Then there is Alex of Living the Small Life. She's not a Christian Blogger, but she blogs about thrifty living and keeping fit. So what's the difference between these three wonderful women and the glitzy bloggers with the perfect, ethereal-looking pictures of the charmingly-worn pitcher with the artfully arranged wildflowers and the curtain blowing ever-so-slightly in the breeze? They're real.
And when I really think about it, these are the three that I read day after day. All three have been plugging along for years, sharing their lives, and giving wisdom to a world of strangers they may never know. They chronicle their lives, reflect, share their mistakes and idiosyncrasies and sometimes less-than-perfect pics that would make BlogHer peeps hair stand on end.
The other difference is that many of these bloggers, the glitzy ones that we sometimes envy...well, they burn out. When every entry has to be a work of complete perfection, they run out of ideas, because life isn't perfect.
One of my favorite, gorgeous ethereal blogs hasn't been updated in months. The sweet girl who writes it let all of us know at Christmas that the perfect-looking life that I envied once upon a time was an illusion that she couldn't keep up any longer since real life crept in.
Another wonderful blogger is perpetually tied up in knots both because of life's truly difficult circumstances and a constant need to tweak, refine, and play with the blog that results in hard crashes of the site that already looked amazing.
Still others blog for a short time, with gorgeous pics and wonderful content, only to burn out later because everything cannot stay perfect all the time.
Hence, the imperfect pic above, which I would have discarded a few months back. I'm done with not expressing myself because I can't live up to standards which I imposed upon myself, yet cannot meet.
I was waiting for some prescriptions at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital last night, a healing place I am truly grateful for. A young Naval officer and his daughter were walking through the corridor hand in hand. I suspect that Mommy may have had a new baby. You can see her in the less-than-perfect pic in the little pink t-shirt.
"Daddy, can we skip?," she said, looking up at him with a smear of chocolate something across her upper lip.
He hesitated for a moment and looked around. Then with an "oh what the heck" look to all of us, Daddy skipped down the corridor with her.
"Daddy, can we hop now?"
And hop along to the parking garage they did.
Somehow I think that kids would have better lives if more Daddies hopped and skipped with them, regardless of looking ridiculous. To me, he looked like a hero, not ridiculous.
My firm belief is that kids already know the Lord at birth, As Helen Keller famously said when Annie Sullivan spelled the name of God into her hand, "I always knew He was there, I just didn't know what to call Him,." That's why kids skip for joy before the world tries to take it away from them.
Luke 1:14 The Message
You're going to leap like a gazelle for joy, and not only you, but many...
