I'll Title This Blog Later

I don’t how to start a blog. Partly because I’ve never written one, and partly because I know that I may never upload this. I’ve always found blogs a bit strange, not that any blogger automatically subscribes to that trait, but that a blog itself is such a peculiar form of self-expression. Blogs are so unassuming, most of the time they are discovered by word of mouth, so they’re not just followed, or subscribed to, but rather have to be sought after. They hold far more than 140 characters in their diaphragm, and it’s not a picture that can collect likes. Here, in this blog, there are thoughts that have never quite matured into tweets, or that can’t live within the confines of a caption. Both places terrify me, therefore I have resorted to a forum that allows my words to squirm a little bit, and nestle themselves safely into the outside world, without making too much noise.

Maybe this conclusion is silly, a weird attempt out of some false sense of security. Fair enough, blogging is probably no more immune to a lethal dose of judgment, than Twitter or Instagram are. But my choice in blogging is not so much related to an escape from judgment, but rather a waddle towards courage. I’m choosing to blog because I’ve always wanted to and never got around to doing it. Well, mainly because I’ve been afraid to. After hours of perusing every sentence laced with what I thought was a clever quip or interesting thought, I would hover my index finger over the publish button, and then quickly close my laptop with the trepid realization that someone might read it. So fear won again, and I would end up saving a file or emailing it to a friend. This is where I learned that sometimes before we can learn to share the things we love, we have to first learn to love them ourselves, without anyone’s approval.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of fear. A couple months ago while journaling I wrote down one phrase: Fear does not deserve our attention. I came to this conclusion one night after many years of standing on two feet, when even gravity was constantly tickling my heels to jump. My fear had adopted the persona of “wallflower” a suit that fit me well, one that was infected also with a toxic idea that people like myself, are not in fact supposed to bloom.

In my twenty-three years, I have not taken job interviews, attended meetings, or performed poetry because of the fear of failing, and at the time not having the emotional equipment or the spiritual insight to handle the pain that may come from it. I have constantly found reasons not to take steps forward, deliberating endlessly in a mental courtroom that usually never comes to a healthy conclusion. “The embarrassment is not worth the pursuit, carry on” I would conclude. So I stood still, a paralytic in the stream that was my life, allowing its current to carry me away from myself, all because I was afraid of drowning in failure.

Ironically, my fear finds its roots in pride. It’s a slick kind of narcissism that postures my heart into thinking that I am un-deserving of knowing my true worth, so I must partner with fear to measure and create usually my own superficial worth. I would rather control my life, and not move, in order not to fail. Because then, failure would prove that the personal mosaic of unworthiness that I believe about myself, is in fact true. Rather, in order to avoid the pain that could be the product of potential failure, I place my trust in Sheridan, rather than placing my trust in Him. I guess, you could say, it’s easier to “manage expectations” this way, as long as you keep the expectation of yourself low in the first place. Fear has existed to disrupt a true recognition of who I am, and in turn, ends up corroding an intimacy with He who says I am beloved.

Fear convinces us to trade a worth measured by a good, steadfast God, for its own shifty perspective that promises false protection from pain. The problem is, fear is all flesh, with no marrow. It seems so big and ominous, like a noble protector. But really, it’s a pest that consumes us, with no redemptive power when confronting pain. It’s a fallacy that masks itself as a function. It tricks us into believing that we can trust it as our protection from the pain we may experience from others, or even ourselves, but it doesn’t have the power to redeem that pain for good. Every time I’ve failed, God has taken that experience, scrubbed it, and presented it back to me as something that I end up learning from. He redeems it for good, because He is.

I’ve let fear build up for years, it’s created a less fun experience of life, gradually dripping regret in the caverns of myself I didn’t even know existed. It’s made a few of my dormant dreams sting, really bad. So lately, I’ve been captivated by this sense of urgency: Do things, try things, fail and succeed. Because why not? I started coming to the realization that fear only has the capacity to give me a wrong expectation of myself, not an accurate assessment of my reality.

So I start this journey, not to begin a campaign for approval, but a step towards myself. As God continues to prune things in my heart, each layer offers new, and scary adventures for me to walk towards. It is when I am at my most broken that I lean on him a little longer, it is when I find myself the most afraid, do I grasp his hand a little tighter. The struggles along these journeys I have learned to let sting, find hope in, and maybe even delight in. Like the great poet Dante once shared as the prologue to his inward quest: “In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood”. Maybe only in the most difficult seasons, experiencing the most saturated fears, does God nudge us towards a deeper trust in Him.

These blog posts will only act as humble footnotes to my life, and at times what I learn along the way, may or may not parallel your own experience. Sometimes they will be some thoughts, some poems, maybe a review here or there. I do pray, that whatever stage God may be calling you to step on, that fear would not allow its grasp to hold you, but that God’s peace and power would keep you. For even if we limp towards that foothold, at least we are still moving forward. Plus, blogging has turned out to be a lot of fun so far.