Sharing words with the world has been one of the scariest and most rewarding decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve always loved writing, but only since last year did I get up the courage to share it for the world to read.
The idea to share a behind-the-scenes peek into Life with the King (LWTK) came from a question from one of YOU fantastic readers: Where did you start and how are you finding contentment and creativity in artistic style?
I always love hearing your ideas; thank you for reflecting with me on the first year of the Life with the King blog!
Why start writing in the first place?
Just like many of the stories I tell in this blog, it all started with an internal struggle.
I have wanted to be a writer almost as long as I’ve been able to read. The problem was, I didn’t know what I would write about. The more I learned, the more I learned how much I didn’t know, and the more I doubted that what I had to say would be either new or helpful.
I also knew that if my writing wasn’t vulnerable, it wouldn’t be great. And I wanted to write something great. I didn’t, however, want to be vulnerable. So, I put writing off.
I journaled off and on; I wrote occasional poems and plays and essays. But I never called myself a writer.
I thought about starting a blog many times in my 20s. In 2012 I experimented with a travel blog and gleefully documented one of my trips nearly every day. But when it came to writing about life and meaning, the things that interested and fascinated me the most, the task seemed just beyond my reach.
I can’t properly explain how, but I knew intuitively that I didn’t have the life experience yet to produce the depth of content that I wanted to be able to share. I was aware enough to know a well of wisdom about this topic existed, and also that I needed more years in flesh and blood reality to anchor whatever it is I’d write about in that wisdom. So I waited, telling myself I’d write something great someday, trying to make myself feel better about not really doing what I loved. I told myself for years that I just had to be patient. To trust that someday writing would find me again.
How did LWTK start?
During my 20s, reality developed. I moved twice, had 3 jobs, 3 relationships, a family crisis or two, and a personal crisis of faith. Last year, I finally had a story that I was ready to tell.
It was then that writing became something I could no longer not do. Speaking to the question of contentment, I was at a point where I just wasn’t content until I started taking steps toward sharing my story through writing. I took this as a clear signal that writing this story was at least part of what I was meant to do here on this earth.
Yes, part of me felt it was a little self-indulgent to be writing about myself and my experience directly. But again the contentment wasn’t there until I sort of held my nose and did so. After all, writers must write what they know. Artists must express what they feel and observe. That’s the only way I know of to be honest, and honest writing is all I’d ever want to read. Or offer.
Despite being completely terrified, I published my first blog post one year ago today. I told my friends, “If only one person is helped and doesn’t feel alone in their faith experience, it’ll all be worth it.”
Needless to say now, it’s been more than worth it.
It’s been a life-giving creative outlet to write my story with the Lord, sharing what He has taught me in the process of rebuilding shattered faith.
And there is so much more to share that goes beyond the scope of this blog. My hopes to write that book someday are now more alive than ever, all starting with saying “YES!” to obey that tug on my heart.
Behind the Scenes
To get a little more vulnerable still, the writing journey while mostly positive hasn’t been all rosey. There was so much passion and momentum when this began a year ago. Not only that, but I was also helped and inspired by my sister Abby, who had launched her own blog just a month before. In those first couple of weeks, we packed our laptops on our family beach trip to keep consistent with our blogging. Without an internet connection where we were staying, we simply got up early nearly every day and drove off to find air conditioned WiFi, leaving the family asleep to work on our writing together. The first few weeks were relatively easy because of the excitement around it and the forethought I had put into a handful of topics.
However writing on my own was harder. Topics eventually run out. Blogging took time, discipline, and energy that I had underestimated in the initial rush of novelty. I soon struggled to post blogs weekly, working a full time job as well as a part time job. Discouragement set in and I stopped posting for several weeks at a time, not because I wanted to stop, but because I had to. I couldn’t continue if I was associating the blog with a feeling I dreaded.
Because I love this blog. It took a great deal of time, attention, and planning to get it up and running. I have pages and pages of notes just from working out what to call it. I talked to friends about their own blogs and what they learned along the way. The online hosting process alone took me weeks to set up. I set up a post structure to keep me focused before I ever started writing content.
Just because it was tough and discouraging at times didn’t mean I was going to give up on the blog.
And that’s exactly how God feels about us.
God didn’t give up on me, even when I quit on Him. He will never give up on you either.
This time, I wasn’t going to let go of the opportunity I’d been given that easily; I had already done that whole letting-discouragement-stop-me thing in my 20s. Not anymore.
How do you feel about the blog now?
I remember telling my family this January, “I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”
Writing is my act of obedience to God. There is meaning in the sharing of Life with the King, and that makes the pain I endured apart from Him have a purpose now. Writing is indeed my way of artistic expression. Bringing truth and light to the darkness is what God does. My aim for LWTK is to bring attention to what I see God doing. We all need a reminder to look for it, myself included.
Today, I can call myself a writer. Today, I can say that God is Good.
I hope Life with the King will continue to encourage you as it begins its second year; no matter how desperate or painful your faith journey might seem, God hasn’t and won’t ever give up on you. Even when you don’t see Him or experience His presence. Even when you don’t believe Him. There is still hope, and joy is still possible.
Don’t give up. You are not alone, and there is grace even here.
“I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever” (Psalm 145:1-2).
Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.