Why

Lets start with why. Why have I started this blog?

Earlier this year I went to a Christian Writer’s Conference in St. Paul. I went because I wanted to learn more about writing and the possibility of some day producing something that could be published. As I prepared to go, I asked myself the question of why I wanted to do such a thing. 

For over twenty years now I have typed up some journal entries in the form of short devotions, never quite sure of why or what I would do with these entries.

I write to express my emotions that sometimes overwhelm me.  Writing  provides an outlet to share my deepest thoughts and the beliefs I hold so dearly within my heart. My writings are a way I can talk to myself in a socially acceptable way.  It is a way to preach to myself that some how the struggles are important and not in vain. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:18.‬  I need to remind myself as Andrew Peterson sings in the song, The Dark before the Dawn that “all this darkness is a small and passing thing”

I started writing with the idea that no one else may ever read it. So you might say that I write for an audience of one- myself. While this may be self centered, I write primarily for myself to grow closer to God. He doesn’t need my writing but when I write, I feel I draw closer to him. 
 
I started sharing my thoughts with the hope that you, the reader, might be blessed or encouraged by my words ( or at least think better of me). I would like if people responded positively, but I like writing even if no one else reads it. 

I write because there is so much darkness in the world.  The level of anger, rudeness, and malice on social media makes everything darker.  Is all that anger a symptom or cause of the level of darkness in the world.  It has been my intention that my writing would create something true, noble, right, pure, lovely, or admirable. (Philippians 4:8)

Andrew Peterson has written a book called “Adorning The Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and Mystery of Making,”.  At first, I wasn’t sure what that meant.  How do we make the dark beautiful, but I have come to appreciate the fact that we all have a duty to bring light and/or be light to a dark world.  

During the Advent season of 2020, I came across this from Desiring God, “God not only brings his light to us, while we sit in darkness, but he makes us channels of his light for others. . . . He calls . . .  us to be “a light to those who are in darkness” (Romans 2:19).“ It is my hope that my writing will somehow bring light to dark world. 

In his book, Adorning the Dark, Andrew Peterson encourages us to shine light in a dark world by saying,  
 
“I want you, dear reader, to remember that one holy way of mending the world is to sing, to write, to paint, to weave new worlds. Because the seed of your feeble-yet-faithful work fell to the ground, died, and rose again, what Christ has done through you will call forth praise from lonesome travelers long after your name is forgotten. They will know someone lived and loved here.
 
Whoever they were, they will think, they belonged to God. It’s clear that they believed the stories of Jesus were true, and it gave them a hope that made their lives beautiful . . .”   Adorning The Dark. P 183. 2019. 
 
So I will continue to write and talk to myself in hopes of drawing closer to God. And I will share with you, in hope that I shine a little light in a very dark world. Through my writing and sharing, those that read this will know I belonged to God, that I believed that the stories of Jesus are true, and somehow all this effort made our lives a little more beautiful.