The Dirty Secret at the Heart of My Mommy Blog

People blog for all kinds of reasons:

• To keep faraway family and friends updated on their lives
• To share their brilliant ideas with others
• To make some money to support their families

I have, at various times, blogged for all of those reasons.  When I first started this blog, I thought I could take a unique stance on typical mom issues, or look at domestic issues from a nerdy point of view (the only one I had at the time).  

However, I quickly realized that "the rest" of the blogs out there like mine were drawing traffic with recipes, gorgeous pictures of food, and DIY tutorials.  Big, fat, long posts full of numbers and mathematical symbols were not exactly a selling point.  So I started doing what everyone else was doing: taking food pictures of my new recipes, writing DIY "how-to's," and recording my new discoveries for the benefit of others.

But here's what I gradually learned: I found that (what?!) actually living my life, being fully immersed in it with no camera in my pocket, was so much  more fulfilling than constantly blogging about it.  I hate dragging a camera down to the garden all the time, and I especially hate making my family wait to eat dinner so I can take a picture of their food first!  

But here's the most important thing I discovered during those months: I was blogging because I felt like I was doing so much around the house that was of value, that was significant, and that I wanted SOMEONE, ANYONE to see and admire.  

Do you see the problem here?  I think this is secretly at the heart of so much of the current mommy blog obsession.  We work so hard in our homes, we pour out our hearts in the things we are doing, but who recognizes our hard work?   

So here we are, working our tails off, and who is there to notice but God?  And I found myself thinking, "I better take a picture of this so it can go into a blog post, because otherwise, it's just extra work, unnoticed and wasted."  

This was my dirty secret: I felt unappreciated, unnoticed, unpraised.  And I wanted someone to tell me, "Great job!  You've done something that matters!  Society's only message to me was, "you are of value only if you make money to buy nice things."  And so blogging became my source of recognition, of pride, of value.  

But that is not my true source of value.  My worth doesn't come from other people recognizing my hard work.  It doesn't come from doing the work.  It doesn't even come from the character that is gradually built up in me as I put my own desires on the shelf to provide for my family.  Nope.  My value is deeper than that.

I am loved, cherished, valued by the One who made me.  

Always, forever, and regardless of what I accomplish during the day. 

That is the truth I needed to fill up the empty discontent in my soul.  And when it is filled up, daily, by knowing who I am and Who He Is, then instead of striving and working to fill myself up, the things I do are an overflow of the love that is full to the top within me.