Why Even Write, Jill?

Let's just get something straight right now. I am not the Pioneer Woman...nor an Ann Voskamp. I will never be one of those remarkable women bloggers who, just by reading, make you feel equal parts wistfulness and admiration for all you aren't and cannot be. I have not published books or started national movements. I can barely homeschool my own two children, much less whip up anything from scratch, or take up five different hobbies in which, it turns out, I have amazing abilities. 

I am simply Jill, ordinary Jill. 

I have never been beautiful. I am not excessively talented, nor have I ever had much in the way of charm. I fall apart far more often than I accomplish in my day-to-day. I procrastinate. I daydream. I crave too much solitude, wrapped in my introversion, to make it possible to succeed in what God gives me daily.  And, as part of my crowning glory, I am only known, outside my small circle of friends, for whom I'm related to - Dr. Allman's daughter, Stacy Tyson's wife, mother of Hannah and Sara, not for any achievements of my own. And, truly, I've made my peace with that. 

So why even write, Jill? Well, for one thing, I'm not starting this blog to prove anything or to get anywhere or to be anyone. This is just a place I can come to record my thoughts and those brief spurts of insight that, really, are far too precious for me to lose. Because they are brief. And because my mind is almost owl-like in quality, a mind that, like the owl, forgets. As soon as it turns its head. Short term memory loss in its extremity. So I write, lest tomorrow, when my eyes are focused on something else, I forget the lessons of today.

But there's another reason. No. I'm nothing extraordinary. I am, in fact, so fallible, and dysfunctional, and heart-breakingly needy that I often wonder how I've survived thus far...BUT for the grace of God. And that's the key. In and of myself, I have nothing to offer. Anyone. Period. Not my husband, nor children, family, friends, and most especially the world at large. Anything, and I mean anything, that you see of value in me is there because of God's grace in my life. And anything you see in me that still needs "fixin," well, you can be assured that's all me! 

So why even write, Jill? I write because I have an amazing God, an incredible Savior. And the growing knowledge that, if He gives me the words, I need to praise Him. For all He's done. For all He will do. And, if no one else reads this, I pray that it will at least be a legacy to my children, a written record of God's work in one splintered little life.

So, this new blog, and my life, share something crucially similar. They are both works in progress. Let's see where they both go, shall we?