The Pen Begins

Do you ever feel so passionately about something and want what God has for your life so badly that it makes you hurt? I have felt this way about a lot of things. I am a creative person and I get energy from a lot of different activities. My top three are singing, photography, and what this site is dedicated to -- writing. Now unfortunately, sometimes my passion causes me to leap headlong into things without really thinking. I could probably write a book on all the things I should not have spent my time and energy on, although as far as I can tell that is the case for everyone. Even Solomon, who was the wisest man to ever live, made mistakes - a great deal of which cost him dearly. Thankfully for us, we have a God who is faithful to forgive us and give us new mercies every morning. Lately I have been trying to cut back on the things I do that are not as important in the grand scheme of life and that cause stress for me and focus on the things that bring joy to my soul and peace in my life -- time with my wonderful husband Drew and our two dogs Gracie and Kevin, time alone with God, going on walks/jogs, good music, reading, and photography.

Yesterday Drew and I were again visiting Westover Church here in Greensboro and Pastor Don recently began a series called "Psalms for Real People." In yesterday's lesson, he was teaching on Psalm 56. David makes the remark in verse 3, "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." Pastor Don pointed out the first word, WHEN. David is acknowledging that he is afraid. This psalm was written when the Philistines had seized him in Gath. He had already killed Goliath, a bear, and a lion, yet Saul was in pursuit to kill him and he was afraid. It is not a bad thing for us to be afraid, but in the midst of our fear, we must put our trust in God. Our fear can be anything, big or small, whether it is something we're afraid to do, a test result showing cancer, someone falsely slandering our reputation, possibility of failure, and the list goes on. God does not ask us to man up and act as though nothing is wrong. However, He does ask for our trust. Another wonderful thing that Pastor Don mentioned, which is so true, is that if we place our trust in God, he could not promise that God will change our circumstances, but he did promise that God will change us.

I wanted to share that, not only because I think it is a wonderful message that is greatly needed in the lives of many people, but because it got me to thinking about myself and how I interact with God. I have always been afraid. Afraid of not being good, afraid of being good and what that might mean, or afraid thinking what I want isn't really what God has for me. What if I, what if I, what if I. I realized two things were prevalent in most of my thought processes: "What if" and "I." My focus has not been on what GOD has for me, although I've pretended it has. It's been on the what if's (which may never come to be) and it has been on myself.

The time has come to stop my pity party about things that may or may not happen and things that I cannot control. The time has come to do one of the things that I have done for years but never stuck with because I was too afraid to try and leave the results up to God. My goal on this blog is to share some of my writing. I am writing because I want to do something that I believe God may have given me a talent in, there is at least a desire here, and because I want to pursue something that I have been afraid of doing in the past. If what I write here blesses anyone who happens to read this blog, then greater joy is mine. My second goal is to challenge myself to write everyday for the remainder of the year. There are 200 days remaining this year. Currently my plan is to post a variety of writings -- short stories and vignettes, poetry, excerpts from pieces I have written in the past -although I would add on so that I am actually writing something new, and perhaps devotionals. This may change slightly as the next few months roll around if I find a specific genre I enjoy more than another.

And so, here I submit my first entry and I thank you for reading and letting me share my heart. I would love to have encouragement and prayers along the way.

With courage,
Jessica