A bit of a life update.

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It has been a hot minute since I have posted to my personal blog.

There are several reasons for this. First and foremost, my various ministry commitments in Hilton have been keeping me extremely busy. Second, my wife and I have been navigating life as a family of four since welcoming our second-born into our lives in October last year. It has almost been a year and I know that this is not a unique challenge to us, but it certainly hasn’t been insignificant trying to manage my desire to wr-0ite while still prioritising family time and ministry commitments.

This isn’t to say that I have not been writing. I have been publishing regular articles and devotions for various groups such as the Jesuit Institute of South Africa, The Methodist Church of Southern Africa and the Emmaus Ministries of South Africa. But I must admit that I have neglected my personal blog and social media channels.

In preparing to write this update, I have been reflecting on why this is the case. It is true that I have been extremely busy with various things - important things. I have also developed an unhelpful perfectionism and only post things if I can get them to as high of a standard as possible. But then why have I still had this lingering feeling that I have been slacking off?? And then it hit me…

There was another life-changing event that took place that coincided with my lack of posting in recent years. At the beginning of 2023, my mother-in-law passed away. This was obviously a massive shock to our family, but I don’t think I have fully realised just how much this effected me personally.

Reflecting on my journal and social media pages, it was in the latter half of 2022 that I was the most productive I have ever been. I was publishing weekly blog posts, had just started a YouTube channel and released the first season of my podcast, Investigating Ikigai. This all lined up with our family’s move from Bethlehem to Hilton at the end of 2022. I remember feeling inspired to harness the writing skills and creativity that I had been developing in new and exciting ways.

Then three weeks after moving into our new home, we were struck with the devastating news of the passing of Mel’s mom at the young age of 54. Her untimely death sent us into a spiral and while we managed to keep ourselves mostly together on the outside (we had a two year old and jobs that were relying on us), the journey through grief has been longer and more difficult than we could ever have imagined.

I remember trying to give myself grace at the time and put all of my personal plans on hold until I felt better and more motivated to face them again. I naïvely thought this would have been a few months at the most. What I had not expected, was to still be struggling with this debilitating grief over three years later. This is just a reminder that no two people’s mourning is the same and grief does not have a consistent time frame to navigate.

Every time that I have found a bit of motivation to get going again during the past three years, it has quickly fizzled out shortly afterwards. This has been the most demotivating part of all. But I have kept on fighting, one day at a time, and I am slowly starting to feel more like myself again.

So what is next?

With some renewed energy and motivation, I have been working on some new and exciting plans. I am busy recording the second season of my Podcast, Investigating Ikigai, with some very exciting guests lined up! While I am working on that, I will be trying to write and post regularly on my Rev Joe channels, such as Substack, Patreon and Facebook.

I am not in any shape or form an “influencer” and one of my biggest frustrations with the online blogging space is just how many different sites and social media pages need to be posted on to make sure that all of your “followers” receive the content. I will keep working out how to consolidate all of these various channels. I have recently discovered WhatsApp “channels.” I think that most people are using WhatsApp so I am wondering if this may not be the best avenue to share my content to those who are interested in following along.

I would also like to post occasional YouTube videos again and have continued working on various book manuscripts with the hope of publishing one in the coming years.

I am wary of over-committing to too many things with the real possibility that I can’t follow through and letting others (and myself) down yet again.

But I am also hopeful that if I am honest with myself and others in the public sphere, there is an element of accountability that will hopefully help to motivate me to keep going. So I cannot promise to be as productive as I was before. But I would like to commit to being open and vulnerable about the journey that I am on. I have always processed my thoughts about life, God and the world through writing and I think my soul has missed having this regular outlet.

I hope that you will follow along for the journey and that we will all learn to listen for God’s still, small voice together - even in the midst of the noise and the grief and the mess.

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