Inside:  What I’ve learned since publishing my first post has very little to do with blogging and very much to do with life, loss and God’s faithfulness through seasons of change. ~

As of last week, I’ve been blogging for 10 years.

 It’s hard to believe, honestly. Not because I’ve been at it for an entire decade, but because of all the life that transpired during that time.

 Life that I’ve written about—for me and, perhaps, for you.

Back Then

When I hit publish on my first post, my daughters were 12 and nine. My parents were still alive and, as far as anyone knew, as well as could be expected for people in their early 80s.

 Today, the girls are young adults. Lilly is working her first post-grad job, and Molly—now a college sophomore—is spending the semester in Ireland.

 My parents have been in heaven for five years, after a series of events over several years that nobody could have imagined or predicted.

As a Result …

What I know now that I didn’t know when I published my first blog post has very little to do with blogging and very much to do with aging parents and grief, God’s sovereignty and timing, holding fast and letting go.

 I’ve written about these topics along the way, but not because of some grand master plan I came up with at the outset. In those early years, when I was sharing stories about my family and my own personal struggles with fear and change, I never would have dreamed that one day I’d be writing about parent loss and God’s faithfulness during unexpected seasons of chaos and sadness.

 And yet, somehow, that’s exactly what I did.

Week After Week …

I wrote through my parents’ last years, and then I continued to write after they were gone. I wrote to process my own thoughts and feelings, but also to encourage others who had experienced a similar loss or expected to do so soon.

A couple of years ago, in a post about some devotional practices I’ve discovered since I began blogging, I wrote this:

“God will use every single thing He allows to touch His children’s lives for our good and His glory. And it’s not a huge stretch to think that He might use an earthquake as the means to shore up our foundation in way that prepares us for a future hurricane.”

Universal Experiences

Early on, I was mostly content to share stories from my life and let readers glean their own meaning from my words. Then a few of those earthquakes and hurricanes came my way, and I started realizing that, while the details of each event were unique to my family, the questions and feelings they stirred up were universal—or at least common among believers.

Because of this, my writing started to become more outwardly focused. We’re in this together, is how I see it now. And the more we can point each other to the constancy of God’s character, the comfort of His sovereignty and sufficiency of His grace, the better off we’ll be.

Whether you’ve been with me since the very first post, you’ve been reading for several years or you just subscribed last week, I’m so grateful you’re here. I can’t predict what the next 10 years—or even the next 10 months—will hold for this space. But I do hope to keep showing up here (or in your inbox) every week, sharing some bit of life or truth that might encourage us both.

 ♥ Lois

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P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.