blogging in faith

I've been reading blogs for a long time now.

A long time. certainly more than half of my life, which made me barely a teenager when I discovered that there was a whole world online. a world like me who expressed themselves with words on a page.

shortly after I started up a blog of my own [which, in 2002, would be the first of many], I discovered that some blogs were written by Christians. and not just Christians who acknowledged God before going on with their daily lives, doing it all on their own. for these people, God was daily life. this seemed a bit foreign to me, despite having been raised in a household that had always attended church faithfully each sunday morning.

I began to write shyly about my own faith. I wasn't quite sure how to go about it, but I was starting to see, once I had immersed myself in my church's youth group + had built a friendship with my youth pastor, that having a relationship with God was more than simply showing up at church on Sunday. checking the event off my to-do list, brushing myself off, and getting myself through the week until the next sunday morning wasn't going to cut it. it had to be a full-time, constant commitment. a relationship that didn't end when I left the building in which I had first met Him.

around the time I began to fully know and walk with Christ, I stopped writing as often. it seemed as though I didn't have anything left to write. I had met Jesus + the interesting part of my life had finished. in reality, I just didn't know what to write about if I wasn't lamenting what I now understand were my first bouts with severe chronic depression.

it took me a long time {read: years} {read: until a short few months ago} to start the process of getting it right. to begin blogging in faith. to stop worrying about the number game + focus on what really matters.

to focus on the gospel.

the problem was, I had curated a space where the gospel wasn't welcomed. not that I had explicitly stated it. not that I would ever have admitted it, even to myself. I hadn't tried to make this a space where I didn't talk about my love for Jesus, it just happened by my lack of speaking Jesus. it was against the tone of my blog, so I kept it censored. I wasn't anti-grace, but I certainly wasn't showing it.

grace is messy. grace shows my weaknesses and my flaws, and it pushes some people away. and so I kept it out of my online self. {because I had inadvertently created a separate self when I began blogging about things other than my faith + the gospel fueling it.} and then my online self slowly crept into my daily self until Jesus wasn't constant anymore.

writing is a part of my life. it has been for as long as I can remember, as long as I was able to organize thoughts using pen + paper. words are an extension of my thoughts -- they are my thoughts. + I've learned that if I'm stifling my words, I'm not only stifling the Spirit + censoring Kingdom by leaving the gospel out of my blog, I'm also diminishing the presence of the Spirit + Kingdom in the rest of my life. it's just the way I work.

and so I've let go.

here, you're allowed to believe until it hurts.
here, you're allowed to doubt.
here, you're allowed to whisper.
here, you're allowed to yell.

here, in this space that relies on the gospel to shape its message, its content, its heart.

here, in this space that reveals a faith that doesn't come easily, a faith that needs grace day by day, over + over again.