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I've been thinking a lot about influence lately. In the past couple of weeks I've become keenly aware of just how much influence certain things or people hold over me even without them realizing it. Their words, or lack of words affect me. While at first my reaction is to decide to try and be uninfluenced by everyone, I don't think that's God's intent. From what I can see, he intends for us to be in relation with each other, which means we naturally influence each other.
I can see the beauty in this. I can see how awesome it is when we encourage each other and when we benefit from that. But I can also see that a lack of acknowledgement of my influence can cause a lot of hurt. I've often thought to myself "Doesn't s/he realize the effect that has?" Truth be told, 9 times out of 10 my guess is no, they honestly probably don't. It gives me room to extend grace, but it also gives me room to reflect on my own lack of awareness.
Because of this, I've been thinking about venues in which I affect people. And its lead me to think about this blog. Blogs are a funny thing because you can post whatever you want. I know for a fact that there are readers that I don't even know about. (Hi!) I look at the trends that blogger puts out and what not, and I've seen sometimes an occasional reader from a country I have no immediate relations with, and a few of my new friends have come out of the woodwork through this blog.
Because of this, that means many of us have never meant and you all don't necessarily know my purpose in writing. So, that's what this post is for. The purpose of this blog.
Originally, it was just for fun to fill people in. I would argue, that it still is predominately that. I like to share with people the life Ben and I are experiencing. I especially like to look back on this pretty and see some of the funny memories that I wrote down, pictures that I took, etc. This blog gives me reason to keep documenting my life on a weekly basis, when my tendency is to only document the big stuff.
It also functions as a chronicle to what God's doing in my heart. Ben and I are Christians (for more on that we have the "We Believe" Tab) and we think the whole point of life is to give Glory to God. This blog often times chronicles how we see God working to bring us closer to Him. It's cool to have this blog to look back on that.
What I really want to say, is that while I'm talking on all these different topics-and written form is pretty powerful-I'm not the authority. Nor do I claim to be. Even the stuff I write is surely flawed and because of the fact that I'm not voicing it as an authority when I write, I allow myself room to be flawed. I share opinions and feelings, that had we had a conversation, depending on the topic (i.e. Our believe that Jesus is who He says he is are pretty set in stone, my views on how to better my marriage-there's a ton of room for growth!) I may change or enhance through our dialogue. What I mean to say is: I want to share life with you all and a lot of my posts capture life as I'm processing through it now. This blog isn't intended to give ammunition to any opinions, or to make any of you to lose joy because of something I write. Maybe this has never happened. That's my hope. But because I know blogs can have that effect, I wanted to throw this out there.
I do however hope that this blog has some influence. If you can relate to something I post ever, then I'm so encouraged! My hope is that God uses this to occasionally challenge people differently. If it causes you to coo at your husband more, or think to yourself, "Wow, my life is awesome!" I welcome that influence. If you've begun to think about God more and think about if Jesus is for you-I welcome that influence as well. If anything like that happens, You and I can be challenged and can celebrate together! That gets me excited. But if its anything outside of that, I don't intend to influence that way. I want you to be pushed more towards celebrating your life, marriage (or singleness,) and worshiping God. If anything I write or say pushes you away from that-throw it out. I didn't intend for it to be used in that way. It's probably best to label it garbage and leave it! Hopefully you all can hear my heart in writing this. I think you can.
That's about it. Hope you all are having an excellent week!
Britt
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