I knew that when I started Grace Under Fire, it would require transparency and transparency would demand vulnerability. Transparency doesn’t come easy for me. I’m intensely private and I’ve never been a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of girl. There are walls around my heart, layers to my soul, thoughts I’d never speak out loud, desires that I’m too afraid to share, and weaknesses I’m too stubborn to admit to. I eventually came to the realization that in order for this blog to achieve its purpose, my words had to be meaningful, and for my words to be meaningful, they had to be real. And for my words to be real, they had to be raw.
Exploring the depths of my inner self is a constant navigation through uncharted waters, but to share my discoveries with strangers (worse yet, people who know me) is frighteningly unsettling for me. But how will you ever know that you’re not alone in your journey if I don’t share my own? How can I tell you that you will make it through whatever you’re going through if I don’t share what I’ve made it through? And how will I make you believe that you will find beautiful things in the darkest places of your life if I don’t tell you about the beautiful things I’ve found in my darkness?
I have come to the realization that there is no other option other than transparency and no way around the vulnerability I’ve promised. For any of this to matter, I know that I have to be all in and that will mean revealing parts of myself that I don’t particularly. Maybe if we all took a step forward toward this type of raw vulnerability, the world would feel a little less lonely, even if for just a moment.
So to hold myself accountable to the promise of transparency, I’m sharing all of the fears I’m fighting against to start this blog:
I’m afraid that…you will find out I don’t have it all together.
I’ve designed a life via social media. But I haven’t really lived that life. If you’ve followed me on any social media platform the last 10 years, you will see a girl that has a solid life perspective, knows her purpose and has her priorities in place. But in truth, I’m a broken person who at her best, can be summed up as a work in progress. My social media life is a kaleidoscope of nights spent out with friends, a few really great hair days, achievements, and opinions about what’s going on in the world around me. This blog is a corner of the Internet where I share a behind-the-scenes look at the places where I struggle and fall short. And to my friends reading this, I hope there’s a place for that girl too.
I’m afraid that…I won’t be able to convey in words what’s in my heart.
Do you ever feel so much or have so much to say that you just completely shut down for fear that it won’t be enough or it won’t be understood? I have so much that I want to share with you, but I don’t know if I will have the right string of words to make it count.
I’m afraid that…I will lose my vision for this blog.
I’m a content marketer by profession. That means that I know all of these neat marketing techniques to make your content get more clicks, how to create the perfect headline, and how to piece together content to make readers engage with it. But I also know that if that becomes my primary focus, I will lose my voice and my vision. If Grace Under Fire becomes a place where I make it my goal to drive traffic to this site, I know that I will stop sharing what’s in my heart and will focus more on writing what I think people want to read about, which ultimately defeats the purpose of being raw and real here.
I’m afraid that…you will reject what I have to say.
Maybe you won’t agree with me or connect with what I say. I’ve always had an insecurity that when people don’t agree with me, they are rejecting my thoughts and if they are rejecting my thoughts, I feel like they were rejecting me. I’m afraid that if you don’t agree with me, it means you don’t like me. I’m still learning how to give people the freedom to disagree with me without taking it as a personal rejection.
I’m afraid that…I will make this blog all about me.
The last thing that I want Grace Under Fire to be is a place to share my opinions. You can talk to a stranger on the park bench or on the bus if you want opinions. Anyone can share their opinion with you; I want to share my truth with you. I want to share what I’ve walked through and what I’ve learned along the way so you can give yourself the grace to be a mess, too. And Grace Under Fire isn’t my story. It’s God’s story. I want it to be a recollection and place of truth about His goodness and how He continually shows up in my life.
I’m afraid that…it won’t make a difference.
I’m haunted by articles, quotes, songs and people that talk about how short life is and that we were created for a purpose and to make a difference. I work two jobs and for the most part, live a pretty content life. But I’m not sure that my life and the way I live it has made a difference in the lives of other people. And maybe that’s why I started this blog—because secretly (not so secretly anymore), I’m terrified of getting to heaven and having to answer the question “What did you do with your life on earth?” Something tells me God won’t be too interested in hearing about my 401K and career achievements, and that He probably won’t be too impressed about the few times I’ve been guilted into putting money in the Salvation Army bucket around Christmastime. While those are certainly good things, they don’t reflect a lifetime of intentionally serving people, which is what I believe we are all here for.
I’m afraid that I’ll share my heart with you and that it won’t matter. That all of this transparency will be reduced to an inspirational quote you re-pin on your Pinterest board or you’ll like one of my posts on Facebook. I want it to matter. I want you to read something I’ve written and feel—maybe for the first time—that you matter, that you’re not alone, that your mistakes are forgivable, that grace comes free, and that there’s a God who is in relentless pursuit of you. Anything less than that won’t be enough for me.
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I’ve never been swept up by the romantic illusion of being fearless, but I do want to be someone who is very much afraid but steps out anyway. I have experienced so much fear in launching Grace Under Fire that it has actually taken me a year to make this website go live. But I now realize the significance and urgency of starting; I recognize that I don’t have to wait until the fear subsides before I start something. It’s true what they say, if you wait until you’re ready, you’ll be waiting your whole life. Whatever it is that you do or hope to do, make the decision to take one step. Just one. That’s how you start. With each step, the fear will lose just a little bit of its hold on you.
