r e l e v a n c e.

I have to think we all wonder at times if what we’re doing matters? If the effort we put into something serves a purpose or if it’s wasting our time when we should be doing something else.

When I first began blogging I didn’t wonder if it “mattered”. I never questioned its relevance. I just wrote. It was my greatest joy and my greatest frustration but I loved the process. I loved the composition rule breaking and ellipsis abusing way I could put my brain on paper. The dot dot dot speaks louder than words sometimes. Life is story. People are amazing. People are emotional. There will be drama. My drama is my next blog post. Your drama is my next blog post. I was waking early and writing…staying up late and writing…Then guess what happened?  I tried to get better at it. Funny how betterment will bite you!  I need to be more like “her” and “her”…I began comparing. Ugh. Stupid comparison.  Comparison is a bully!  I began counting…counting views and counting ON views.   I felt inadequate and decided this was one more thing I’d attempted that was going to end without adding to the world or my bank account so why bother!?  I decided everything I was saying had already been said, AND said to a larger audience. I belittled myself by calling myself little.

So I quit.

I deactivated my blog.

A good three weeks passed and I was actually okay with not writing.  I began reading more. I love books. If you’re writing you don’t have as much time for reading. I caught up on Call The Midwife…and watched some Real Housewives of New York. ..you know important stuff…

I shrunk back. I settled.

Was I settling for less because I saw everyone else’s more?

Then the texts begin to come in…“Where’d you go?” “What’s up with your blog?” And then this…I hear that a marriage was saved thanks to my willingness to put it all out there with the horrible effects of an affair. Oh my. That’s all I asked for…just one.

That was when I knew I could not quit.

Whatever you are doing…if it’s in your heart and wakes you and shakes you and you can’t NOT do it, KEEP DOING IT. This is not about YOU or ME. This is about LOVE and GOD and the world needs more of both. You are not the size of your audience…the number of followers or likes…you don’t know how your message travels and how many it reaches when you obey and put it out there. It’s none of our business what God does with our obedience. It’s simply our business to obey.

Forget the quantity and remember the quality of your influence. 

When teaching yearbook design and layout I emphasized the importance of whitespace. “Do not be afraid to leave some white space” said every year for eight years like a broken record. My students would try and cram too much on a page and it would get busy and fussy, and honestly it just looked messy.

I think we need to do the same with our lives. Leave some white space. Some room to breathe. My stepping away for a minute was my metaphorical white space. I was making it busier than it needed to be and it was getting messy.

You know…I came super close to deleting that post about my affair…but look how God works. He takes all our ugly and makes something beautiful. You were my audience of one. And I have to believe you are not alone. I know in my heart there are others…others who said,  this is NOT what I want my story to be and picked up their pencils and wrote a new one.

Let’s Keep Writing.