Over-Share

A friend from high-school posted her approval of my blog today and it got me thinking very meta.  I want to know why I'm writing this blog.  It's not just a journal, otherwise I could have just written it on my computer via Word or something.  Still, I'm not really writing for an audience, just myself.  So then why am I posting it online publicly?  My rationalization was that I wanted to be able to share a post if I thought it was particularly inspired or could be helpful for someone I know.  "Fair enough."  However, I think there may be another reason I didn't realize at first, something that was initially subconscious.  I think I want to be critiqued or at least to feel critiqued, exposed.

Events in my life have been causing me to re-evaluate the way I live it.  I've been having a few financial troubles, some health issues, I'm involved in some complicated relationships and I might be drinking just a little too much.  I'm lucky, really.  It could be a lot worse and people constantly remind me of that.  Still, I think I need to feel a little bad about it.  I need a wake-up call.  I need to feel responsible for my actions, accountable.  Not that this blog is meant as a digital confessional or anything.  It just helps me to reflect the things I do and the things I think back to me.

Sometimes I find myself laying in bed in my apartment or standing on the street corner and I'm not sure what to do next.  I can think of all the things I don't want to do.  "That's too much work and I'm tired." or "I don't need to waste my time playing games."  I just don't know what I want to do; I don't know what I want.

Maybe my struggle is a religious one.  I've believed in God, sin, Jesus and his salvation since I was a teen.  Sometimes I have trouble feeling it though.  I can stand in a crowd of people, sing praise hymns, know the lyrics are true, want to feel God, and then wind up feeling empty.  I'm a Christian, a believer, and sometimes I do feel it, but I struggle.  I struggle with my faith.  Sometimes I really miss my college church.  We'd have groups that would get together at somebody's house.  We'd sit around with coffee, read a few passages and then start asking hard questions, real questions.  We'd ask the kind of questions that would get people mad and we'd give our opinions, argue, and wind up praying that God would give us all the answers we needed.  You don't get that kind of discussion at big churches or little home-town churches or any kind of family church really.

I think I'll pick up on this another night when it's not so late.  Need to stave off fatigue a little longer.