Why Do I Write?

For my faithful readers, both of you, you may have noticed that I have not been blogging lately.  I keep thinking that I will start blogging again when I figure out something profound to say…that assumes, of course, that I have EVER had anything profound to say or that the purpose here was ever to BE profound! 🙂  I have had many posts rattling around in my head, but then they never really form with enough urgency to propel me to the computer to write it all down.  Sometimes, I think of something about which I could write, but then I think that it really isn’t all that interesting after all this time away. It seems amazing, after almost 5 years blogging, that I have not blogged this whole year…all 29 days of it!

Although I haven’t been posting any thoughts here, I have recently returned to the habit of writing out my prayers.  I find that I can focus my thoughts…empty out the noise…when I write out prayers once a day.  When I have run out of words, it is then that I listen best.  It also serves as a reminder of the names and issues for which I have been praying so that I can look back and see how God has been at work all around me.  If I have learned anything so far on this journey it is that God is always at work; it is my job to notice and say thank you!

So, in my prayers, I have shared with God my desire to write and asked that He guide me in that writing…show me where He can use my words to accomplish His purposes, if that is part of His plan.  I originally began to blog because I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself…I felt compelled to share and hoped that the discipline of writing in this particular format would help me find an outlet for those thoughts and prayed that my words might somehow encourage somebody else along the way.  For several years, God affirmed my pursuit through constant inspiration and the occasional feedback that, strangely enough, my words here were indeed of some earthly use to some of my readers.  Sometimes, that “fan” of my writing was even someone other than my mom!

So what happened?  Has the season for my blog ended?  Have I become too self-critical of my writing?  Do I censor my thoughts to such a degree that I have nothing left to say?  Or has God begun to give me other outlets for sharing the ways that I see Him at work?  Other ways of sharing myself…pouring myself out in pursuit of the Kingdom?  Perhaps a combination of all or some of the above?

I guess these are the questions that I am wrestling with now.  Why blog?  In the greater scheme of things, does my little blog contribute anything positive to the universe besides serving as a creative outlet for me?  And if it is just a creative outlet for me, perhaps that is enough? Perhaps that gives me permission to not say anything of any substance at all or to accidentally say something that matters to someone else.

So, as I mentioned before, I have been talking about all this with God.  Best I can tell, since He has not given me a burning bush or engraved stone tablet, He says “just write!”  That’s all…kind of like the Nike commercial…just do it!  Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, don’t even worry about what I think about what I write…just write!  So, here it is, me writing….we’ll see what happens next!