I blogged for years.

I even ran two consecutive blogs for a good long while.

I started a blog for college women, hoping to gather other women on our leadership team to write and discuss. I reviewed books and tried to talk about my faith. But despite teaching the Bible for years, I felt weird and insecure about talking about the God on the internet. I haven’t done anything with that blog since 2011.

The other was a family blog, which grew out of an old Xanga page I started when I got married (XANGA. That is old school blogging, people. Is Xanga still a thing? I would link to my first blog, but I can’t remember what it was called. Or what my password was. Or anything else except that it existed a long time ago. I would probably find it horrifying today.)

Anyway, I wrote on Boys and Joys for years, attempting to keep far flung friends and family updated on our lives. I also counted gifts, and celebrated things I love like Pinterest and Adoption and Instagram filters. I really loved blogging, even though there was nothing much to my blog.

And then early in 2013, I checked facebook as I was stretching out after running at the YMCA. And I got a friend request from my 12 year old, who was not allowed to be on Facebook. Lucky for him, I pretty quickly figured out that it wasn’t actually him (for starters, he’s smart enough to know that if you’re going to have a secret Facebook page, you probably shouldn’t friend your MOM.) But it had his name, pictures of him, and conversations impersonating him (mostly about his favorite football team.) And then I found a fan page (like what a celebrity would have) for my 5 year old, including baby pictures and his birth date. All of these were pictures from my blog, with a smattering of Facebook pictures on which we’d messed up the privacy settings.

I freaked out.

First of all, it felt massively violating, like we were being stalked. Secondly, for all I knew, whomever had started these pages was trying to meet young girls and lure them into…. Who knows what.

** Side note: Those of us with young people MUST be monitoring their social media usage. Every. Single. Day. Not to control them, but as a protection. And we need to be talking more with tweens and teens about internet safety.  We have always been open with our kids that there’s no right to privacy as far as the internet is concerned. If they are under 18 and on the internet, we’re going to be right there with them, reading every text, facebook message, status update, tweet, and looking at each Instagram picture. Every app must be approved by us, and include us. And that was true even before someone impersonated my 12 year old on the internet. **

I contacted Facebook. I called the FBI. There’s nothing either of those organizations can do until a crime is committed.

I contacted the owner of the false Facebook page, demanding that the page be taken down.

I got a very kind response apologizing and explaining. I’m not going to share that explanation here, except to say if it was true, it was relatively benign, and all is forgiven. Both pages were immediately taken down.

But I didn’t have the heart for blogging anymore.

In the 2 years since then, I’ve written blog posts in my head. I’ve written a TON in my journal. I’ve read books about writing, and I’ve read books and blog posts about following your dreams. Each time, I’ve thought about my dream of being a writer. And each time I’ve listened to the voices in my head that yell…

What if nobody reads it?

And

What if there’s nothing new to say?

And

Who do you think you are, anyway?

A year ago, I bought this domain. For 12 months I’ve been thinking about blogging, talking about blogging, saying I am ready to blog again, writing more blog posts in my head. And not writing any in real life.

But I do love to write. And I believe that the internet can be used for good, and not just for grumpy cat pictures. And I think there’s a big difference between writing privately for only your own eyes, and writing publicly for an audience. Even if a writer never gains an audience, I think just the act of writing for others to read is worth the time.

Writers write.

So I’m going to write. I’m going to write whether anyone reads it or not. I’m going to write whether I have anything new to say or not. Writers write.

I will write about what I’m teaching and what I’m learning and I will join the great conversation going on here on the Interwebs.

But I’m not going to post many pictures of or details about my family. Because I’m still a little creeped out.

I love words, I love stories, I love books. A perfect Saturday for me is one with ample time under a blanket, with a warm drink and a good book.

But I am a WIMP. I cannot stomach anything gory or scary. If it is graphic or tense, I will pass, thank you. Fiction-wise, I mostly read youth fiction, because grown up books are too scary for me.

The only reason I made it through many of my favorite books is that the tension is a slow boil. The Lord of the Rings starts with the beauty and peace of the Shire, and I’m thoroughly attached to Frodo and friends well before they get anywhere near Mordor. Hogwarts only holds minor danger for anyone until the 4^th book. The only reason I made it to the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows was that I had to find out what happened to Harry and his friends, characters I’d spent years with and thought of as friends. And I cried my eyes out through every death, creature and human, cursing JK Rowling for breaking my heart.

Confession: Because of this, I read the end of books.

Yes, I am one of those people.I read half-way through a book, get really attached and nervous about the characters, jump to the last 2 pages to ease my mind, then go back and read the whole book. I just get so nervous when I get to the scary parts of a story.

I have to know how it fits into the bigger picture before I can go on. I have to know that everything is going to be OK.

I’m like this in real life also. Sometimes life is HARD. Sometimes I get really discouraged, and scared, and think that if this is how the story ends, I just CAN’T.

This is one reason I love the Bible. It reminds me that the story I find myself in is not the main story. And promise after promise holds out the hope that wherever I find myself, it is just a chapter in a bigger story.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

I just love these words, this truth, this reminder that there is more going on that what my eyes can see. And when I get really discouraged, buried in my current chapter, I can always turn to the very end of the story.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

If our eyes are open, we see sadness, sorrow and suffering all around. Selfishness, unkindness, even terror and horror. I would never read this book. But this is just a chapter, not the end of the story.

Be encouraged with me, friends. This is a GOOD story, and it has a GOOD ending. There is more going on than what our eyes can see.

“It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers