Where I give up some of my time each Friday to respond to various blogs I've read.

I’ve been blogging for a few months now, and seasoned veteran that I am, I’d like to share with you a few observations about the blogging community. 

At first, your blogging community consists of your family and friends. Which is fine but you’d surely like that audience to grow. Also, you develop a fear that said friends will shy away from you for fear they might be the next subject of an article. 

You realize blog comments from your parents and best friend just do. not. count. You’ll spend a good deal of time researching and beating your head against the wall wondering how you can get a complete stranger to follow your blog and comment on what they read.

Finally, and this is a major plus, you spend lots of time reading other bloggers. I already have a list of five to ten like-minded authors I follow. People who share similar ideas and inclinations to mine. Already, I have mentors.

One of the blogs on my list is Glennon Melton’s Momastery.com. Last month, she ran a series called “Sacred Scared,” in which she asked some well-known Christian writers, many of them fellow bloggers, to share with her audience their deepest fear. Not so we could call them wimps. But so we could see their normalcy. We could know these successful people aren’t uniquely talented or fearless. They are just uniquely called by God to do a work.  

Immediately, this causes one to reflect on his or her own “scareds.” What holds you back, or at the very least, keeps you up at night? What quality do you never want anyone to know about you? Things you know are not bigger than Christ, but all the same our enemy uses them to break your stride and he keeps feeding you the lies.

Thinking about this took me back to a sermon my pastor gave some time ago. He taught on the labels we’ve gotten from others. He refuted the lie, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” At the end of the message, he handed out a nametag to each individual. He encouraged us to come up with a godly response to those false labels people give us. I got mine and thought for only a moment before writing, “accepted.”

This label surprised even me. I am a sociable person and make friends easily. With few exceptions, people tend to like me or at least pretend they do. But I knew I had labeled myself correctly. That word, “accepted,” was what I most wanted from my peers.

For I know all too well the ways I am different. I remember the yearbook entry I received in the eighth grade, in which a good friend encouraged me to “not read so much over the summer but have a little fun.” I realize not everyone wishes they knew Hebrew so they could better understand the Old Testament.

I worry deep, deep down that by blogging and talking about my love for the Bible, some will think I am trying to show myself better than others. They will think I am trying to be the next Beth Moore (although I can think of far worse role models). When really, really, who I am trying to be is me. All of the “me” God created.

So there you have it. Christ constantly reminds me He must be enough in my life. I know ultimately I must find my acceptance from Him. But down here, among all of you; I want you to accept me. With all my unique features. More than that, I want us to accept one another and celebrate our own uniqueness.

That’s the reality of my sacred scared, Glennon. Thanks for asking.