Why I Blog

When I first started a blog in 2004 (and now you know how ancient I am) blogs were so rare that when I told my friends and family about it, I called it my "online journal" because I knew they would not know what a blog was.

We had just moved to our Texas homestead, two Yankees who had grown up by the beach. The extent of our agricultural experience was raising a few tomato plants and a dog. And a hamster or two. I was pretty sure that our life was going to be one long funny story of mishap and disaster. It was.

For three or four years I would sporadically update the blog, keeping our far-flung loved ones apprised of the current insanity and mayhem. During those years the internet slowly and steadily exploded and everyone, including lots of scary people, got online. And after a while I kind of freaked out. I started panicking about privacy and such, and pretty much shut down my internet activity.

But time went by and I kept feeling a little niggling sense that I was wrong. After all, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love" (1 John 4:18). God has not given us a spirit of fear (2 Tim 1:7)!

I realized that our way of life, a life where we tried to put God first, where we made uncomfortable sacrfices to give our children the healthiest environment we could, a life centered around family, was beginning to fade away in our culture. I felt a pressure to talk about what we believe, about a life of beauty in the middle of endless dirt. A life sparkling with hope.

So because God is funny and likes to make me grow, I found myself in August of 2010 starting another blog, this time not a journal of daily life, but a place where I poured my deepest heart, my love for Him, and the amazing things He had done in my life.

I don't know if it is clear through my writing, but I am really a fairly shy person. I am not a woman who stands on street corners handing out tracts. I will seek out the one person who looks uncomfortable in a room and talk to her about her necklace or her kids, or something that might make her feel less out of place, but I am not likely to go up to a stranger and ask them if they know Jesus as their personal savior. I am definitely more in the business of helping people feel comfortable than making them feel uncomfortable.

The good news of Jesus Christ makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable.

And part of what I have had to do, as I have been drawn further up and further into this writing dance, is to continue to shed the cloaks of fear that want to wrap around me. The fear of making people uncomfortable, the fear of rejection, the fear of criticism.

Here's the thing: If I believe this, and I do, I have to tell you. If I truly believe that Jesus Christ is the risen Son of God, that everything changed when He died and rose again, that because of this the whole creation has changed how it can relate to the God of the Universe, well then that is a pretty big deal. And I wouldn't really be a good steward of this gift if I didn't share it would I?

Why do I blog now? I blog because the world needs hope. And the only hope I have found that is really hope is this: that Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

That hope is what makes it possible for me to wash the seventh stinky load of laundry for my family. It's what gets me out of bed at 5:30am. It's why I don't give up.

He is why I don't give up.

I know a lot of Christians who avoid the internet. I understand that. I really do. I know Christians who are even pretty dogmatic about it. Who contend that good Christians have no business being online.

But here's what I have learned: God can use everything. EVERYthing.

I have seen people distracted by online Christian activities. But I have also seen women inspired to start reading their bibles for the first time because of the internet. I have seen women forsake face-to-face community for online community. But I have also seen isolated women with absolutely no fellowship enter into community for the first time online and be girded and grow.

Now I blog because I have a passionate desire, need almost, to tell women: "There IS hope!" I want to shout from the rooftops, "You, yes YOU, exhausted mama, YOU can find joy!"

I want to tell you to love and love and love, and when you think you can't love any more, get on your knees and be flooded with the impossible endless love of the Lover of your soul, then get up and love some more.

I want you to know that every time, every single time, you choose to love over choosing yourself, the heavens rejoice, that your cheering section is loud indeed, and if I knew about it, I'd be cheering too!

It's just not what our culture tells us. But guess what? It's truth.

And that's why I blog.

 
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