Taking Risks

It's a very long story but I've found that over the last year or two I've shut down a lot emotionally, particularly in my writing. I have a hard time being open and honest when it comes to me and my REAL emotions. Even now, there are some family and friends that still don't know about this blog because I hesitate to let them see how I am feeling. Sometimes it's easier to trust strangers and distant friends with secrets and emotions than people you see every day. I really don't even know why.
It was actually difficult for me to publish that last post. I wanted to share it, I needed to make it public, to put it in writing. But when it came time to push the button, I hesitated. Then I read over it again and wondered why. There was nothing really BAD in it, nothing people would judge me over. It was just that I was putting myself out there a little that scared me. But I did it, and I felt better for doing so.
Then a reader, whom I had never seen or heard of before she found my blog, left a comment saying that she feels the exact same way and thanking me for it. Most importantly, she said that she needed to hear it too. It struck me that for the first time in a while, my writing had made an itsy bitsy difference to SOMEBODY. Pictures of the kids are cute and fun, especially for people that know me and people that want to know what being a nanny is really like. But sometimes God leads to write other things and honestly, I have been resisting.
Not only is that soooo wrong, but I think it's hurting me. Writing was once my outlet, and I think I had healthier ways of handling emotions then. Now I keep most things locked inside, and I have developed some less-healthy habits. (Don't worry, no drinking, smoking, or anything like that! More like sulking and denial...) I think I try to be perfect too much, when the fact is sometimes being imperfect, or at least acknowledging the imperfections, helps more people. So while there are a LOT of things that will stay locked away in a Word document no one ever reads, I am going to try to be more honest about things.
One thing that led me to this was an assignment I wrote, the very last elective lesson in the Journeyman course for the Christian Writers Guild. It was on "The Speaker as Writer" (or possibly vice versa...this was a month ago), and in it I had to take a speech or devotion I had recently delivered and turn it into an article. I don't speak pretty much EVER so I had to modify it and wrote a lesson I would LIKE to give at some point and turned it into an article. (I did inform my mentor, who was cool with it.)
I wrote a personal story that only my very close friends and family know about, at least details. It was okay for me because only my mentor, who has never met me and is miles upon miles away, would see it. She loved it though and strongly encouraged me to blog it. So, in the spirit of taking risks, I am going to post it tomorrow. (Although it's so late it will probably be today by the time most of you see it.) I don't know what it will mean to anybody, but I do know that I have a young person following my blog. I haven't the slightest clue if anyone else reads it, but maybe the story will be an encouragment to her. Or maybe it won't and I will just have the reward of having done what I feel God wants me to do with my talent and with the experience He provided for me.