This Little Light of Mine

I’m terrified.  I’ll just get that out in the open to begin with.  There are all kinds of reasons why this is scary… but none of them are good enough to keep me from going forward.  And so this crazy, unexpected, surprising journey that Christ invites me on continues to move forward in yet another way I would never have anticipated… going public with my secret blog.

It was about a year ago that I began to silently lament what seems to be a lack of feminine presence in the online world of the missional church.  I especially noted that each of the blog links listed on the Ecclesia Equipper Blog belong to men.  Take note, I knew better than to lament out loud because I knew the response to my lament would be something along the lines of… ‘well, start a blog then.’  How could I respond that I had already started a blog… but hardly ever wrote on it, and kept it so well hidden that it was impossible to find. 

And so I started asking God why I was so reluctant to let anybody know I had been thinking about blogging… and I realized a few things that were holding me back.  There were more than three, but these emerged at the top of the list:

1)   Pressure – I feel a bit like if I attempt to process my life of leading as a woman, my voice will somehow be expected to represent other women whose journeys are entirely different from mine.  I never wanted to take up the cause of women in the church or to somehow lead a movement… and I tend to want to run away anytime I begin to feel like this is expected of me. 

2)   Time and Mutli-tasking – I am a woman who does a lot of things.  I am called, not only to church ministry, but also to mothering… and not just to mothering, but also homeschooling.  I don’t have a lot of time to read other people’s blogs… so it seems pretty outrageously arrogant to think people will read mine… and if someone does read my blog and comments… how will I find the time to actually interact?  And do I blog about mothering, or about homeschooling, or about preaching, discipleship, or a mixture of all of those?  Does it need to be focused? 

3)   Fear – what if I say something really stupid?  And here’s where I put the pressure from #1 on myself – without anybody doing it for me.  There are some men who already view women as overly emotional, hysterical, irrational, sentimental, and unfit to do theology or lead a church… what if I say something ridiculous that somehow confirms this stereotype? 

So as I mulled over these stumbling blocks, a funny thing happened.  A song popped into my head… “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”  I remembered singing that song in mixed company when I was a little girl.  I never thought about my ‘little light’ being somehow not worthy of shining because I was a girl and not a boy, didn't worry about what others might think of my light, and didn't think about messing it up.  We all had a little light… and we were letting it shine. 

And so, here I am, despite my fears and my insecurities, and my anxiety about pressure and time, letting this little light of mine shine… and hoping and praying that this blog will somehow reflect the light of Christ.