Sweet Home Santa Barbara

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Why I Write

I started this blog just months after completing college, a fresh new member of the full time workforce with a crisp diploma in hand. I had been a regular blog stalker reader for months, and it had taken me that long to create one of my own. 

I started blogging as a hobby, a means of documenting these years that I was certain would be worth remembering. They were, but maybe not for what I had initially expected. Maybe it wasn't the wine nights, the weekend escapades, or the dinner recipes that I was documenting. Maybe it was something much more than that, something that isn't as evident in a single blog post, as it is witnessed in the collection of entries as a whole. 

You see, 5 months after starting this blog, I stood hungover in a college gymnasium and surrendered my entire life to Jesus. 5 months after starting this blog, my entire life changed in a single instant. I may not have known it at the moment, but in hindsight, it's evidence is undeniable. And fortunately, I continued documenting the years with little understanding of how pivotal they truly were. 

Over my 3 and a half years of blogging (say whaaa?), this past year has been noticeably quiet. Ironically, the hands down best year of my life has had the least documentation. Perhaps living and creating memories overtook the documenting of them. 

Though it's been refreshing to remind myself that documentation is not a requirement for importance, blogging has also been dearly missed. There's a part of my heart that aches to write out the events, the lessons, the dreams, and the laughs. There's a part of my heart that is incredibly passionate about the documentation and the sharing, even with recognizing that both of which aren't mandatory. A life doesn't have to be shared with social media to be well lived. 

That being said, I'm recognizing that this girl enjoys sharing her life. This girl enjoys documenting, and it will be a 2015 goal of mine to return to this space more regularly. 

But before I can do that, I think it's important to ask myself a very important question:
why? 

Why do I write? Why do I share? Why do I document? 

This blog began as a means of simply sharing life, and while there is absolutely beauty in that, I can't say that remains the purpose today. Yes, I want to share my life, but with the hopes that it shines light on something more. 

I write because I want to see God known. I write because I want the world to know about His unfailing love, His unending grace, and His abiding friendship. I write because I want His story to be shown through mine. I write because with every fiber of my being, I believe that His love changes lives. I write because it changed mine. 


I share because I find Him in the details, and it's my hope and my prayer that you do, too. 

I hope you have a very merry Christmas, loves! If you've stuck around through this quiet year, thank you. :)





3 comments:

Caitlin said...

Merry Christmas, sweet friend! Have fun soaking up all the holiday fun!

Pamela said...

Merry Christmas!!! :)

Unknown said...

Merry Christmas pretty lady! Love this! This is one of my favorite type of posts to stumble upon, and even return to myself at the start of a new year. It's so good to evaluate our heart behind this blogging thing to remember why we are really doing it. I look forward to reading more from you this year, I hope to be frequenting this blogging thing a lot more as well!