Oh, The Places You Could Write

I recently spoke to some graduates at Munday High School's Baccalaureate service and I read to them Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. My main point to them was that their futures will be full of choices they will face as they Go on their journeys after high school. I told them they would need to remember what they had already learned as they continued learning, to seek advice from trustworthy people, and, most importantly, to pursue God's plan for their lives.

It seems that in all the places I have gone, those ideas--continuing to learn, seeking advice, and pursuing God's plan--have been reinforced to me over and over. Yet, there have been many times that I have acted as if I hadn't learned anything, as if I were going it alone without counsel, and as if I were pursuing my own plan and not God's. It's usually not too long after I wake up in a ditch on my journey, covered in the mud of my mistakes and wrong choices, that I say to myself "I should have known this was going to happen!" or "I wished I had listened to so and so," or "I'm sure God's plan would have been better than this ditch."

Now I have a dilemma: "Where is the best place to write about what's going on along my journey?" Here are the places I write: For years, I have been writing feelings, experiences, and lessons I am learning in my Christian life in my personal journal. Additionally, I have been writing newsletter articles for the newsletters of the churches in which I have served, most of which have been newsy at times but many have had a devotional feel to them. I have also been keeping a daily work-log of activities (phone calls, appointments, meetings, ministry events, etc.) associated with my job as a pastor. And now I have a blog and I feel like saying, "Oh, The Places You Could Write!"

There are things I experience that I want to get off my chest, but I feel no one needs to see them due to the raw honesty of the feelings I am expressing. People may not understand my emotions and jump to conclusions while I am still trying to figure out what the truth is in the situation. So I put these thoughts in my journal, only to be read at the end of the "chapter" I am living.

I love writing the devotional type of newsletter articles I write but I also have to disseminate information about what's going on in the church. The newsletter isn't very long (at this point) and, therefore, I usually have to choose to write more news and less letter.

My work-log is -- well, it is just a log. It's not good reading because it's not good writing. I keep it primarily to keep track of what I spend my time working on as a pastor.

Then there is my blog. Because I'm new to blogging, I am having a hard time posting because I am so busy writing in all the other places. This doesn't even include the time I spend reading and studying in preparation for the sermon(s) I have to preach every week. In that prep time, I write and edit and write and edit before I have a preachable sermon.

I also have a hard time blogging due to the decisions of what to share and what to either keep private or keep as strictly church business. So I struggle with what to write in my blog and when.

Therefore, please forgive me (those of you who read this blog) for being sporadic in my blogging. I am just wondering and wandering on my blog journey.