On blogging....

Blogs are such a strange thing. I mean, really.

Writing, in general, is difficult. It's taking what's inside - be it gut-wrenching pain or gut-splitting humor - yanking it out of its "safe place," and allowing it to flow through our fingers onto a page.

Several emotions present themselves through that process.

Sometimes the emotion is one of inadequacy. Sometimes there are not words to describe the whirlwind that's happening on the inside. Sometimes there are words, but we are not allowed to use them in Christian circles. Sometimes when the words finally do come, they are incomplete, empty, a black-and-white cartoon of the masterpiece in our souls. They are, inadequate.

Sometimes the emotion is fear. Sometimes the words are too adequate, too accurate, too real. The deepest parts of the soul are exposed for the world to see and judge. To accept or reject. To adore or ignore. In the moment we decide to publish - be it on a little blog page or in a master novel - longings and hurts and happiness and fulfilment are placed in the hands of a total stranger, and we learn if we are truly alone.

Sometimes the emotion is akin to freedom. Sometimes writing releases that thing that has been hiding from the world, and hiding us from the world. Sometimes it heals us to know that the secret is no longer ours to bear. The shame and fear of someone discovering us no longer binds or hinders. The light is cast in the shadows, and there is no more crouching or skulking, clothed in our trench coat of isolation.

Then sometimes... sometimes the emotion is faith. Only it feels less like emotion and more like action. Even obedience. Sometimes we write when we have no way to predict the outcome. Sometimes we expose our soul for no other reason than we feel like it's what we are supposed to do.

That's where I'm at right now.

It's not pretty, y'all.