Sometimes inspiration doesn’t arrive with fireworks.

Sometimes it arrives in the mail.

I had been away from writing and blogging for almost seven years. Long enough that I had pretty much made peace with the idea that maybe that chapter of my life was over.

Then one day, a package showed up.

Inside was a blue pen.

Nothing particularly extraordinary about it—except for the words written across the side:

Poets & Writers.

I looked at it and laughed.

Okay, God… I see what You’re doing here.

Was it a coincidence?

Maybe.

But I chose to see it as a little nudge from God.

A reminder.

A whisper:

You still have something to say.

And somehow, that little blue pen made me want to write again.

So I did.

I started writing.

Then blogging.

Then writing some more.

And somewhere in all those words, I realized something I hadn’t understood during those seven quiet years:

I hadn’t stopped being a writer.
I had simply stopped writing.

There is a difference.

The words hadn’t left me.

The stories hadn’t disappeared.

Neither had the memories, the questions, the lessons, the faith, the heartbreak, the laughter, or all the things life had taught me while I wasn’t writing them down.

They had been collecting.

Waiting.

Maybe I wasn’t finished with writing at all.

Maybe life had simply given me seven more years of things to write about.

So I kept the pen.

Not because I believe there is anything magical about it.

I kept it because it reminds me that God doesn’t always use something enormous to get our attention.

Sometimes it’s a conversation.

Sometimes it’s a thought you can’t shake.

Sometimes it’s a door opening.

Sometimes it’s something as ordinary as a blue pen arriving in the mailbox at exactly the right time.

And maybe the thing you thought was finished isn’t finished at all.

Maybe the dream didn’t die.

Maybe the gift didn’t disappear.

Maybe it was simply waiting for you to come back.

Seven years later, I picked up my pen again.

And apparently…

I had a LOT more to say.

Thinking out loud…

Sometimes the sign you’ve been asking God for doesn’t look like a burning bush.

Sometimes it looks like a blue pen showing up in your mailbox at exactly the right time