I'm not the devil

Several months ago - around the time I stopped blogging with any regularity - someone accused me of being the devil. And if it wasn't the devil, then it was certainly one of his minions. It is hard to shake off that sort of thing - especially when it centers around your writing and comes from a friend.

The accusation was that I had exploited some of the children in my writing about Uganda. My friend said that I was using their plight as a way of getting more people to read my blog - that my selfishness knew no ends, not even the exploitation of sick Ugandan children.

This friend is occasionally manic and has leveled somewhat outrageous charges against me and Kim at various points in our lives. Nevertheless, a charge like the one being leveled against me was both serious and sobering. It shut down my writing. Suffice it to say that exploiting the children I'd seen in Uganda had been the furthest thing from my heart or mind when I was writing about that experience. Indeed my hope was that the plight of these children would stir others to action - sponsoring a child through Compassion International, for instance.

All that said, however, I've had to - and continue to - reflect on the accusations, reflect on my own heart in writing those posts, other posts and everything else that I've written. I can't say that I've had any particular profound insights. I suppose my heart and my motivations on any given topic will always be a murky mixture of good, bad, and unclear. I suppose that is just the nature of life. I hope that my stuttering walk with Jesus makes that mixture ever clearer, ever purer, and ever more alive. But that is the kind of thing I can only see moment by moment, word by word. And to do that means I've got to write... I will.