Why I’m Afraid of Blogging

Posted on September 19, 2013 Updated on October 8, 2013

I remember getting the internet at our house in 1997. I found pure joy of the sound of AOL dialing up and kicking my brothers off the phone line. The first I remember of the blogging world was middle school. Does anybody remember Xanga? If you wanted to be cool, you had a Xanga and blogged about the meaninglessness of 7th grade science class and what you had for breakfast that morning. It was fantastic. Until the one time that I got in trouble in 9th grade at my Christian high school for using a bad word. Like BIG trouble. I had ISS and had to clean dishes in the cafeteria all day. I believe it was then that I learned that blogging was not for the faint of heart: anything you put out for the world to see can and will be used against you.

I have started blogs and stopped blogs over the years since that fateful day of getting ISS. Especially as I have began to grow in my faith and my love for learning and for the Lord, I’ve started many a draft that I have never posted. I’m picky about the things I post on Facebook and Instagram.

How many of you have dared to read the comment section of blog posts or teachings that you’ve either loved or hated? Geez, how about the comment section of ANYTHING out there on the internet? It’s absolutely ridiculous. Hateful words. People will make grand statements about someone they know absolutely nothing about based on one thing that they say. We all do it – we all decide someone is an idiot when we read a blog post that we blatantly disagree with. The other day someone posted a long article about how music lessons are pointless – I disagreed and caught myself subconsciously thinking that that one opinion meant that that entire human being was an idiot and I would never want to read anything else they would ever write. Evil seeks to find division. It seeks to pick apart your confidence and to tear us away from each other. This truly terrifies me.

I feel like a complicated human being (but really, who isn’t?). I am strong willed, I am independent, and I am very opinionated. But alongside of that, in my heart of hearts, I am a people pleaser. I want to please people because I love people. The idea that someone would dislike me or misinterpret something I say genuinely makes me want to throw up. But I’m beginning to acknowledge that to care too much about not saying things because of a fear that people won’t like what I have to say is something that could easily hold me back from saying some really beautiful things. And it’s because fear of failure holds us back from being fully engaged in ministry the way that the Lord has called us to be.

The Bible says, “Everyone will hate you because of me…” (Mark 13:13). And we are called to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). To truly live in the truth of these things, you must acknowledge that you will have enemies. People will disagree with you and they will hurt you. But to allow the Lord to speak through you requires courage. It requires putting yourself out there with the risk of the things you fear actually happening.

So the balance that we must all struggle with, especially as we decide to step into that dangerous vulnerable territory of the internet is how do we say what we feel the need to say while loving people who we cannot see? How do I blog about the things the Lord is teaching me while loving (or better yet, honoring) the person that I don’t know that is reading it? How do I love the person who will at some point probably make a nasty comment about something that I say?

I think it takes loads of intentionality. The balance requires intentionality in remembering that we are a work in progress and that our writing is a reflection of that, and intentionality about who we are talking to and about and how.

So here I am, in my uncertainty and fear of putting myself out there, blogging. To you, whoever you are, I promise to try to challenge and honor you in the things that I say. And I hope you’ll show me grace in the moments that I don’t do that fully.