find Him the most–as it should be. But I cannot discount the ways fiction has shed a different light on things I’d grown too familiar to see in Scripture.
Ted Dekker’s Black drowned me in God’s love.
Bryan Davis’s Eye of the Oracle let me dance with Elohim.
Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s Starflower pierced through my judgmental nature and showed me grace.
C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe put me in awe of my Savior’s sacrifice.
Andrew Klavan’s If We Survive reminded me of the beauty and fragility of life.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King showed me courage in the face of impossible odds.
Jeffrey Overstreet’s The Ale Boy’s Feast helped me lean on God’s provision.
Even a children’s book like Max Lucado’s With You All the Way helped me listen for my Father’s song when I cannot see Him.
I could go on and on. Secular books, too, have helped to instill bravery and friendship in me. The point is, I don’t know where I would be without stories.
Some may criticize fiction as being unnecessary. An escape for those too cowardly to deal with their problems head-on. On the contrary, fiction has helped me face my problems. Between the covers of books, I have discovered courage to combat fear, love to fuel my steps, and the reassurance that the happiest ending of all is yet to come.

What books have impacted you?

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as only you can

Tracey Dyck 22 Comments
[via Pinterest]
We compare too much.
As people we compare our lives.
As girls we may compare our beauty.
As guys we may compare our strength.
As students we compare knowledge and grades.
As employees we compare wages and positions and achievements.
As friends we compare circles and contacts and how many people we know and how many of those people are important.
As writers we compare our words.
And every time we fall short.
There is always–a l w a y s–someone better than us.
Someone more beautiful, successful, productive. Someone smarter, faster, better. Someone who has it all together when we are falling apart.
We have the unfortunate tendency to compare our failures to another person’s successes.
This comparison game makes us feel better sometimes. “Oh look, I’m further ahead than they are.” It’s probably true. You’re more skilled, more disciplined, more accomplished. But it’s also true when you turn the other way and realize, “But other people are further ahead than I am.” Wherever you are, there will always be those behind you and those ahead of you.
Who cares?
It’s terribly cliched, but you’re on your own journey! You have a unique life made up of
your background
your upbringing
where you live
who your family is
what you’ve learned
what you’ve taught yourself
who you know
where you’ve been
what you’ve decided
what others have decided for you
what you care about
what you dream about
what you absolutely cannot live without.
No one else has that combination, that magic elixir that cannot be replicated. You are a limited edition, a one time only sort of thing.
We hear it all the time. “You’re special. You’re unique. Be you–everyone else is taken.” We’ve grown deaf to it.
Deaf to the truth that you are you and that’s pretty amazing.
Where you’re going is amazing.
Your life is amazing. I love your story. I love who you are.
Whether you’re rocketing forward in a blur of breathless light
or you’re plodding forward step by painful step
or your path is wandering, looping, falling back on itself and finding its way–
it’s your path.
This life is yours.
What do you want out of it?
Not what everyone else wants out of it. What does success look like to you? (I’ll give you a hint: ask the One who created you what your success looks like to Him. You’ll find an even better answer.)
Forget everyone else’s perfectly filtered photos and snappy blog posts and put-together facades. (Yes, forget mine too.) There are things crumbling behind those fronts. We all have those broken bits.
Go out and really live. Live the way you and only you are supposed to live. Doing anything less is a disservice to yourself and to the God who invented you in the first place.
And writers–you beautiful creatures with wings of ink–stop wishing for your voice to sound like anyone else’s. You are not some other author, no matter how poetic, tightly written, skillfully crafted, surprisingly plotted, allegorical, straightforward, intense, or fantastic their books are. Admire them; that’s all right. Don’t try to be them.
Try to be you.
That’s hard. I know. Sometimes you’ll borrow bits of other people in an effort to discover your own voice underneath. It’s part of the process. But stop trying to stuff yourself into another person’s box–be it in writing or any other part of life. You’re too wild and original and incredible for that.
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I don’t think I could sum it up any better than that.
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