I was recently in a very nostalgic music mood and started looking up old songs from my childhood on YouTube. Well of course for a Christian kid who grew up immersed in the world of "CCM" that meant lots old Amy Grant songs lol. Her music was my childhood in a nut shell. While I was searching, I came across an interview she did while recording her 1994 album, "House of Love"... an album of which my best friend at the time & I totally wore out! Singing & dancing to every song. Anyway, I love listening to Amy speak, she never fails to inspire me in some way. These words about what compels her do music just stuck with me:
"I guess really what compels me to do music in such a public way is that I do think life is short and if you don't really share yourself, share who you really are with other people well, you've really missed the whole point. When that's really all we can do at the end of the day."
This quote is so timely for me as I have lately been thinking a lot about why I blog... why I've done it for as long as have and why I continue to come back to this place. Because honestly, sometimes I'm not quite sure why.
I've never had a lot of readers or comments... though to be sure, I am very grateful for who ever would take the time out of their day to read anything I write. But this little blog of mine is just that, little. And I'm never sure if anyone is really following along. And then I have so many frustrations with how blogging has changed over the years. It's changed drastically since I first started back in 2009. In some ways good but in a lot of ways not so good, in my opinion.
Yet for all my frustrations I, for some reason, keep coming back... and maybe the reason is that something inside of me is simply compelled to share my heart and life with other people. Even if it's just a small group of people… and even if it is sporadically, as my blogging tends to be lol. It means something to me. It means something to me to have a place for self expression, sharing myself with others… and maybe somehow finding community in the midst of it all. Isn’t that what we all started blogging for in the first place? You know, before number of followers, comments, sponsorships, and “building our brand” got in the way?
Maybe I'll never have hundreds of followers and comments... maybe I'll never do any sponsorships or giveaways, but if I can just share my heart and life with you, the person reading right now, then maybe it's worth it to keep coming back. To share recipes, music, crafts, and my words with you is to share pieces of who I am. And if I can give you just a small glimpse into who I am and what I'm about then maybe this whole blogging thing will be worth something at the end of the day.
Which I will be the very first to admit that I'm not so good at doing this. I think I tend to be pretty private and in turn pretty hard to get to know. But blogging can give you the odd sort of courage to break down some of your walls in order to share and let yourself be known. And I really want to try and have the courage to blog from this place and in this perspective from now on.
I mean, because to not share myself with other people, not only on this blog but in my everyday face to face relationships, would really be missing the whole point, don't you think?
And just for the heck of it, here are a couple of my favorite Amy Grant songs from the House of Love album. Not ashamed to say that I still know all the words lol. : “Lucky One”, “House of Love”.
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