I decided that if I were going to start a blog that I would share with my friends and perfect strangers, then I had to think about why. What’s my purpose, my motive, my goal or reason? Is it worth investing any time into? As I’ve started reading more valuable blogs in the past couple of years, I’ve realized that it is and here are a few reasons that I’m starting this one.
SHARING IDEAS
I’m a person who, if I find a good deal or an idea, I like to share it with my friends. And, I love to connect people with each other or ideas from one person to another. If I find something worthwhile or that might help a friend or someone that I just met while shopping for gluten-free brownie mix, then I want to share it. I love being able to google “gluten-free restaurants” in any city and find comments and experiences of where other people went and what they got. I love it! I’ve learned some great tips this year on blogs about making healthy foods fun, organizing my house, and inspiring personal stories of women who have taken some big risks to care for others like children in orphanages in Africa. Some of the blogs I’ve read have been life-changing and inspiring, some helpful and informational and some downright hilarious. So, whether it’s my good idea (I occasionally have some) or someone else’s that I heard, I’d love to share it and hear yours as well.
PONDERING
I’m a ponderer. My mom said that sometimes I’d be staring and just sitting and she would ask me what I was doing and I would say, “thinking!” I don’t think she knew what to do with that. I’m a funny mixture of a person who likes to ponder and have deep conversations and someone who just loves being social and meeting new people. Growing up I always had questions about why people are addicted to things, why women wore horribly ugly stretch pants when I was growing up, why girls (even myself) were attracted to guys “consistently making such bad choices” if I were talking to my children about it, and what God was thinking when he made an anteater or ants at all for that matter. Some of my more recent questions have to do with why there is inevitably a tantrum of some sort by a child when we have to be anywhere at a specific time or how I will inspire my children to learn the balance of healthy work and healthy play as they grow up.
A POSITIVE IMPACT
That phrase is too cliche. So is making a difference. Changing a life? Touching a Heart? All things I’ve heard a million times. Rescuing a child. Returning a child to their home and family. Hmmm. Maybe we’re onto something. One of the deeper, more important reasons I wanted to start a blog is because I’ve known for a long time and have seen up-close some intense poverty in the world. I’ve been in homes in this country, not knowing that people lived that way in America. I’ve also watched from a small boat abroad as people were bathing, washing clothes, washing dishes, going to the bathroom, and dumping dead bodies into the same river. Even more foul than that may seem though, is the fact that one of the largest growing trends or business “opportunities” in the world is human slave trade and sex trafficking, many of them as small children who are being taken and used for things that none of us want to think about or imagine. You may want to stop reading at this moment and this isn’t a popular upbeat topic of conversation — I get it. I want to close my eyes to it all too, but for some reason, I think I am supposed to include things like that on this blog because each of these children are precious. We, many of us mothers, are people who have a large capacity to love, not only our own children, but someone else’s. And, I think we can do something. So, amidst, the light-hearted funny little bits on motherhood and the practical ideas we all have, I want to highlight some opportunities we have. We can be aware of issues in the world and have opportunities to bring some hope to an adorable child in our city or on the other side of the globe. There are women and children that might be praying to a loving God for help. Sometimes I think we get the honor of being part of the answer.
I”m hoping that this blog develops to be a way that I can not only share good ideas and tips, deeper questions we’re all wondering about, and also be a place to invite you into the discussion about how caring women can really transform the world. There’s something beautiful about people being connected for a good purpose, whether it’s to laugh, to be understood, to share some ideas, to consider a new perspective, or be inspired to step out and do something life-changing for another.
Sharing Good Ideas, Deep Thoughts & Questions to Ponder, Moms Transforming Our Communities & the World. Simple really – don’t you think? : )