When I first started blogging about my life, I encountered a lot of fear from people that I knew. The general consensus seemed to be that if I put photos of my children and talked about them online, they were going to be stolen or harmed in some way.  And people were very verbal about sharing that fear with me.

But honestly?  It was never one of my concerns.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a normal mom, and my deepest fear is something happening to my children.  But I learned a long time ago to control that fear and not let it affect my decision making.  

That doesn’t mean I do stupid things like tweet, “My adorable 6 year old daughter Indigo will be playing unattended in the front yard for the next 20 minutes.”  I use wisdom, but I’m not afraid to share our lives.

There are several reasons behind this.  

When we lived in New Jersey, Jim taught at a Charter school in inner-city Trenton.  Not a particularly safe place.  And then we moved our family into Trenton.  That too caused an uproar among people who knew and loved us because there was a lot of violence and drugs and prostitution in the area that we lived.  They feared for our safety.  

And a part of me feared for our safety also.  But we installed a top of the line security system, and the children did not go outside without me.

And do you know what I learned?  I learned that ultimately God is in control of our safety.  Nothing happens to my family without God allowing it to happen.  And that really gave me a lot of peace.  I did my part to be vigilant and do what I could to keep my family safe.  I had a plan for fire and violence.   But I was able to sleep at night resting in the fact that God was watching over us.  My Pastor from New Jersey says, “Safety is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God.“

So when I moved to the middle of rural Indiana and started a blog, it was very easy for me to trust God in that issue as well.  

Because the main issue is that I believed I was doing what God wanted me to do.  And that doesn’t always make sense to other people.  I believed God wanted us to live in inner-city Trenton and I believed God wanted me to start a blog and share our family with others.  In both instances, I felt (and still do feel) that there were people who needed to see our family in action.  There are people who need to see what a strong family unit can accomplish.  There are people who need to see that training children up and teaching them to work hard produces wonderful children who are not lazy and feel they are entitled to everything.

I do what I can to protect my children, but ultimately, their safety is not in my hands.  And for that I’m very thankful.

So I don’t worry about my privacy.  My life and my family and my business are mostly an open book.  (Which doesn’t mean that I share everything.) 

But I choose to live with this kind of transparency because I believe that it is important.  I try to be the best person I can be because my children are watching.  But I also want to do my part to make this world a better place to live.  And I think that there are so few good role models out there today.   Most celebrities, entertainers, and athletes have deplorable behavior.  It’s my desire to show other new moms out there that you don’t have to succumb to the negative influences in today’s culture.  You can stand out and be different.  And if seeing my life helps you and encourages you to do that, then I will gladly sacrifice my “privacy”.