The internet abounds in sites belonging to individuals wishing to share their opinions and knowledge that may or may not be accurate. Why would an ordinary Australian Christian woman set up yet another site? I asked myself this question as I contemplated setting up ‘Aussie Rambling Rose’.
The answer came down to this: we all journey through life, and I want to share my journey with others. I want the journey to be purposeful. Let me elaborate.
What this blog is not:
It is not a travel journal. I am privileged to lead an interesting life, enjoying regular travel and insights into lives and cultures very different to that of my own. I expect that perspective will be evident from time to time in blog posts on this site, but this blog isn’t primarily a travel journal.
It is not a platform for preaching. Being a child of Almighty God is a central part of my identity, and I love gleaning insights into Scripture and life particularly through observations of nature. No doubt these will be evident in posts along the way. But I’m not looking to preach. Preaching is an activity I really enjoy, and get to do on occasion thanks to having a role within a Christian organization. However, on this website, I will just share about my own journey in life. If my story encourages or challenges you, I’ll be delighted. But I won’t be preaching.
It isn’t an online photo album. Taking photographs and sharing them brings me a great deal of pleasure. Naturally, I will enjoy posting photographs on this blog that relate to the topic I’m writing about, but this blog isn’t primarily a place to showcase and store favourite photos. If it were, it would be over-filled with pictures of one cute cat who lives at my place.
What this blog is about:
Fulfilling a sense of ‘call’: ‘Call’ is an old-fashioned word too often used incorrectly by Christians. Sometimes we use the absence of ‘a call’ as a cop out for things we don’t want to do, or we use it to justify doing something we do want to do. As such, I am hesitant to say that I am ‘called to write’ … yet I do sense a call to write. We are indisputably called to live holy lives (see, for example, 2 Timothy 1:9) but other passages also suggest that there are specific “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV). It was in 2005 that I began to explore creative writing and sensed that I had such a call. Since then, I have produced a smattering of material – a book, several booklets, numerous articles and translations – but the material I write isn’t anything publishers vie for and independent publishing requires good marketing skills … something I intensely dislike. Hence a blog. The internet provides a relatively inexpensive platform for getting my writing into the hands of many. Not all material is suited to being posted online, and I still intend to print prayer resources for Asia and possibly a memoir of an interesting patch of life in 2015 in more traditional formats. If you find helpful something you read on this blog, do share it with others. Nothing I post here is confidential, and it would give me great satisfaction to think that my words are useful to others.
Pleasure: I like reading blogs. There is nothing like curling up with a good old-fashioned paper book, but blogs are good too. Bite-sized morsels of text give me glimpses into the lives of friends near and far. There are times when I am challenged to follow in the footsteps of a friend, whether that be in terms of healthy living, trying out certain spiritual disciplines, or boldness in learning language and culture. Writing blog-posts is also enjoyable. They are small enough to complete in a few hours, and the feedback is immediate, unlike something which is written for publication in a more traditional format.
A search for significance: Our days on earth are limited. We all want to make a mark on the world around us. I’m no different. As 2018 drew near, I prayed about whether something as potentially narcissistic as setting up a personal blog would please God, and immediately received two pieces of encouragement which I took as a divine tick of approval. First, on January 1st, I received a message from a childhood friend who had been challenged into action by a personal project I had shared about on social media. Second, on January 2nd, I received an emailed newsletter from Faithwriters, a writing group with over 71,000 members, urging us to make our writing count … and reprinting a piece I’d written in May 2005 in that same newsletter. My prayer is that something I say at some point on this blog will encourage or challenge a fellow traveller in life. I want my writing to have significance.
And so … insert drum roll here … ‘Aussie Rambling Rose’ – the ramblings of an ordinary Australian woman, Suzanne Rowe – is up and running. I hope you enjoy it.