Monday, March 24, 2014

Return.

It has been quite some time since I've written here...for reasons unknown and for these reasons:

One reason is this: I've been lazy. Spiritually speaking, for some seasons, but emotionally, mentally, and physically as well. I believe God has made me with a "writer's brain", in some aspects, but not all of it is meant for public sight. Yet I've hidden that gift, not only from you--also from myself. In the last two years I've hardly spent time writing, which in turn means that I've spent little time practicing and professing and processing by expression what God is teaching me. I have in other ways, but writing is one of the ways I express best, and so I've failed to use the gift of words He has given me.

Another reason: what other people think. I care too much about it. WAY too much. And it's time that I stop. I know people who don't get the whole "blogging" thing. They think it's weird and dumb and narcissistic and pointless. And I know people who do love it, but they write because they want affirmation from other people. And I have been in both of these camps until I realized this: Writers don't write for the readers. They write because they have to. They can't not write. And by nature, I'm a writer. My thoughts are in streams of words tied together, and so many of them come so quickly that I fail to verbalize them and they disappear. I have to write. And so I will. You won't see all of it. There will be posts I don't publish. And there will be some that I will and probably shouldn't. And there will be posts that people think are dumb, but I don't care. (I probably will for a second, but then I'll try not to.) When you write publicly, you become vulnerable. And that's a little bit scary. A lot scary. 

One last reason: ME. Sometimes I don't think people want to hear what I have to say. Or sometimes I think everyone should hear what I have to say. And there are days when I don't get the balance right between those two. While this is certainly not a platform for my opinions, it's a good place for me to work out and process the truth of who God is and who He made me to be and what my purpose is. My purpose is not just to write, but to tell my story, which is part of the greater story of who God is. And sometimes that means getting over ME. It's not about me. So I'll do my best, through words I'll piece together carefully (and sometimes probably not carefully enough) to say what I need to say to point to Jesus.

So here I go again...I may be the only person reading my own words, but I'm writing because I finally believe it's essential to who I am, but it is not about me.