Fifteen Years Ago

Fifteen years ago today in what seems the very long-ago year of 2006, I posted my first blog-post. I recall it being a list of reasons as to why I was starting a blog, so I went back to look at it and see where the past fifteen years has taken me. For, to be honest, I often wonder why I continue to keep a blog. For I’m often behind, back-dating posts written in my head as I fall asleep and finally find time to actually write. It’s not as if I have a wealth of readers. I don’t post recipes, or DIYs, or anything people find to copy. So, why do I keep posting?

 

Fifteen years ago seems like a different life. I decided to post a blog in order to join the millennial generation I was born into and prove I wasn’t that old. (Oh to be 25 again!!!!) Because a friend of mine (whom I actually babysat ages ago and is today a college professor) urged me to. Pre-don’t-need-a-college-ID-to-have-Facebook (do you remember those days?), it sas a way for me to keep people up with what I was doing – not that I now have or ever will have Facebook. I thought it was a good way, in the midst of my hours of scribbling, to keep an actual journal I could look back on. I wanted to do more contemplating and thinking about what the Lord was doing in my life. (If I thought such time was scarce then, I can barely find five minutes now…and I really should be doing something in those five minutes!). And I wanted to glorify God. 

 

I find it a bit odd that most of those reasons ring as true today as they did then. Although some have changed. For one, I have no time to write at all now and I sorely miss it, so keeping a blog is my few moments of practice. Within those moments, I usually am able to think about things just a little. And now it’s a chance for me to write about my kids. Not because anyone is terribly interested in them, or because they are the epitome of their generation, or because they’re smart or cute. They’re just kids growing up in a very difficult world (although, thankfully, they don’t yet realize that). But one day when I am old and can’t remember a thing or  amlong gone, perhaps they can look back and laugh at the things they did as kids, or the fun we had as a family, or the difficult times God saw us through that they may not have even known about. And, honestly, I want to remember those times, too.

 

Because if fifteen years has taught me anything, it’s that we forget. Sometimes we think forgetting is great. Difficult times are moments we would rather not remember. Although those are the times when we most see God at work and when we learn the lessons that will see us through more times to come. On the flip side, amazing things happen that we think we’ll never forget. But we do. Which is almost as bad because joyful memories also remind us of how great our God is. 

 

2020 has been a hard year. Right now, 2021 looks like it will be even worse. It’s bleak, and sometimes I think that’s because we have forgotten. We have forgotten how to get through hard times. And we have forgotten that there are joyful times. And we certainly haven’t learned from either. 

And, so, I’m going to keep blogging. Even if very few read it. Even if what I write is of little importance to the world at large. Even though it takes up time when I should be folding the laundry. Because I need to remember. I need to see God at work through the bad and the good. And I need my kids to one day see these things, too, so they can know God is faithful in a world that forgets.