Monday, January 28, 2013

Starting again

Happy 2013! I cannot believe it is already 2013! My baby girl turned 17, my eldest is married and I am still doing the same old stuff. I have been thinking about returning to the blogging world for quite some time. I have been reading a lot of blogs... like Ann Voskamp and Rivera Douthit. I am encouraged by them and feel that maybe I should be writing again. It is always good for me to share my heart in writing. I am enjoying the Joy Dare by Ann Voskamp. She is a speaker for Women of Faith, author and mother of 6, who lives on a farm! She has challenging words for my head and my heart. She is a Jesus lover and simplistic, yet thought provoking. The Joy Dare has got me looking for 3 things each day that are either a gift or a grace. She has it all lined out by day of the month, I just had to print it out. So, my journal is filling with words of gratitude and grace and gifts each day. Some days are good and some days are ok, some are down right hard, hard to find the grace or the gift for that occurance. But, I think by doing so it will bring me JOY. Speaking of JOY, it is my one word for 2013. Rivera Douthit, on her blog, has encouraged me to find my one word that would bring me to my purpose or my goals for the year. Through thoughts and murmurings of the Holy Spirit, I felt that JOY was my word. Mostly, because I feel at times that I have lost my JOY. I need to find it again, so my journey of 2013 has begun. Find my JOY. In searching for this, I began doing an online Bible Study with Liz Curtis Higgs in the fall. It was the story of Ruth. The Girl's Still Got It, was the title of the book. We would read a chapter, answer the questions and then read her words about the chapter, her answers to the questions and be able to comment to one another. I found it very encouraging when Liz, herself would write back to each one of us who were participating. So, I continued. I did the Women of Christmas study with her, and now I am "EMBRACing GRACE", in her current online bible study through her blog at www.lizcurtishiggs.com. SO worth it to me and for my time. I enjoy reading my sweet friends blog, The Lion's Den, because they are on East Coast time and I don't get to hear from them as often as I would like, time differences, schedules, and the like. So, that is an important blog I like to keep up on. So my prayer and my heart is to blog a little bit more. Hope that it will be an encouragement to someone else as others are to me.