Hiding

“Did something bad happen to you and it made you hide? I had a stalker, and it made me shut down my social media.”

I’m sitting at a convention and our speaker just said those words and I felt the floor drop out from under me.

Yes. Yes, I’ve been hiding.

My ex-husband reads every word I write here and sends me hateful, vile comments on every post I write.

So I stopped.

I let the hate stop me from telling my story and using my blog as a platform to encourage and inspire and entertain people who wanna read what I write.

It’s not worth the hateful comments, I told myself. It wasn’t worth the punch in my gut every time I read the cruel comments he leaves.

I used to have 115,000ish page views a month. I’ve been recognized IN PUBLIC, in Washington, DC and in Orlando and in Tyler, TX, by people who read my blog. I used to be stopped in church and at my kids’ school by people telling me they LOVED READING MY BLOG.

OH MY GOSH! I HAVE YOUR PANCAKE RECIPE SAVED ON MY PHONE!!, a lady I met in Washington, DC told me.

Crazy, right? Me. Me.

And I let one extremely hateful person silence my voice here.

You know who else wants to silence your voice?

Satan.

Don’t laugh.

For real.

God designed me – and you – as a unique unrepeatable.

There is not another one.

And there is no one else on the planet who has lived out our story.

Allowing someone else to silence your voice is allowing the enemy to win.

I’ve been hiding, but after being here at this convention and hearing this lady speak, I’m not going to anymore.