Hi Friends!
Almost every day of this past year I have told myself, “Tomorrow I will write my first blog post,” but then, 2019 closed and tomorrow never came. 25 days into 2020 and here we go, bumps and all!
Did you see Katie Couric’s recent #mondaymotivation? It struck a chord. “Be brave enough to (stink) at something new.” And this, my friends, is how I am jumping into 2020. This blog is just the beginning of something new, something that I might even stink while the engines rumble as it lifts off the ground. I am grateful you are here with me in this journey.
I know many of you reading this first blog post will be my friends. I have picked up friends around the world like shells on a shore. I treasure each one of you. If I could, I would pull you out from behind your computer and plop you at my kitchen table! Pouring us a dark French Press, I would ask you what has been pressing on your heart lately? What has been keeping you awake at night? What brought you the greatest joy over the past year? Who has been most influential in your life? What is God teaching you right now? Since distance and space are standing in the way, I wanted to start by saying that I would love a genie’s bottle to transform this virtual space into a playground, or a women’s Bible Study, or a coffee shop, or a school. All the spaces that we met, talked and cherished one another.
I have asked myself well over a dozen times, why another blog? There are so many fantastic Christian bloggers, with much more enticing writing skills in their pinky finger than I have in my entire body. It boils down to this: I want to use my gifts, however small they are, in the building of the Kingdom of God. If God moves me to do something, then I follow. I am passionate about God’s Word and unearthing treasures in the powerful Word of Jesus. As the Air Force moves our family from state to state, and country to country, I have had the immense joy of gathering women around the excavation site of God’s Word. Together, we have peered into the deep, to find the greatest treasure this world can offer, God Himself. Side-by-side, we have dug deeper into the bedrock of our faith. We have beheld the King of Kings and been in awe at what He has shown us. This is the coffee in my cup. This is why I am here.
But there is another reason I am here. It was Henri Neuwan who said, ” We may discover that the better we tell our stories, the better we want to live them.” The content for this blog will the context of my life. Imagine you just arrived in Paris. Chances are, as the days went by you would be inspired to look at the Eiffel Tower from different angles. To stand beneath it. To ride up to the top. To see it at a distance. To take in the skyline. You would not simply glance at it once and then move on. In much the same way, I try to process my adult journey by teasing out what I am learning and writing it down. The process itself allows me to understand it better.
My goal for my writing is that I would take up God’s Word as the lens for my living. The better I can tell my story through that lens, then the better I can live it. If you are like me, you get it backwards a lot and take up life as a lens for the Bible. Y’all in using life as our lens, we diminish God, diminish His resurrection power, and diminish our dependent calling. I pray that this blog helps you use the Bible as a lens for your living and inspires you to live out more of Jesus’ abundance in your everyday life.
One last thing. There is a distinct reality that I am technologically challenged. Actually, this is an understatement. It is more along the lines of every piece of technology that I touch crumbles. So, when I say I am glad you are here with me, I actually mean I am glad you are here with us. My typing fingers are sponsored and made possible by my talented tech support, my dear husband!
Thanks for joining me on as we dig into God’s Word.
Nina
So exciting Heather!