Here’s to you, my readers

I have a hundred diaries.  The best might be half full.  Most have just a page or two written in them.  It’s embarrassing, really.  They serve as a testimony to my faithlessness. 

It also testifies to my deep desire to eventually become faithful to the practice of writing my thoughts, feelings, prayers and happenings.  There are untold benefits to journaling.  I often think of the blessings I have received when I have been able to read my own words months and years after writing them.  To glimpse myself in this way, I glimpse the future, as well.  I see what is constant—God’s love, my personality traits and passions.  I also see what is finite—and it gives me what I need to face current frustrations with perspective. 

I knew I wanted to journal, I just had to find the trick to sticking with it for a meaningful length of time.  Then my sister started this blog for me.  She loved hearing about my kids.  In her ‘older-and-wiser’ wisdom, she knew they were precious, but to-be-forgotten moments.  Every time I told her anything about the kids, her response was, “blog it!”

I resisted, like I always do.  But when I finally gave blogging a real try, I found I loved it.  I like the ease of typing over handwriting my thoughts.  I like making it pretty to fit the seasons and my moods.  And I like looking at the stats.

The stats are really what changed me into a faithful writer.  I loved challenging myself to post each day.  To be able to review my stats and see how long since I missed a day was the perfect motivator for me to move beyond my usual excuses.  And for a while I was doing great!  Months and months of faithfully posting is my gift to myself.

But things got rough earlier this year.  Days turned to weeks, and then to months and I didn’t post.  My heartache was too full and I didn’t want to remember.  Also, I really didn’t want to be negative.  So I just quit.

But I lost more than just the chronicles of our days.  I lost a valuable outlet for my thoughts and feelings.  I got pulled under swirling water and became hopelessly disoriented.  I realize now that when everything is tossing about, throwing the anchor overboard is a stupid idea.  But how was I to know that blogging was my anchor?

I have figured it out now.  I know that the benefits for me go beyond mere posterity or discipline.  Blogging allows me to work out my impressions, to sort things out and to better understand life.  I am not perfect.  That shows in all my posts.  I don’t intend to convey an image of perfection or of having all the answers.  I am just me, wretched and flawed.

I thank you readers who come here to meet me and accept me as I am.  When you see I am wrong, I thank you for loving me and praying for me.  Thanks for not trying to change me.  Thanks for being patient with me (and my God). Thanks for letting God be the one to grow me, as only He can, into the perfection He intended and in His perfect timing.  I will keep trying.  I will keep blogging.