I've been away from this space for a while now. I've missed it, and I've tried to come back and just haven't been able to.
The truth is, I've been struggling with what this blog is for me, with what I want it to be, and with what it means to have an online presence and what I want to do with that.
I came up with an idea for a new blog, a blog that would focus on communicating truths that I've long believed need to be shared and discussed and put out there for people to hear and ponder. I put a good deal of work into this new blog. I got a domain and worked on a theme and wrote a handful I posts and the text for an ebook. I fell more and more in love with my idea, with the people who would come there (even though I don't know them yet), with the freedom and community people might find there.
And yet, as much love and passion as I have and as much as I believe that the message of this new space is one that is mine to convey, is part of what I have to offer the world, I couldn't bring myself to start the blog. I had the value of the message and even of myself as messenger validated in a myriad of ways, but I kept not starting it.
I became frustrated with myself. I didn't want to let fear hold me back, and yet what else could it be? What else could keep my mind from sending the message that would allow me to hit 'Enter' and launch the whole thing?
As the days passed, I tried to figure out what, exactly, was going on in my mind. I felt like I needed to understand, so that I could combat it, so I could do effective battle against my fear and get the job done.
What I discovered was fear and more than fear. And it all led me back to some questions that are old and familiar to me, and to which I've never found satisfactory answers. These questions center around the role that our dreams take in our lives, whether we have to follow them to really live and to make God happy with us, and whether we're living some sort of a lesser life if we choose not to pursue our dreams, fail at them, or for whatever reason don't have the opportunity to do so.
These are the questions that I'm coming back to this place to discuss. I'm not sure if these posts will be organized enough to be called a series, so I guess it's more of an exploration. If you're so inclined, Is love to have you along for this ride. Let's go exploring together.
7 comments:
Lovely to have you show up on my RSS feed again, Sarah!
Betsy
These are such deep questions, and I don't know the answer to them.
I remember reading a blog post several years ago that wrestled with the question, "Does God have a specific calling for everyone?" We see stories in the Scriptures of individuals called out by God to do specific things with their lives. But there are so many (millions) of unnamed persons throughout the history of the Scriptures that never had those encounters and callings from God -- or at least, they were never recorded, if they did.
I do think, more and more, that this connects with another question: Do we believe God is intimately acquainted with our daily lives and speaks to us in them?
If so, then maybe our response to our dreams and our fears and how everything in our lives ties together comes back to that fundamental place of talking to God about these things and hearing what God says in response.
Glad you're back. I missed you.
I loved what Christianne had to say. I've never felt sure about dreams, really. I don't know if God has something specific for each of us that we must pursue or be miserable. I tend to think we have a lot of choices about that and I definitely think we all have God-given gifts that are ours to open or leave unpacked. Blah, I'm babbling.
What I'm really sure about is that God doesn't mean for us to be fearful.
I sort of think about all of this in the same way I think about my kids. I love my kids (and grandkids) like crazy and I have a lot of hopes for them but they're not really that specific. They could do many different things that would be delightful to me and some things that would be disappointing, but nothing could make me stop loving them. As my kids grew, I noticed gifts in them and I tried to nurture those gifts, but it was up to them what they did with them. Does that make sense?
I do agree that a posture of listening to God means everything, and I think that feeds are creativity in amazing ways. I also think that when we're creative we're mirroring God. He made us this way.
OK, enough babbling. Can't wait to talk to you about this in person. :)
did i just say "are creativity" instead of "our creativity"? argh.
Good to see you, friends!! It's good to be back.
Terri and Christianne, I love your thoughts here. I'm a bit worried that my thoughts are going to reduce to "You have to discern which dreams to follow just like you have to discern everything else in life," which, while it may be true, isn't terribly interesting. But maybe there's more to say than that . . . it's definitely a bigger sort of thing that "Pursue every dream!"
It's interesting that you said coming to a possible conclusion of "You have to discern this like you have to discern everything else in life" isn't that interesting. You're right -- that conclusion isn't a very interesting thing to say.
And yet the actual process of discernment -- the specific discernment periods we enter into to find the specific truths for our lives in the here and now -- is immensely interesting.
So maybe the truth of needing to discern isn't interesting, but the actual process of discernment is so unique and full of threads to notice and pursue -- and, therefore, infinitely interesting. (At least, it is to me.)
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