Still Learning

I've been wrestling with the urge to write again.  I'm not sure why I want to write.  I'm not sure who I'm writing for or what I'm trying to accomplish.  I thought about starting a new blog...but then I thought, why?  This blog is still so relevant to my life. I'm still a girl who is acting like a princess in a world where God is calling us to simply be servants.

One of the reasons I did not want to start using this blog again, or start blogging at all, was the guilt that consumes me when I'm not consistent with my postings.  Days or weeks would pass and I would have things I would want to say, but then wouldn't get a chance to put them in writing, or would I would get too lazy to do it.  And then guilt would overcome me, and instead of that being something that would motivate me it would become something that would discourage me.  The more I would think about writing, the more guilt I would have for not keeping up with it, the more discouraged I would become, and the less writing I would do.  What a messy little circle I have created for myself!

A friend of mine, who is also a blogger, wrote about this once.  She wasn't going to beat herself about missing a day or missing a few days of blogging. She was just going to write when she wrote.  And if lots of time went by, then so be it.  I read that blog quite a while back and it's been sitting with me ever since.  But what I'm truly wrestling with isn't about blogging at all, it's about guilt.  It's the guilt that I put on myself.

I want to be this perfect princess who gets everything right the first time around.  I want to get my blog right.  I want to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother.  I want to be this super awesome christian woman.  And when I mess up I feel guilty.

I remember a conversation with one of my pastors a few years ago and I told him I wanted to be an awesome christian.  And he asked me what that meant - it was the first time I had been asked that question.  And then he reminded me I was human.  And that I was imperfect.  And it's not about being a super awesome christian.  It's about Jesus.  It's about my daily need for a Savior.


Chuck taught a great series last month at youth group called Living A Better Story.  He taught about how we can live our lives better if we look at our stories through the same lens that movies are made out of. I learned so much from that series.  One of the main things I took from his teachings was that I need to make sure I'm casting the right main character in my story.  The main character isn't me.  It's Jesus. 

I haven't used this blog in over three years.  And that conversation with that Pastor took place around that time too.  I guess I'm still learning this lesson - It's not about me.

I'm learning that I need to stop acting like a Princess and start acting more like a servant.  Jesus is a King, yet he didn't act like one.  He acted like a servant.  I may be the daughter of a King, but that doesn't mean I have to behave like a worldly princess.

James 1:27 (NIV)
²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.