The Month of March marks a year since launching this blog in 2011!
I thought it would be fun to share why I started writing here to begin with. Here we go:
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| A favorite spot in the world…. the place where I write. |
1. I love to write. Enough said about that.
2. Writing here is one way of testing a growing sense of call to write. That’s how we get clarity on any call, right? We launch into it and see if there is fruit, or what happens as we step into the new thing, as a way of testing the sense of call.
3. I was at the point in life where I felt I needed something new to put energy into that taps into my desire to create and develop something. My blog scratches that creative itch. I enjoy the satisfaction of working at a craft and all the while trying to grow and improve.
4. Over time, the blog will become a sort of memoir. The things I write about always come from my life experiences and personal learnings. Someday I’ll have a collection of writings about stuff that’s been important to me along the journey. Otherwise, knowing me, I’ll forget. I guess you could also say then that this blog helps me to remember what’s important, which is what memoirs do.
5. To push me to learn something new and to keep on learning.
6. I saw the potential to connect with people all around the world, thus not being limited to the sphere of my particular geographic location.
7. To encourage and inspire me. I know, sounds narcissistic but I’m learning to find encouragement and inspiration from within and learning to need it less from others or outside sources. And from someone who has historically needed quite a bit of encouragement from others, let me just say that learning to find encouragement from within is a step in the right direction. But, feel free to send some encouragement my way anyway 🙂
8. To experience God. It’s interesting, but I find that in the process of writing that I experience God in some pretty cool ways. Writing helps me to stay connected and surrendered to the Source.
9. To practice the discipline of distilling my thoughts to the ground. There’s no shortage of things that I think about and that swirl around in my head. Getting these thoughts out of my head and on to paper, or a screen, is a useful and challenging discipline for me. It’s also part of stewarding and sharing perspective on life that is unique to me.
10. Because my kids read what I write.
(Hi Joelle. Hi Andre.)
What we impart to our kids primarily comes through doing life together, as values are more caught than taught. However, perhaps what they read here helps them to have words for the values we have tried to live out. In addition, I think its good for them to see me as their mom pushing myself to try new things, to learn and grow and develop passions and interests. This also models something that I want them to also be about.
There you have it. The reasons why I started this blog in the first place.
How about you? What do you like to do? What are some of the reasons why you do what you do? It’s worth doing the hard work to identify your why. My why for blogging helps me to keep going when I don’t feel like doing it.
Or, consider starting your own blog for some of the reasons I mentioned above! And if you do, let me know where I can find it.
Tracy I agree you, however has not God created us to need others? If we say we need others less, could that be because we are already well established in frienship/relationship?
That’s certainly true! However, I do think we can be out of balance in our need for others. In other words, what we need other people to be and to do for us. For me, writing and being encouraged in that process has helped me to look to God first rather than to people first.
Seems to me that the operative word is “need”. There is a inbred desire to connect which I believe is of God. However, to “need” people as our primary source of life is to be co-dependent. To desire to have one on one connection with others that is mutually beneficial, to encourage one another, to pray for one another, to cry, laugh, dream with one another is biblical. Sometimes the hardest but most freeing times are when we have to be alone and realize that our true source is Him and others are the icing on the cake that make life sweet!
Thank you, Kathy…. what you have identified is what I was trying to say! Yes, we all need people, but we need God first. But if I bypass God and look first to people, then I’m not pursuing God first and foremost. I used to be much more “needy” for encouragement from people because I had a difficult time knowing how to go to God for encouragement. I could go to God for alot of things and receive what I needed, but somehow encouragement was difficult for me. That’s been a significant shift in me over the last several years.
I think you have a true gift of writing.I enjoy your style and creative ways of expressing yourself.For me,writing is hard work and not necessarily something I enjoy. For me,it’s much easier to pick up the phone and talk to communicate then express through writing. But even as I say that,I think I am missing something by not writing. When you write,you can communicate in a way that you never could through phone,ect..An example is when Mark and I were dating. He lived in Chicago so of course,we wrote to each other and I really love those letters! I got to know a whole side of Mark from those sweet(some poetic!)letters! So, just maybe, I should blog,but of course,my excuse is,there’s NO time…(cop-out!) Anyways,Keep writing Tracy! Writers have a great influence and we need good and God writers!Thank-you for sharing your gift with us! God Bless! Doris V.
Doris, even though I love writing and really enjoy it, it can be hard work for me too. So I get what you are saying. I love your example of Mark’s letters having given you something to look back on and recapture thoughts and words that might otherwise have been lost over time. I’ve journaled since I was a kid and as I look back I’m glad I captured what I did, but I often wish that I had written MORE. Much of our lives are simply lost if we don’t find a way to capture life in writing. Thanks, too, for the encouragement 🙂
Hi Tracy! Stunning post, seriously. Reflecting on life in general, on the “why” behind what we do or have done or want to do, is hard work. To wrestle those reflections into a simple, clear, well-articulated sequence, as you’ve done here, is even harder.
And to share deeply from one’s own journey, but do so in a way that enlarges the reader and inspires us to “go there” in some way ourselves, is an art. You are gifted, and you are cultivating your art in a way that is genuinely enriching for others.
This is some of the most helpful, clear thinking/apologetics for blogging I’ve ever seen. I agree, on so many levels.
Years ago, before I even knew what “blogging” meant, you wrote something (clear and simple, like your entry here), somewhere about the emerging phenomenon and why it was significant. I don’t even remember the context. I sat up, and began to pay attention — specifically in response to your comments. I eventually started my own blog, and now am a rather passionate proponent of the same.
Thanks for continuing to share what you are thinking about, what you are seeing. Don’t stop, even when the response is eerie silence. There is more going on here than meets the eye!
Thank you Doug!
I can so relate to having a need for people that is out of balance as a result of feeling incapable of receiving what we need directly from God. How did u learn to connect with God iN A WAY THAT you got encouragement directly from God. I don’t know if it can be explained.It seems mysterious how sometimes i seek God best way i know how and feel no connection and other times God feels so near and speaks to me so clearly about what i need to break through some persistent struggle or shows me why I am stuck,what is hindering me and how to overcome and walk in victory. what is the secret to be able to connect deeply and hear his voice. this is the struggle behind unhealthy over reliance on people. God is the source of all my joy and he alone is able to meet my needs. deep connection with God allows me to feel safe connecting deeply with people and enables me to not withdraw from relationships as i trust God to protect me from the hurt that connecting can lead to. I need people but it is God that meets my needs through the people he has put in my life. My dependance is on God to meet my needs so when the friends I need are unavailable or unable to give me what I need, there is no cause for discouragement because god is able to meet my needs in ways that doesn’t require the people that i have come to rely on.
Ginnie, thanks for your comments and good thoughts here! Sounds like you have a good handle on the process of learning how to allow God to meet your needs first and through others. I think for me this learning has developed more as I’ve gone through difficult times and found myself desperately in need of God. It seems like those times have brought a more solid foundation of dependency on God to my life as a whole.