Back and Blogging

Since I last posted, I have obtained a fairly useless Masters degree (yes, I did eventually overcome that writer's block for my multi-genre thesis), and I have gotten married. In fact, I have been married for over two months now and have felt thoroughly catapulted into crazy/wonderful/difficult/beautiful world of matrimony. I love it! I love the husband! I'm learning a lot and God has been abundantly faithful to both of us. I never expected marriage to be easy, and it isn't always, but I know it's going to refine me to be more like Jesus like nothing else in my life will. And praise the Lord for that!

I just spent the last two hours or so playing with the blog customization tools, and finally came up with a look that I'm more or less satisfied with. I tend to be fairly ADD about stuff like that, so expect relatively frequent changes with my mood. For now though, the book shelves make me happy.

Anyway, rather than write about what I eventually intend to write about, I would like to enumerate what I hope to use this blog for, and what I don't want to use it for. I say this mostly to encourage accountability; you'll see why shortly.

So here is what I hope to use this blog for:
1. Life Updates: It's fun to catch people up. I love reading about other people's lives. Mine is more or less interesting, and even when it's not interesting, the mundane can at the very least be mutually comforting.

2. Opinion Forum: I've got strong opinions, and a desire to share them and discuss them. I get a little sick of the Facebook soundbites and petty arguments, so I figure this might be a spot to (a) explain myself more thoroughly and (b) let people choose whether or not they want to know or discuss my opinion, rather than always broadcasting it via Facebook status update so that everyone is forced to swallow it.

3. Jesus Musings: I'd call this "religious musings" but the word religious has a bad taste in my mouth. I'd love a place to share what I'm learning and what God is doing in my life.

4. Creative Writing: Yes! A place to try stuff out in, get feedback on, throw ideas around...you can comment on these posts whether you write creatively or not. But I've been rolling some ideas around like marbles in my brain lately, and this might be a place to see if any of them are any good. (Like that simile...how was that?)

5. Reading Forum: Book discussions! I have a Jane Austen post brewing in my head at the moment...stay tuned!

What I do not want to use this blog for:
1. Angry Ranting: I hope that my blog posts will carefully thought out. I may have a strong emotion about something, but I don't want to use this as a place to say things that should've been dealt with internally and checked for sin before spouting off on them.

2. Gossip/Slander: It's wrong, wherever it occurs. I don't want to talk about individual people or share private matters. This will not be the place for that.

So anyway, if you are a fellow believer, please let me know whether I've crossed a line in this space. I want to be above reproach as much as possible.

A final commenting question, if you would like to respond: What would severe Christian persecution in the United States look like? Give me specifics! This has to do with a fiction idea of mine. :-)