Not sure if anyone will actually read my feeble attempts at writing but I figured why not. You see I have a few friends who blog and they are very gifted in transposing their thoughts onto the page or in this case the screen, I however find myself slightly anxious and very intimidated to being doing this. If you know me that seems strange, seeing as I am an extrovert who for the past 7 years has written more sermons and youth ministry curriculum then I could have ever imagined writing. The difference I suppose is that once I hit publish post thats it, my thoughts that I have become very good at keeping to myself are out there for the world to read. Wow the "world" really Maura?! Ok definitely not the world but the few people who will read this will in a way have access to thoughts that I pride myself on keeping on the DL. You see in writing and then delivering a sermon I always had the ability to change my thoughts on the spot, some may have called this ADD and they are probably right but that's not the point. To the point now:
You see about 4 years ago I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the Passion Conference in Atlanta over Christmas break and let's be real I could probably write a book on what I learned that week, but one thing that has constantly resounded in my head since that week was the clear voice of God telling me that sometimes I talk to much, sometimes I think my opinion is way more important than it really is, but more than that I realized that I filled not only my life but those around me lives with a lot of unnecessary noise. What if I really thought before I spoke, yes something my mother has been telling me to do since I could formulate my first sentence, but honestly what if I did really think before I just unloaded my thoughts and ideas. And even beyond that what if my words, offered nothing but truth and life into those around me?
Now if you know me at all you know that I like many have a HUGE problem with saying really dumb things at really inopportune times. I'd like to think I have gotten better, but better or not I know for a fact it still happens. And now thanks to the wonderful social networking world of Twitter and Facebook I have even more platforms to voice my views and opinions. Sounds great right?! Not so much...at least I don't think so. As if the human ego wasn't strong enough, lets give ourselves our own pages to post pictures of ourselves, plaster our info pages with what music, books, and activities we enjoy. Not that info about ourselves is bad or wrong but really...I don't think people really care that I like to play golf or that my favorite movie is Rudy. Or maybe they do? Anyways that's not the point, the point is ever since we have been able to update our status or tweet about or current state a trend has begun to take place; while some keep them simple i.e. "laying out by the pool", others have chosen to use the platforms for any and everything but speaking truth. We use our updates to stir the pot, to tear down our opponents, or to just simply fill our newsfeeds and pages with noise. Now don't get me wrong I know for a fact I tweet, or update my status with some pretty simple things and I think that's ok. I mean isn't that the point of social networking, to keep up with those around us and what they are doing?
But what if we really thought about what we are saying before we click the "tweet" or "update button", what if we really thought about it!
So this was a lot longer post than I ever intended it to be...but I wrote it I guess to say this, that for those who will actually read this, this is your free ticket to hold me accountable to not just filling this blog with noise or nonsense. The world is full of it, we don't need any more of it. So I'll do my best to not produce more of it. I hope that this blog will encourage, provoke thoughts and conversations, but more than that I pray that maybe it will help quiet the noise and maybe offer so simple sounds of encouragement or just an outlet for us to check out of the craziness for a while and read something.
