Why I Blog [Revisited]

With the new year comes a fresh start, even though technically most, if not all of us, are the exact same people on January 1 that we were at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve. There’s something about celebrating this holiday that puts us in the mindset of wiping the slate and starting clean.

That said, I’ve been thinking about my blogging journey for the last few days. I knew I wanted to do something “new” and fresh with russhutto.com in 09 but I want it to be so much more than a theme change or adding a new “blog series.”

So instead of kicking off a new series called “Calorie Counting Wednesday” or “To Do List Tuesday” for the new year, I’m just gonna be me. Oh it’s definitely gonna get a little more focused around here, but a more focused me. I’ve seen blogs come and go. I’ve even had a few of my own that ended up on the heap over the last 5 or 6 years.

So, right here and right now, in 09, I’m asking myself again, “Why Do I Blog?” Last year, around this same time, I wrote a series of posts about blogging. I’ve been going through them this morning and predictably my reasons are basically the same!

But honestly, I think the MAIN reason I blog is you. I love connection. I love the friendships I’ve made on this blog journey. Some of you I’ll never meet face to face in this life, but I feel an authentic community through blogging.

I know that Papa is always praying for people.

I know that Brent & Tam are raising Godly kids (setting a great example for me in the future).

I know Mandy is pursuing her dreams in songwriting.

I know Fred is running a great ebiz and leading a dynamic team at SSCC.

I know Johnny, Mike, and Joel are passionately engaging people with music for worship.

And of course there’s others. And those one liners don’t sum up all of who you are and what you blog about, but those are things that I love about your blog journey.

These things, these facets of your lives are the biggest reasons why I blog. Of course, I can’t write about those things in your life like you can, so I write my own story, but I think the wonderful thing about being alive today and having access to such technology is the weaving of the individual threads of our personal stories into one big tapestry, a masterpiece directed and orchestrated by God Himself.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. (Romans 12:4-6 MSG)