Rather, they just told their stories.<\/strong>\u00a0 Shared their experiences. Responded to other people’s comments with simple kindness and respect. And above all, they remained honest about what they were wrestling with and learning along the way.<\/p>\nReading their blogs gave me hope.<\/p>\n
They inspired me.<\/p>\n
They pointed me toward God (even when they were wrestling with God).<\/p>\n
They challenged me to think.<\/p>\n
January 1, 2008, I started my own blog and dedicated myself to two simple commitments:<\/p>\n
1. Write as honestly and purely as I could without editing or trying to worry about what other people might think.<\/p>\n
2. Write once a week for one year.<\/p>\n
It’s been a wild ride, and I have learned so much through the process over the past 4 years.<\/p>\n
Out of everything, I think blogging has helped me learn to become more comfortable in my own skin, with my own voice, with who I am.<\/p>\n
I think that is a very holy and sacred experience on our spiritual journey–learning to find safety and security in who we really are. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nNot who someone else is.<\/p>\n
Not who we think we should be.<\/p>\n
But in who we are.<\/strong><\/p>\nI am someone who has always struggled with the message that I wasn’t enough somehow–not spiritual enough, not quiet enough, not domestic enough, not skinny enough, not organized enough, not-whatever-enough.<\/p>\n
Blogging definitely intersected with this message, initially making it even worse.<\/p>\n
In the first few years of my blog, I had so much internal anxiety about not being good enough, funny enough, theological enough, wise enough, or concise enough. \u00a0 Whatever “enough” it was, I wasn’t.<\/p>\n
But something began to shift in the past several years as I continued to find my voice and become more comfortable in my own skin out here.<\/p>\n
I began to realize that the world doesn’t need another _________ or __________ or __________<\/strong> (Insert name of any bloggers you are jealous of, and my guess is they are wrestling with similar feelings and go a little psycho about the same insecurities).<\/p>\nWhat’s missing is me.<\/p>\n
Not because without me the world would stop spinning or the blogosphere would come to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n
But because everyone else is taken. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI think God wants us to learn how to become comfortable in our own skin, to be who-we-are, and not try to become someone else.<\/strong><\/p>\nBlogging is a great place to practice this.<\/p>\n
Making peace with who-we-are requires the ongoing-work-of-the-Holy-Spirit.\u00a0 I doubt and question it all of the time.\u00a0 I obsess before I hit “publish” and freak out about not being more like ______ or _______ (insert name of other blogger also obsessing about the same thing).<\/p>\n
I need God’s help to remind me:\u00a0 “Um, Kathy, just so you know, in the big scheme of things, it’s just a blog post.\u00a0 And one other thing:\u00a0 it’s a great place to practice just being you–with all your strengths & all your weaknesses.\u00a0 Just you.”<\/p>\n
And then I hit “publish” and take a deep breath and am reminded yet again, this is what transformation looks and feels like.<\/p>\n
This is how we get more comfortable in our own skin.\u00a0 \u00a0 This is how we learn to offer ourselves grace.\u00a0 This is how we become “us” and not someone else.<\/p>\n
Yikes, it’s hard to learn! \u00a0 But blogging is a great spiritual practice that can help integrate this important truth into deep places in our hearts.<\/p>\n
Yeah, my spiritual guidance for all us bloggers is this:\u00a0 Be ourselves.\u00a0 Everyone else is taken.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Blogging definitely intersected with this message, initially making it even worse.” -Kathy Excobar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,5626],"tags":[6553,4233,8,15,1472,1671,6538,5668,5667,51,6109,3190,3195,5669],"class_list":["post-8713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-spark-my-muse","tag-4bloggers","tag-advice","tag-blogging","tag-church","tag-god","tag-holy-spirit","tag-humor","tag-identity","tag-kathy-escobar","tag-ministry","tag-sgb","tag-spiritual-direction","tag-spiritual-formation","tag-the-refuge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8713"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11175,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8713\/revisions\/11175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/escobar.jpg\" "\\"escobar\\"")
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