A Blog A Day. . .

Yesterday a man we know asked me what blogs are all about. I told him all I knew about it, which isn't much. Finally he said, "So, it's a place you write whatever you want to write and people can comment. That's all it is."

I guess that's all it seems to be. For someone who has kept diaries and journals for most of my life, it feels like more than that. I've known a few people who are going through tough battles with illnesses. For those of us who want to know what's happening to the person we care about, it's a way for them to keep everyone informed without the family having to tell the facts over and over.

Honestly, I haven't read any blogs written by people I don't know, so I can't tell you why they're written. I mean to, but it's not one of the "high on my priority" to-do list. It might be that a blog might simply be narcissistic. "I think what I have to say will interest everyone" narcissism. It might be a way to bypass paying money to a therapist to work through some areas of concern in a person's life. When I have a problem that's bumping around in my mind, and I put it into the written word, I can see it more clearly. More times than not, that's when I hear from God on the issue.

When I was a young adult, I found all my old "teen years" diaries and read every page. Alot of what I wrote embarrassed me. I didn't want anyone else to ever read those words, and I destroyed all of them. I wish I hadn't. They were who I was, and I shouldn't have been ashamed of that girl. Another time in my life, after several heartbreaking years were finally over, I burned all that I'd written before and during those times. In my heart I was saying to God, "I give up everything and want to begin anew." I think I'm glad those are gone.

I didn't stop journaling, and I still have all those books in the top of a closet. I've gone back to them many times. They're labeled by years and I can go to five years ago and see what was going on in my life--what God was saying to me, what I was feeling and thinking, the scriptures that spoke to me. I didn't write every day. Sometimes weeks would go by before I'd make note of something. The journaling was, and still is, especially good for the times I needed to work through something. I've been working through something the past weeks, and that's why I started blogging. I think it helped.

I still write the most intimate thoughts in my journal, of course, and they'll stay there until I die. I have no idea if my children will pick up those books and toss them or say, "This was Mom. Let's see what she was saying." If it was my mother's writings, I know I'd save them and read them after she was gone.

Could my reason for blogging be that I just love writing and expressing myself and seeing it in print? Could it be that I like connecting with people and learning more about friends by reading their blogs? Whatever the reason, I'm glad I live in the technological computer years, and I'm glad I've discovered blogging.