Why Do I Write This Blog?

Why do I write this blog? Why do I write things I know might be troubling? And if I must write, why do I not restrict readers to carefully approved members I trust not to get mad at me?

These questions are ones I've been asked and have been asking myself all week.

I've always enjoyed writing, but part of the enjoyment of writing is finding something I have enthusiasm for and others like to read. There is very little point to writing and putting the words away in a sock drawer somewhere. I already know what's in my head. Writing lets me communicate it and hopefully hear what's in other peoples' heads in response. Writing is a form of conversation. 

We've often received encouragement and good thoughts from other people who took the time to set their ideas out in written conversation. To be able to do the same is like being able to make a really good dinner, the kind everyone sits down and eats with pleasure. The pleasure is why I like to cook and why I like to write. It brings the same satisfaction.

Ben and I spent the last few years more or less confined to home because of our responsibility to Grandma Lila. This meant we had a lot of time to talk and think and study and that's what we did. And Ben began proposing some radical thoughts: that as children grafted into God's family - a new and still incredibly poignant situation for him especially - we were really and truly 100% part of God's family. We weren't just add-ons or afterthoughts or a separate but inferior class: we were children of the Father and as such, the history of God's People and his desires for them...was for us too. Laws given to them out of love...were given to us out of love. And all the barriers that were placed in the way of that idea began coming down as we sought them out and one by one began reconciling the Bible to itself.

For me, this process was like being a kid who lived with a family but always as a visitor. I could never really call Grandma "Grandma" because she wasn't really MY Grandma like she was all the other kids'. Then one day I discovered I wasn't really a visitor after all: I was totally completely adopted and my DNA might as well be identical because the Father saw me as one of his children. When he said, "I don't want my children to do this because this is not for them," he was talking to ME.

I heard a story once about someone who became adopted into a family as an adult who described being in that new household as something like "breathing air for the first time."

That's what embracing God's family as one of his children feels like to me. And that's why I write about it. And that's why I'm excited about it. In this blog, the things I've always had the most drive or enthusiasm to write about were thoughts that had changed the way I saw something, especially about God. I wanted to cook a good meal and this one is exquisite.

Those things I write I know might be troubling? They troubled us and we've identified a solution. Are we completely accurate? I'm sure we aren't. We may have to change some solution we thought we'd found in the future if we learn to see something differently again. But for now, I'm writing about the resolutions we feel we've discovered.

Why don't I password protect if I know someone might read things they really disagree with and not like me? Why nail 99 Theses to a church door if you know someone might get mad? Because knowing God better sometimes means revisiting things you thought you knew and going a different direction. If someone gets mad at me because of a thought...well, maybe the thought isn't worth anything to them or maybe someday in the future it might be, but in the meantime...maybe the thought was as valuable to someone else as it was to us. For the moment, it's worth the risk.