Confessions of a new blogger

Why did I start to blog?

Because I love to write.  No.  More than just loving to write, I discover a part of who I am when I write.  Unearthing feelings, thoughts and insights slightly below the surface….and words somehow digging them out.  That is why I write.  Beyond that, why I share what I write is a response to my soul calling me to ‘take this step’.  Do not be afraid of who you are created to be.  Let others unearth this with you.

I am already experiencing the challenges of staying true to this calling.  It started when I began to create this space.  Oh man there are a lot of options out there.  Themes and layouts and features.  For a couple of months I found myself absorbed in choices.  That’s not the best place for me to be.  At all.  I can derail in no time flat.  Needing to analyze every option out there in order to not make the wrong choice.  It’s a character flaw.

Graciously, in the period of a few days I had ten friends ask me when they were going to see my blog.  Oh the pressure (thankfully) of having told people of this prompting.  After several months of getting my toes wet, their inquiries brought me to a point of deciding to dive in.  This meant letting others into this venture.  Even without (gasp) me being certain that I had decided on the very best format possible.  Even without having figured out how to get my contact info to email correctly.  Even without understanding if my share links were working.  Letting go of that in order to focus on the writing.  The content is where my heart comes alive.  But my flesh sures wants to be a perfectionist if others are going to be observing.

Now that I am sitting here typing away and you are out there somewhere reading this, you would gather that I have put first things first and am focusing on writing.  But alas, I have discovered this thing called Google Analytics.  Sigh.  Have I mentioned I can be quite analytical?  That I think numbers are fun to look at and play with?  It’s some odd gene that results in me being in love with words and numbers.  Two things that don’t always play well together.  But that’s a tangent- I’m good at those too.

Back to Google Analytics.  It is this really cool free service that generates statistics from your website.  It can tell me how many people have read my posts.  It can let me know what country and states readers are from.  (But don’t worry, it can’t tell me who you are.)  Now of course like so many things, Google Analytics is neutral.  It is neither good nor evil.  It is a tool.  It is really fun, and perhaps someday valuable, to learn how many times these posts have been viewed in this past week.  And to track what countries and states people who are from.  Ahh, but like so many things it can be used as something that either draws me closer to God…or pulls me away from Him.  Is there really much value in me obsessing about why someone from every state around New Mexico has read this blog, but no one from New Mexico has?

I knew this had the potential to be a problem a few mornings ago.  Backing up three months, I began a routine of getting up before everyone else in the house.  My main purposes were to have time to journal, pray and walk.  On this particualar morning I woke up especially early.  Can you guess what I did first?  I’d like to say I headed to the back porch with my tea and my journal.  I didn’t.  Even when everything in me was saying don’t open that computer.  I did.  I ignored my own Holy Spirit warning system and headed right to checking statistics.  This is my sacred time.  My time to connect with God.  My space to learn more from Jesus and to practice walking closer to him.  If I’m not connecting with him, then I really don’t have anything to write about.

Eventually I did close the computer.  I still had time to pray, to listen and to write.  I felt God’s gentle whisper “You do your part and I’ll do mine.”  My part right now is to write.  It is to pay attention to his Word.  It is to fully be who he has made me to be.  It is to let him finish the good work he has began.  His part is to give me the insights and teachings He wants me to soak in.  And it is His part to speak to who he wants to speak to through my words, at any time of day he chooses, creating any kind of “statistics” his wisdom knows is best.

And isn’t it like that in the bigger picture of our walk with God?  We partner with him.   I know life works best when I’m not spinning my wheels doing what he has already promised to do.  When I let go of control, I am also letting go of worry.  It is not up to me.  But the beauty of this partnership is that when I am trusting God to be God, I can be me.  I have more energy and intention to do what he has created me to do.  I am not exhausting myself by trying to keep the world running.  As soon as I finish this post, I am heading to bed.  This time of day always serves to remind me that God is much more experienced at keeping the world running than I am.  I can sleep, He’s got it under control.  Tomorrow I get to wake up and join in what He has been doing.  And I can trust that what He is doing is good and wise and true.  Even on those mornings when my ‘reality’ seems to disagree, His goodness never changes.

So do you know what I’m doing in response to all of this?  I’m setting my timer for fifteen minutes each day to look at pretty charts and graphs.  Every day I’m asking God to help me use my blogging time to love him with all my heart, soul and mind.  To simply do what he initially asked me to do here.  And perhaps most importantly, I’m trusting that if God has someone from New Mexico that he wants to read these reflections, He can do that with ease.