Why I started a Blog

So, let me start by saying that I am an introvert.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like people; for me, it just means that being around people for too long, or addressing groups of people wears me out.

I am also a really private person, like I haven’t posted anything on my Facebook page in two months, and the last 10+ posts on there are just other people’s posts I shared, private. So, if I am a private introvert, why am I starting a blog?

Honestly, because I am also a Christian.

(Insert sighs, followed by the sound of most people clicking out of this blog)

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(Musing sounds as the one or two people who haven’t left yet try to decide if it worth it to keep readying)

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(More musing sounds as someone, somewhere mulls over the fact that introverted Christian doesn’t equal blogger.)

To that someone, somewhere, first of all Thank You for existing and reading this far. Secondly, your right, that doesn’t seem to compute, but let me see if I can explain.

I am a Christian which, among other things, means that I believe in an all-powerful God, who despite His awesomeness in comparison to humans, desires to have personal relationships with individual humans… including me… and including you… and including all those people who left the page without ever reading this far.

Not only does God desire to have these personal relationships, He has gone to, and continues to go to great lengths to make these relationships possible, and to pour into the people who have excepted His offer of friendship.

In order to make these relationship work, God is continuously involved in human events (after all it would be hard to be friends with someone, if you never did things together, or didn’t have common interests). I can tell you from personal experience, that having an all-powerful God involved in your day-to-day events can lead to having some rather odd stories to tell (especially since God also happens to have an interesting sense of humor).

So, if I haven’t lost you yet, you are probably still wondering, “Why in the world is this person starting a blog, and what in the world is it about?”

I guess what I am trying to say is that I’m starting a blog to share stories; stories of things that have happened in my life, or that I’ve watched play out in the lives of those around me. Some of the stories will be a strait narrative, others may take on the form of a poem or something else. The one thing they will all have in common is God. The stories will all, in some way show God’s involvement in the events, as they unfolded.

I’m doing this because I am blessed to have these stories. Some of them came easily, and some of them, I had to fight through just to survive. Despite the contrast of joy and pain, they all have lessons that have helped me get to where I am today, and they all display the presence of the God who got me though it all.

I managed to give all of the reasoning behind why I am doing this, without actually telling you the story of why… To make a life time of stories short enough that you have even a 1% chance of finishing this post, I enjoy writing. I tend to write poems when I am feeling strong emotion. Most of the poems aren’t any good, but a few are decent, and I had been thinking about finding some way to publish them/share them with others. A few weeks ago, I had the idea of just doing a blog about poetry, but I’m by no means a poetry expert, and it seem overwhelmingly intimidating, so I dropped the idea.

I currently have a few friends that are going through interesting relationship stuff. Talking with them helped me realize that part of my natural response to difficulty is to tell stories which seems to apply to the situation. I guess I have always known that part of the reason God lets us go through stuff in life, is so that we can help someone else going through the same thing, or something worse. This idea combined with the concept of starting a blog when I realized that if there is one thing I can be a leading authority on, it’s my life. So for about the last week I have been playing around with the idea of starting this blog.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, was church this morning, and the drive home. During the service, my pastor was talking about our responsibility as Christian to share what we have been given. He was specifically referring to insight that could help people, and called us out on sitting and watching people hurt, when we know there is something we could say to help the situation, or encourage and comfort them… (I hope that my stories have the ability to encourage and comfort you…) It made me think again that I should be sharing my stories in a more public way. I was listening to a Christian radio station on the drive home, and the songs seemed to keep reverberating the point that I should do this. Then, just as I was about to turn into the driveway, they read the Verse of the Day, which happened to be 1 Chronicles 16:24, “Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.” (NLT)… “Okay, I get it God,” was my verbal response as I stepped out of the car. So, several hours and some confusing computer stuff later, here we are. I’m writing my first post, and hoping that you will one day read it.

So, someone, somewhere, that was probably a lot deeper than you expected when you clicked on a link “Why I started a blog”, but my hope is that if you have made it this far, you won’t stop on this story, but you will go on to read one of the others. And hopefully see not only my mistakes and interesting writing style (yes, I am aware I use a lot of commas and parenthesis), but also the people, the lessons, and the God in the stories, and hopefully come away encouraged and with something to make your life, and your stories a little better.

P.S.

First of all, can you do P.S.’s on Blog posts?

Secondly, I managed to make it through that without telling you anything much about myself. Although I’d like to leave it like that for now (Remember, I’m a naturally private person. And these stories are about Him, not me anyway), I feel like it would help your understanding to know a little more about me. For instance, if I tell you that I am a female in her mid-twenties, it will probable influence your perception of what I write.

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I can’t decide what more I want to tell you about myself, so I’m going to leave it there for now, and let you figure out the rest of who I am by reading my stories.

P.P.S. (Post, post script)

For anyone who came here hoping to get some help for starting their own blog, and somehow managed to read this far, sorry this wasn’t really helpful toward that end. I’d like to redirect you to AmyLynnAndrews.com, how to start a blog which was helpful to me in figuring out how to start this one. She has everything pretty well laid out, and has a really good FAQ section. I hope it helps, and that you read another story anyway.