This Isn’t a Smart Blog

Sometimes, I wish I wrote a smart blog.

Like, I’ll read someone’s blog or flip through articles in a First Things magazine and I wish that I wrote intelligent blog posts. Ones that made people really think or shared brilliant information with them that they never before knew. Yet, when I sit down to write, that isn’t what comes out of me.

I’m prideful, so I still like to think that I write with depth even if it isn’t deeply intelligent. As I come up with different things to write about, I’m not thinking of highly intelligent subjects. Instead, I think of the strained conversation I had with a student and what I discovered about myself as a result. I think about the simple yet alluring beauty of fresh flowers on a dining room table. I consider snippets of the Psalms that flood into my mind at random points throughout my days. I share how my heart strangely responded to a situation and how the Lord is seeking to knock, knock, knock at the door of my heart every single moment.

I just write, uncertain that it is really helping anyone and yet knowing that if it only helps me, that would be a sufficient reason to keep doing it.

In middle school, I tried to imitate the flowery writing of the authors I frequently read. In college, nobody wanted that and so I focused on writing analytic prose, cutting out any of my own flair to give the Honors’ professors what they wanted. Then, I graduated, started teaching, and began this blog. I was too tired and was struggling too much to be concerned with flowery language. Instead, I simply needed to write, to process the surprising world of high school that I had been thrown back into.

The surprising thing to me is that the blog posts that I really like, that I feel are crafted well, and are extra smart/interesting are rarely the ones anyone comments on. Rather, the comments come far more often on the pieces that I write quickly, posting after only a cursory glance. They are the ones that seem like a surge of the heart. Or when I write a piece solely because I need to re-read the truths that are found in it.

I don’t write a smart blog even though sometimes I wish I did. Instead, I write one that flows from my heart, that stumbles yet carries on like I do through life. It isn’t flawless, but it is mine. And I’m thankful you are here with me….however many of “you” there are and wherever “here” is.

Welcome, let’s keep seeking together.

Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash