To Blog or not to Blog

Today has not been a bad day. An ordinary day? Yes, but not a bad one. There are two things I can say about today.

It’s a beauuuuutiful day in Cape Town. The sun is shining and the sky is blue. Just look:

The second thing I can say about today is that I’m all blogged out!

I sat before a blank screen and had nothing to write!

I cast my mind back to what I wanted to write and I couldn’t come up with anything. Just nothing!

It was December 2009 when I took up a challenge to myself to see if I could write every single day. A year later, I had succeeded, so the next challenge was to see if I could take a photo every day. That was 2011. It was in November 2011, that I moved the blog to helgavan.com. Until that time, it had been on a blogspot forum. This December, it’s 6 years that I have been documenting bits of my life every single day. I missed one day, accidentally and there may have been one or two others that I was out of range. They may not have got online on the day but they were typed up.

So, it’s rather strange that I get to the stage where I feel I’m all blogged out. I’m considering setting the blog to one side at the end of the year and taking a break.

When I left my radio job, I found some pleasure in being out of the public ear. I became more anonymous. Although Helga before radio and Helga after radio are, I think, the same person.

One thing I know for sure – and that is that writing a daily blog has honed my writing skills and given me more confidence in this gift of which I thought quite poorly 6 years ago. It was a gift reserved for private script…writing pages for no other eyes to see.

It’s not a bad thing to write privately. You write for your own pleasure then. You write to capture you most personal thoughts, to document your deepest feelings and to connect  yourself  with God at a more intimate level. I’ve done that too. I use my cell phone notes and using the stylus, I scribbled prayers, noting the day, bringing to life momentous decisions, capturing precious Holy Spirit filled moments. I can look back on those and prayers and see greater perspective.

My prayer wall, I called it. 25 pages of prayer wall. I last wrote on it a year ago and when I look at the last prayer, I am astounded at how wonderful God has answered that prayer. He answered it in a way I never expected. I am grateful.

It’s another reason to write prayer down. You forget what you pray and when you stumble back upon the writings of the past, you stand in awe of a heavenly Father who wants what is best for you and draws you closer to His chest, answering in ways you never believed. So different. So unexpected.

There are prayers there that were humanly & selfishly prayed. And not answered. Clearly doors that have been blocked. Roads down which I cannot walk. I am grateful. The year 2015 has turned out better than I expected it to be.

I am free.

Unburdened.

And to think I felt all blogged out.

I just have to get started. Write the first few words.

Words are powerful.

Psalm 19:14

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

My page has words.

🙂

Keep the smile going.

God bless you!

In His Grip,

Helga xx 🙂