Did you know it's been ten years since I first published this blog on the internet? Time flies. At the beginning of Let My Life Be a Light, I was fifteen years old, passionate, an optimistic dreamer and ideator, and simply a girl from a small town with practically nowhere else to write.
It was, then, my dream to write for a Christian women's magazine I had been reading for years. If only I could join them on their mission to share about life experiences and eternal truth. Wouldn't that be something? Two years passed, and I had the opportunity to meet the founder of the magazine and some of the women who regularly wrote for the publication. Here was my chance, I thought, to connect with these incredible Christians who had made an impact on me.
It didn't go quite as planned. If you are the type of person who likes to look for specific ways to build others up, and you practice this regularly, then you have likely experienced the same misunderstanding I have...at least once or twice in life. And that would be when people assume that if you say something kind, you mean it insincerely and as a flatterer. It is quite a harsh judgment — especially if you decide these are the motives of a little new grad homeschool girl who is just seventeen years old. But that was tragically what happened. A desire to build up one writer on the team had me harshly rebuked as a flatterer to the point of my own uncontrollable tears.
I could never belong with writers like these. I thought to myself. But it went deeper. It wasn't just that I was broadly stamped as insincere, which was painful enough. My parents had just gotten separated a few months prior, and I could almost guarantee none of them would understand the weight I was carrying from my family's struggles with dysfunction. In other words, I felt unseen, overlooked, and judged. After a few months of learning from that ministry, away from my home in the Midwest, I returned to the north, and sank into a new depressive low. It was tempting to believe many lies.
No one cares how much I'm suffering.
I will never be able to write or share anything that's close to my heart.
No one will ever want to listen to me or read my writing since that ministry judged me severely.
I can't touch people's lives or make a difference in the way I wish I could.
Yet more time passed. With the help of a wise Christian counselor, I was unraveling childhood trauma and the pain that had been inflicted upon me by associating with that ministry. Slowly but surely, I was gaining little bits of hope back into my heart.
Maybe there was never to be an opportunity for me to write for that one publication. Could I humble myself enough to recognize that it's possible God gave me a passion to write, but that He may be giving me a smaller group of readers? Would I be content to reach one hurting soul that followed me on Facebook and tuned into my latest ramblings about eternal truth as it applies to messy daily life? Could I come to a place of acceptance that the future may never look how I planned, but that God's purposes are even more meaningful than a dream from my heart that died a sad death?
I decided to go for it. Maybe I was the girl some ministry frowned upon, and maybe I was going to write anyway. There are a lot of benefits to starting your own blog instead of joining someone else's, after all. But I did not see it that way, at the time, as each post was a reminder to me that I didn't get to be a part of the magazine I dreamed of contributing to.
Later, I realized that since God created me as a more independent person who likes to take on projects that provide autonomy and flexibility — instead of rigidity and control from others — my own blog was just the right fit for my nature. Down the road, I did get chances to write for other blogs as a volunteer and to be a paid ghost writer for a nonprofit, and it came with challenges I had never considered. I like to make my own directions and create my own guidelines. But if you work with other people who have a high need for control, your ability to decide what you write and how you write it can be severely limited. I was beginning to see that my desire to write was deeply connected to my creative passions — it wasn't just something I did because of force and self-discipline. I wrote when and because I had a message on my heart.
Certainly, self-discipline plays a role in that, but when you are genuinely excited about a goal — and not forced into a project you may find meaningless — you can write more prolifically and with much greater fulfillment from the task. There is a distinct difference between writing that is a product of rough force and a "kick in the pants" mentality, and the prose of individuals who feel passion and inspiration as they pen their message. The former is widespread and common, while the unique, creative traits that make the latter possible touch our lives in unexpected ways.
I think I've tried to bring that spirit of inspiration to this blog, although only God can decide how impactful any given blog post will be. It's from the heart — that much is true. And I believe in the importance of sharing in a way that is, Lord willing, genuine and authentic. I've had enough interactions for a lifetime with Christians who believe they are superior for pretending to have it together. None of those people has ever ministered to me, helped me, or shared a word in season when I was suffering.
The more we attempt to conceal our need for Christ — and act like nothing is wrong and everything is just picturesque — the less we are able to minister to people in a way that truly touches their lives. For some reason, there is a sect of Christianity that has developed that is emotionless and refined — as though the Christian life was supposed to be some kind of antique China cabinet. But, in fact, if a person truly does have the Spirit of God dwelling inside them, then there is major construction underway. God is driving out old, fleshly, sinful, broken ways from our lives, and He is conforming us into His image. In this fallen world that is marred by sin, the process of sanctification isn't necessarily pretty — there can be tears, heartache, loss, difficulties, and pains of many kinds in this process of being made more like Jesus. (And of course, many joys too!) And I have personally been most encouraged by the writers who strike the right balance between sharing what is real about their lives and what is eternally true in the midst of it. Not a kind of transparency that celebrates life being a mess, but a recognition that in our weakness Christ gladly meets us and is strong.
I'm not sure how long you've been around the blog or how many posts you may have read, but I hope that even through this one post, you can see that I am simply one person who is broken and whose only wholeness and healing is in Christ Jesus Himself. One hymn puts it this way,
"My Great Physician heals the sick, the lost, He came to save. A sinful soul, I come to Him — He'll never cast me out" [1].
I have been blessed to share my writing with the world for a decade now, and along the way, I have made silly typos, big mistakes, and have — at times — had my writing harshly criticized. So, know that what I am doing, you can also do. If God has placed it on your heart to write, but it seems like the door is always closed to you to share, have you ever considered starting your own blog? A few people along the way may have judged you (as they have me), and some editors may have found your personal style strange (I've been here, too), but what if you dared to write anyway? If God has convicted you that He has a message to share through your imperfect, broken life, who might it touch if you were willing to be seen in your vulnerability?
Ten years have come and gone much faster than I knew to expect, but I am grateful to the Lord for His grace and for His guidance not to give up writing in spite of challenges. I pray that through my unpicturesque life, somehow, you are strengthened and blessed. As it's been said by others (maybe A.W. Tozer?), what if your life being broken into a thousand pieces is like broken bread and poured out wine that can feed a thousand? What if your greatest heartbreak and hurt also becomes a point of great ministry to others?
Don't give up. Go plant those seeds God is calling you to sow. Be faithful. Be ok with being small and unknown. And along the way, God willing, you'll impact people deeply.
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1. My Faith Has Found a Resting Place by E.E. Hewitt
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