this is why I write

It's always a little strange when God uses my own words from months past to speak to me all over again. I was just reading this post, and in some ways I think I needed that message now even more than I needed it then.

But maybe they aren't just "my words" as much as my way of processing the words He whispers to my heart, and protecting and preserving those interactions in the best way I know how.

Many believers keep prayer journals or faith journals to keep track of God's work in their lives. I don't think I noticed until today that so do I - only mine is public.

This realization comes in the midst of a battle I've been fighting in my mind, trying to figure out why I write, why I blog, why I've been at this for the past eight years. That's a third of my life and almost an eternity in Internet years. Sometimes I sit down at this desk feeling pressured to say something brilliant because I know there are people watching; other times I sit down at this desk and cry as I type, because I've completely forgotten there are people watching.

Sometimes it feels silly to spend so much money and time to upkeep my own website when it doesn't generate me a dime. Sometimes it's discouraging to read new statistics about shrinking attention spans, or to notice how the posts that get the most traffic are often the short, superficial, bullet-pointed ones. Sometimes I get tired of designing Pinterest-worthy graphics and sharing my thoughts to be picked apart by the masses. 

It's all those times that bring me to this place of fighting with the question, why?

But then I go back, like I did tonight, into the archives of this faith-journal I have made, and am reminded that God is still using those long-ago whispers to speak to me. And if I hadn't written out all that was pressing on me that day about the call of Peter, I probably would have forgotten that interaction with the Holy Spirit had ever happened.

In the end, selfish as it sounds, this is why I write: to process my inmost thoughts, to pursue the Truth, and to better understand the beauty of who God is. I write because I can't not write.

And hopefully, every now and then, a bit of it is helpful to someone else.

I admit that it doesn't always come out especially clickable, Pinterest-worthy, or bullet-pointed, but whether there are zero people watching or a million, my job is just to keep listening for the Voice that says, "Follow Me."