I know what you’ve all been thinking. Why the heck hasn’t he posted a single blog in the last three months? Isn’t God teaching him anything? Why isn’t he telling us about it? Well, I’m going to answer all of these questions in my first ever blog, as well as talk about how this inactivity ties into what God has taught me. As I was reflecting on these past few months and my spiritual journey through it, I came to two main conclusions as to why I’ve neglected blogging: my natural tendency to be averse to anything I perceive to be forced upon me, and the the simple fact that the weight and volume of what God has been teaching me is so incredibly intimidating.
Let’s be real, I can be a VERY stubborn person, and there’s no area of my life where that stubbornness shines brightest than how I create content and tell stories. So, when I was told I had to blog my experiences, my walls immediately went up. Do people still write blogs? More importantly, do people still READ blogs? The four in me was screaming. The idea that the entirety of my creative mind would be encapsulated by a couple of paragraphs of black text on a white background was haunting. Sure, photo and video blogs are a thing, but that didn’t seem to matter because I created an imaginary box that no one was placing me in. Restrictions that were pure fiction. Spoiler alert, God called me out. I could sit here and explain in great detail what I learned, but in short, God told me to get over myself. While blogging would NEVER be my medium of choice for telling stories, that’s not a valid reason to withhold the stories I have to tell altogether. That conviction hit me like a truck.
The other, and more prominent, force that has pushed me away from the blogging platform is how heavily what God has been teaching me has weighed on me, and how daunting trying to tackle writing about it seems. In a nutshell, the Lord has revealed to me insane amounts of brokenness, both in the world AND within the church. Saying the world is broken is not a novel idea, and identifying and quantifying that brokenness is hardly a challenge. That wasn’t what weighed so heavily on me. What was so hard to process, and what may actually turn some heads, is that the church itself is also very broken. What do I mean by this? It’s too much to cover in just a few short paragraphs. Over the past few months I was so intimidated by the idea of addressing issues within the church that I pushed it off. Being home and getting time to process and reflect by myself, Gad has put these issues back on my heart, the biggest being the churches inaction in the realm of racial reconciliation. God has also provided me with the courage to finally put my thoughts into writing. This newfound courage won’t go to waste. While I’m on the field I will be writing blogs that bring about hard, but necessary, conversations regarding brokenness within the church. The Lord showed me that He is so much bigger than any people who may not agree with what He wants to me say. A poorly received blog that’s rooted in truth is better than no blog at all.
Getting over pride and fear are not fun processes. Moreover, It’s unfortunate that these lessons came at the expense of my blog, but I can’t change that. What I can change is how I move forward, and how I use these lessons, as well as my voice, to further God’s kingdom. Pumped to share with y’all over the next few months!!!
Love,
P
