Don't Read This. I'm A Horrible Writer.
You may have noticed that I haven't posted many blogs. I've written eleven blogs since I started this journey last October. Only two or three blogs have been written since the race started. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm a good writer, but I'm pretty sure that you won't find me on TIME's list of the 25 Best Bloggers of 2013.
I have had a mental block about writing since I wrote my first blog. Why has this been so hard for me?
I love to journal and write poetry or short stories. But there's no pressure there. I mean, I never let anyone read that stuff, so I don't really care if it's bad. When it comes to blogging though, I feel this pressure to write well. I want to write stories that make people fall in love with God. On a more selfish note, I want my blogs to change people's ways of living, loving and operating. Which would be an excellent goal if I didn't have a selfish mindset about it. My blogs need to have His fingerprints on it… Not mine. I want Him to speak through me.
After I post a blog, I find my self constantly checking to see how many people have read it. It's as if that number determines the overall quality of my experience. "Oh only 47 people read my blog? I must not be very good at this, huh?" Then sometimes I'll get on and see a bunch of people read my blog. Suddenly I think "I am the master and commander! I rule at blogging!" Why do I focus on receiving assurance, when I should focus on telling people how God's Kingdom is colliding with earth?
But even after those revelations, I have still had something blocking my ability to write. I like to imagine there is a fuzzy purple monster sitting in the corner of my brain eating all my good writing ideas. But unfortunately, that is not the case.
The truth is… I didn't know how to write the real truth. You may not know this, and it may surprise you, but I majored in journalism. Well specifically Public Relations. My job was to make the truth sound better. I am great at putting a positive spin on something negative. I can fill sentences with lofty words, jargon you think you understand, and enough baloney to make a simple sentence complicated. You might be confused by the end of it, but I will leave you with a call to action or a powerful statement that will make you forget everything you didn't understand.
After all the marketing, branding, PR, social psych and psych of persuasion classes I've taken, I feel fairly confident in my ability to spin the truth. I used to do it for a living. Many times, I felt like a complete phony and a liar. Especially, when I didn't believe what I was writing or I knew it only had a tiny thread of truth to it. I had overwhelming guilt after I would leave the office.
Please understand that I am not calling all PR professions liars or spin doctors. At another job, I got to work for a non-profit and write truthful copy. I loved that job, because I felt like I made a difference. There are plenty of PR jobs out there where you have the opportunity to do empowering PR and really change the world. But, that was not the road I took.
So the big question was: How do I fix this? What's the truth? Do I even know how to tell it? Do any of us even know? Or are we just lying to ourselves and others?
The only way to fix past lies would be to speak the truth. That sounds simple enough, right? Yet, the fear of judgement, pain, embarrassment, or hurt feelings prevents me from telling the truth. There are so many times I have kept my opinions to myself for fear of what the outcome will be. In most cases, more harm was caused by me not speaking out.
I think back to the lies Satan has told me. He lies to all of us and we believe those to be the truth. We can believe them so much that they become our reality. To me, that is a form of lying to ourselves. If Satan's lies become truth, then it would be logical to say God's truth becomes lies. But that's our human minds trying to rationalize what's happening. God is the only person who will never lie and will always speak truth to you. That's what we should cling to. That's the truth we should speak.
I am on a quest to speak good truths. I want to speak truth to myself and those around me. I want to speak life and love into the world.
This blog was hard for me to write and actually posting it was even harder. It is never easy to admit that you have messed up or to step out and say what you really think and feel. But that's over and done. I dedicate my WR blog to speaking God's truths that appear in my life- even if it's scary, painful or potentially embarrassing for me. Our opinions might clash, I might admit to things that cause you to view me differently, I might offend you and I might lose friends. But, I think that speaking positive truths is necessary to love others fully.
