I've begun at least three dead-end posts this morning. It's not writer's block--I could easily make-up something from the jumble of words spinning in my head, but you deserve better. I've promised God I would always give you something better. No, it's not writer's block, it's more like God block. And that's ok. I've learned to respect when He's presenting the challenge to choose His way or mine. His words or mine.
So feel free to talk amongst yourselves around the table I carried in here (above). And if you are in need of a subject, here is a tiny taste of one of the deepest, sweetest things ever written with a pen. Hopefully, you've read this before and find it tickling your brain, the part behind your right ear, at odd, dappled times of the day...
From The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
***
To read The Velveteen Rabbit in its entirety, click here.
I found your candid comments to my last post interesting and fun. They reminded me that we all blog for many and varied reasons.
Some of us blog to clear our heads of all the words inside spinning like clothes in a dryer. To express our creativity.
Others want to keep a written record of their days so they'll not be lost in obscurity.
Some people write to be heard. To share their story, their opinions, their journey. To perhaps explain why they are the way they are--reaching out for understanding and sympathy from family and friends.
Some share humorous words so to carry a little gladness to people's hearts.
And others use blogging to share their faith...to fling out to the world the One who has given them incredible freedom and joy and hope.
I blog for probably all those reasons, but I go heavy on the last one.
Blogging is the way, the means I have chosen to share with others the freedom I have found in order that they, too, may find it. May find Him.
The numbers of people visiting my blog fascinate me because they represent real people. You. And throughout my days I pray for you--for everyone who visits my blog. I pray all sorts of things for you--fun, peaceful, hopeful things. Glad things for even those who accidentally stumble into my blog and then run madly away after realizing they have landed in Christian territory. :o)
For you see, my stats counter--all those numbers--are rather like seeds in the Bible's parable of the sower of the seeds. To me, each number represents a valuable life--the heart of a seed, if you will. And well, when I see the seeds pouring in, I pray for them--that they will fall upon fertile soil and grow strong, tall and free.
So that is why the numbers matter to me. Each number represents a beating heart, one which matters indescribably to God.
And my referrer's list--that list of your blogs at the end of my right hand column--I click on your individual blogs to see where you are coming from, both figuratively and literally. Then I ask God to let me see your blogs through His eyes--they look amazing that way. I see things that otherwise I would miss. And sometimes I see your requests for prayer boldly printed in the headlines of your blogs, sometimes down in an obscure little corner. But I see them.
So that is why the referrer's list matters to me.
Because you matter.
And that is why I blog.
***
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."...John Donne (1624)
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me..." Galations 2:20
Blogging--sometimes I think it yanks us back to a high school mentality. It's tempting to want to be one of the cool bloggers... To pray the popular bloggers will visit your blog and then return to their own to add you to their blogroll... To aim for an A+ on your posts... To try to impress everyone and be accepted by your peers.
I guess anything we do comes along with similar temptations. Maybe that's why many adults forever act as though they are still in high school--because in some ways, they still are. (Of course that's not anyone reading this! But I'm just saying...).
I remember in my early days of blogging long, long ago, (well, July...), I used to be ecstatic if 15 people read my blog in one day. (Ah, the innocence of starting anything new.) Now I wonder if my readers are bored, straying, sick, dead, or dying if I don't get at least 80 hits a day.
Good grief.
But I refuse to allow blogging to become like recycled high school. And heaven help me if I get blogging contest fever. You know, get all caught up in blog contests which aim to find the best blogs written by Christians or Pagans or Jokesters or CPA's or Tobacco Farmers or Men on The Moon....
God rewards faithfulness, the daily just-plug-away-at-it-and-do-as-He-tells-you kind of faithfulness. Promotion comes from God. And thank-goodness, when He promotes us, it's never too early--never before our character can handle it. Plus, there is no better press agent anywhere.
So in the meantime, I just want to dictate into my blog what I believe God is saying through me. And leave it at that. Whether zillions of people come or only 2 or 3. And I'll be a success if I can keep it just that simple.
