Our life on this
earth is like a
sentence. Some
lives are clipped,
truncated sentences
that feel wantonness
for many more
words. Others are
likened to elongated
run-on sentences,
drawling out as
multi-syllabic as a Southerner’s twang.
Sadly, many others are stuffed with safe,
shallow, colorless words so boring that we
may find ourselves questioning if they’re
even worth the black and white type-space
they fill, much less the
laborious investment
of reading them.
While each of our life
sentences may vary
in length, vibrancy of
adjectives, strength
of subject, number of
breathing hyphens,
and pausing commas,
we all share one
grammatical truth: the
end of our sentence.
Whether it be hailed
by question mark,
exclamation point, or
period, the fact is: our
sentence will end.
Good writing teaches
us that our sentences
should end strong.
The height of our message should blare like
a sea Nymph’s siren to Odysseus, luring
the reader to sail on to the next sentence.
The older I grow—the longer my sentence
carries its poetry—the more I lean into
reflecting upon what would be a worthy
ending and punctuation.
In my fifth decade, I bear a heightened
awareness that my sentence indeed has an
end, and find myself hungry to make clear
both the point and privilege of filling the
universe with words at all. Do I really want
my period to be based upon safety, clarity,
certainty, achievement, and acquisition?
God spare me; spare us all from one more
such monotonous sentence picked up from
dime-store living.
Although it is terrifying, for many will
laugh at or even mock my feeble attempts
at living a powerful, vibrant, life-breathing
sentence, I long to write one that leaves
all readers closing the book of me with
an unnerving sense of the divine loom
of God that both squalls the oceans and
stills the heart of humanity from the same
Mysterious Cloud.
I’d love to hear from some of you life-
writers who dare to craft poetry with
your sentence. Let’s
encourage one
another to never settle
for living tightly
edited text, passed on
to us from someone
else’s book. None of
our lives are meant
to look the same.
God has a unique
dream, purpose, and
narrative for each of
us.
If you’ve dared to let
your life write outside
the margins, post a
bit of your squiggly,
scrawled-out story on
my Facebook author
page. Even just a
line or two about
where you ventured away from the life-
expectations of friends, family, culture,
and even church may encourage others
who read your experience along their own
journey of writing a sentence that matters:
facebook.com/KimberlyLSmith.Author
