Blogging is a strange beast.

I read blogs, and I interact with the writers via social media, and I feel like I “know” those people. In fact, if I were to be honest, I would count some of them as friends. Yet I’ve never met them face-to-face.

Back when I started writing, in June, 2009, because I needed to explore/explain/vent about our adoption journey, I met a number of wonderful women. We’ve gone on to create a private facebook group where we still, after almost 8 years in some cases, pour our hearts out to one another, because we “get” it.

Then I transitioned to more of a theology/homeschool/Christian living type of blog. I made an effort to “grow,” “advertise,” “market” myself for the first few months of this year. I tried to write on my schedule, a schedule I thought would – I don’t know – produce something.

And then people started to leave me comments, here and on facebook. People tweeted at me, and I met them in real life places. So when I stopped writing, I felt the weight of disappointment. It was crushing, even though it was imaginary.

But deep inside I was still struggling with having left two churches (for valid theological reasons) in three years. I was struggling with watching my childhood denomination implode. I entered (and have hopefully exited) my cage stage. I still want so much to have more children. I am still grieving that my mother is not who she was before her stroke some two years ago. I am still finding my way in the territory of sandwich generation, Titus 2 woman, and, frankly, as a grown up. I am wrestling with when to tackle someone’s theological error, and when to just leave it alone and hope someone else deals with their wrong beliefs.

This summer has been…hard. And every time I sat down to write, bitterness poured out of my fingertips.

That’s not at all who I want to be, nor is what I wanted to write. Do I want to be honest about struggles? Yes. Do I want to encourage women with what I write and what I know from Scripture to be true? Yes.

But do I feel like I even have a voice in this….abyss that is the internet? I don’t know. And while part of me thinks I shouldn’t care whether I have an audience (oh, the cliche of the audience of One pops into my head here), I also struggle with envy and pride as much as (or, probably more accurately, much more than) the next blogger on your list. I want to be read. I want to be influential. I want to be quoted and tweeted and reposted.

God’s done significant work on me this summer in that aspect. So here I am, tiptoeing into the writing waters, once again. I don’t have a schedule. I don’t have specific ambition. I have a few topics floating around in my head. And school has started for us, so that helps with my real-life schedule.

I have missed this space. I have missed interacting with my readers, who I do count as friends. I hope we can find our way back to one another. And I pray I bring encouragement and comfort to those who find their way here.