Should blogs only show the "good"?
This has been an interesting topic around here since I posted my "bad" day picture a few days ago. I have been blogging since 2006 and when I first began it started out as a way for my family and out of state friends to keep up on us. Through 06 and most of 07 it became my journal. Before blogging I never journaled in a book but I have found blogging an easy way to document our daily lives and to share parts of me. I have about 100 online friends and a few real life friends that have blogs. I read about 50 blogs a week. I started to notice that many blogs not only show the "good" days but the not so good days too.
I kept my blog pretty much all good until recently. Monday I had a horrible day. By the end of the day I had to let it out and had a good cry. When I was just about done crying I had a thought . . .why not show on the blog what my day was like . .so I decided to take a picture of my last tear. Well, I posted the picture and admitted that my day did not go so good. Well, over the last few days I have been overwelmed with wonderful emails, messages and phone calls from many of you saying how neat it was that I had the courage to show a bad day.
Being a pastorswife, many people think that our life is always a bowl of cherries. They might think . . they always have it all together because most of the time pastor and their families don't let it be known that sometimes there are difficulties in their day to day life. Many of the responses I got from that post were women who were thankful that I was able to show that a pastorswife doesn't always have it all together. One person had sent me an email thanking me for being "real". She said that since getting to know me as a friend and pastorswife and seeing that I could be real it has given her the courage to reach out to her pastorswife.
Being "real" . . . that is one thing Carlos and I said we would always be when we started out church almost 8 years ago. I always tell people . . .we poop and pee just like everyone else. Yes, we are doing the Lord's work but we are human too.
The other response I got was thanking me for the next days post telling that I came through the bad day and how prayer had a lot to do with it. Thanks ladies for all your kind words and phone calls. It has brought up a lot of interesting discussions and hopefully it will encourage other pastorswives to let your people see you and your families are real and go through things just like others :-)
What do you all think? Do you think blogs should only show the good days or times or do you think it is ok to be open and real about "some" things?
8 comments:
Hi Emily,
I haven't been blogging that long, but I decided to share some of my failures as well as some of my victories in my walk with the Lord.
It isn't realistic to believe that Christians never experience hard times. We are human. We have emotions, we make mistakes, and we also have great things happen. Of course, I don't share "everything" but try to use discretion. I'm not a pastor's wife, but I don't look at our pastor's wife as such, but just as a very good friend that I can share my ups and downs with and who loves me regardless. I am blessed.
This is an excellent topic! I tend to keep to mostly the "good" in my blog--but it reflects my personality. I'm almost always quite optimistic and look for the good in things. If you were my real life friend, you wouldn't hear much "bad" either. It's not because I don't struggle or have hard days, but it's just my personality to keep that part private.
A perfect example for me would be that two weeks after I began blogging, Robert got his MS diagnosis, which was totally unexpected and out of the blue (we were expecting a ruptured disc or something). You'll never see any mention of that in my blog. Instead I blogged shorter posts, maybe skipped a few days. But you can only imagine how we were reeling from the initial shock and scariness of it all.
In real life, not many people knew either. I think I sent a brief message to my family, saying I don't want to talk about this right now, but here's what we just found out . . .
Several months later, you might see very occasional and vague references to how he might be feeling, etc.--and no one would ever know unless they already KNEW.
But I don't think of my blog as only being "good." It's just "me." And I like to see blogs that reflect individual personalities, whatever they are!
My blog is pretty much just the great parts of life that I want to record later in our photo albums. However, on occasion I might have time to actually write about a bad experience or day, but those take me longer to write because I want to be sure I communicate clearly in those instances and most of the time I just don't have the time... it's much faster to post a quick little post about some every day thing or another.
Emily....What a great subject to bring up...I have been thinking about this very thing since I started blogging. I have a lot going on with my extended family(healthwise), but have not posted because I didn't want to be too depressing...I love that you posted your tears...It clearly shows that none of us are perfect and need God to carry us sometimes. Thanks!
Emily,
I think it's VERY important to show at least some of the difficulties in our lives. Otherwise how can we show God helping us through them?
If we show only the good, then we give a false and distorted picture of reality. To me, that's deception. And, well, sin.
Having said that, I'm really careful about how *much* of the bad I show too. Most of our particular problems stem from extended family and I do not do anything on my blog to offend them, which generally means not mentioning them at all. But I do this to protect my children. And to be able to continue to witness to cousins, aunts etc who read the blog.
It's a very tricky tightrope to walk, at least for me. I've been accused of making our Christmas letter 'all gloom and doom' last year. Yet, when I re-read it I saw not gloom and doom, but reality and how we have triumphed over adversity. I guess at least some of it is in the eye of the beholder too.
Interesting topic, Em.
I agree with everyone so far!!! I think it depends on the person and why they are doing a blog. It also depends on who reads it! LOL
If you met me in real life, you would know most everything about be by the time 1 hour was up. I am a very open person and wear my heart/feelings on my sleeve. I have tried not to be this way and to hold it in and I turned into a not so nice person!
So, if you come to my blog you will get ups, downs, and everything in between.
All that to say-it's a personal thing!
I am not a blogger, but I am like one of the other ladies who said you would know everything about me after talking to me for only 1 hour! I'm an open book for sure. But I think the difference with blogging it and talking about it is that with blogging, you are putting it out there for everyone to see. When talking with someone, you are choosing with whom you share your "stuff". I don't see anything wrong with blogging your bad days. The only downside I see is that it makes your long time friends, like myself, who haven't seen you or talked in length with you in a while, to think that something really bad has happened or that it was a bigger deal than it really was. I mean everyone has bad days. Everyone cries sometimes, right? But to see something like that from "positive & perky" Emily lol, I was a little taken back. It really concerned me because it's not a side of you I have seen very often. But all in all, in the end, I think it's good you shared because I'm sure, as I did, many people prayed a special prayer for you that day. And besides that....the truth is you ARE real and that's one of the things I love about you most!
Sherri
Emily,
I am careful not to make my family feel like their life is totally lived in a fish bowl - which you understand also being the mommy to PK's. LOL SO I don't blog about THEIR bad days....but also have always made it a point to be real....because I think if we want to encourage other homeschoolers, pastor's wives, Christian women...they need to know that our life isn't always perfect or cheery....they need to see how a woman who loves God wholeheartedly pulls through those days...and so I try to keep it real. Probably brutally real when it concerns me....I do often ask permission to post not so "perfect" things about family. LOL
Post a Comment