My apologies for the title and address change for the blog. I know it's not professional to do so. As I explained to a friend last weekend, I was dissatisfied with my previous title for several reasons:
1. The title didn't match up with the address, so people kept ending up at a blog of which the author was in love with her therapist. Inasmuch as my husband occasionally functions as my therapist, I suppose that's true, but she isn't me.
2. You can't start writing a blog without titling the blog, and so I felt immense pressure to just choose something already so that I could get my rapidly-accumulating thoughts down.
3. I have been surprised at the direction(s) my blogging has taken. I didn't know what to expect, I guess. I've found that knowing I have the opportunity to work through any given situation/thought process/teachable moment/experiment and present it logically to the public has caused me to be more thoughtful about, well, everything. I'm always evaluating, now: is this activity useful? Would this failure help other moms keep a good perspective? Is this spiritual insight worth noting, in order to bring glory to God through my blogging? And while I still have that sense "doing what I can" all the time, I feel like my variety of topics here has gotten bigger than that.
"And all my work be praise" is the second half of a line out of Isaac Watts' version of Psalm 23. (Full lyrics here.) We sing it in church fairly often, and I'm always caught by that phrase. I can't quite figure out how it fits in with the actual psalm, but nevertheless I've contemplated painting it above my kitchen cupboards, I love it that much. That everything I do -- so much of it so unbelievably mundane -- could be praise! (Have I insisted that you all run out and read Kathleen Norris' The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" yet? You should. I'd let you borrow mine but I'm afraid to part with it. I read it annually.)
At any rate, when I consider where the bulk of my thoughts have gone since I started viewing the world through an amateur blogger's eyes, it all comes down to this: am I moving towards God's greater glory? With creative activities for my toddler, with experiments in so-called crunchiness, in processing songs I hear on the radio as much as Bible study, in looking for ways to stay positive when I'd rather scream and/or cry?
I'm not always, of course. But it's a worthy goal, don't you think?
1. The title didn't match up with the address, so people kept ending up at a blog of which the author was in love with her therapist. Inasmuch as my husband occasionally functions as my therapist, I suppose that's true, but she isn't me.
2. You can't start writing a blog without titling the blog, and so I felt immense pressure to just choose something already so that I could get my rapidly-accumulating thoughts down.
3. I have been surprised at the direction(s) my blogging has taken. I didn't know what to expect, I guess. I've found that knowing I have the opportunity to work through any given situation/thought process/teachable moment/experiment and present it logically to the public has caused me to be more thoughtful about, well, everything. I'm always evaluating, now: is this activity useful? Would this failure help other moms keep a good perspective? Is this spiritual insight worth noting, in order to bring glory to God through my blogging? And while I still have that sense "doing what I can" all the time, I feel like my variety of topics here has gotten bigger than that.
"And all my work be praise" is the second half of a line out of Isaac Watts' version of Psalm 23. (Full lyrics here.) We sing it in church fairly often, and I'm always caught by that phrase. I can't quite figure out how it fits in with the actual psalm, but nevertheless I've contemplated painting it above my kitchen cupboards, I love it that much. That everything I do -- so much of it so unbelievably mundane -- could be praise! (Have I insisted that you all run out and read Kathleen Norris' The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" yet? You should. I'd let you borrow mine but I'm afraid to part with it. I read it annually.)
At any rate, when I consider where the bulk of my thoughts have gone since I started viewing the world through an amateur blogger's eyes, it all comes down to this: am I moving towards God's greater glory? With creative activities for my toddler, with experiments in so-called crunchiness, in processing songs I hear on the radio as much as Bible study, in looking for ways to stay positive when I'd rather scream and/or cry?
I'm not always, of course. But it's a worthy goal, don't you think?
I feel bad for saying I was afraid to part with a book. Of course you can borrow it. It's just a book! :)
ReplyDeleteYou've convinced me. Kathleen Norris is my next-in-line book to read. :-)
ReplyDelete