What If

Vulnerable moment: Starting this blog has not been easy. Sharing my writing has actually never been easy for me. Usually because I’m plagued by “what if” questions. What if I miss an error? What if I don’t state something clearly? What if my point doesn’t make sense? And most of all… what if they reject me for it?

That last question haunts me especially with this blog. The issues discussed here are so vulnerable, so close to home.

Lately, I’ve been grappling with website layout, formatting, and dealing with the plug-in editor. While the technical side is overwhelming to a non-techy person, the robotic editor has been what I’ve really been grappling with. Every time I write a post we face off. It seems to hate my every sentence. They’re too long. My paragraphs are too long. Search engines don’t like my use of synonyms. The algorithms don’t like this or that. And so on.

Before I sat down to work today while I was doing laundry, I wrestled with my doubts. The “what ifs” scrambled  one after another through my brain. What if the robot editor was right? What if my writing just isn’t the type that makes a good blog? What if no one ever finds it since I stink at figuring out how to make the SEO editor happy? What if my friends find out and judge me? What if one of my bosses finds this? What if I’m just a stereotypical millennial sitting in someone else’s basement spouting off about having a lofty purpose?

And then with a wad of wet clothes in my hands one what if question I’d never thought about hit me.

What if you never tried? 

This one “what if?” trumps all the others.

What would happen if I just gave up, called it quits, and never shared my heart. Never shared what I wrote. Never finished a single book. Never pressed publish on one more post.

Then I would never know. I would never have a chance to touch one life, to help one person if even for a moment. I would just succumb to living life in the usual way – which might mean not really living at all. Because if you don’t try to do what you are called to do, what your heart says to do, what your purpose is, is that really living at all?

God made you with a purpose. He rarely makes us with purposes that are not vulnerable.

So what would you regret never trying?