This is home for awhile.  I hope you’ll consider hanging out with me as I share a bit about stuff.  God stuff.  Life stuff.  Good stuff.  Hard stuff.  Stuff about God and me and hopefully, how my stuff may encourage you in your stuff.  We all have it…stuff.  And I’m absolutely convinced that God intended for us to share our stuff so our stuff won’t trip us up.

This season of my life has been a challenge.  In the spring of 2010, I went to a conference about Biblical counseling techniques.  I was sure I would come home changed, refreshed, and ready to employ my new-found skills.  Instead, the Lord chose to use this time, as I’ve come to label it, to “strip” me out.  It was time to remove bad habits, poor thinking, some sin in my life, and to clean the slate as it were.  I’ve been here now for four months…just sitting, waiting, crying, thinking, repenting, realizing, and a few more -ing words.  He took me to a place of emptiness; sitting on the bluff of my life, not knowing how to act anymore, not knowing how to think, feel, dream, or anything else.  It has just been a place of stillness.  Quiet.  Emotional.  Learning.  Wondering.  A place of just being.  Ah, yes Lord, that place.  The “be still and know that I am God” place of Psalm 46:10.

Very recently I’ve felt Him nudging me to write.  It’s been a life-long love and desire of mine to write – for me and for others.  “OK God, I’m willing, but I don’t have anything to say.  There’s no book in me that I know of.  So what do I write?” I asked.  I heard nothing, yet the desire to begin writing stayed with me.  Through some conversations and other outside stimulus, I came up with the idea of a blog.  Good practice, great place to get the discipline of writing going again, and an opportunity to get what’s inside out.  After praying about it, I’ve come to this place of beginning a blog.  “What should I call it Lord?”  Again, I heard nothing.  I began looking for a name, thinking that I would know when I found it.  Day one and a list of names begun and none of them really spoke to me.  Day two, more names, a growing list and still nothing leaped out.  Day three and four, still more names.  Late in the day of day four, I rather tripped on a name that said something to me.  Just Encourage.  Just Encourage.  That’s it!

I want to write.  The sheer act of writing encourages me.  Actually sometimes it speaks to me…”is that you God?”  Yep, sometimes it is Him.  So as I write, I just encourage myself.  I pray my writing will just encourage you too.  Maybe it will encourage you on your journey down your own path.  Maybe it will shed some light on your day.  Perhaps it will just encourage you too.  I hope so.  It may have all been said before and I may repeat myself a few times.  But this is my journey.  Linda