Hello everyone. I am back. I didn't realize that it had been over a year since I'd last written anything. For those of you who've been wondering what has happened to me, I apologize.
Over the past year, I have pouted. Doubted my salvation. Cried. Whined. Moped. Recovered. Worried. And tried to figure out what I wanted to use this blog for.
I am human, so naturally, I come with dirty laundry. Some of it, I have aired here. I have done so in hopes of being inspiring while, at the same time, looking for solace from people, rather than God, and for proof that, maybe, I can do something good while I feel so horrible. I'd spent some time questioning those motives while taking a Facebook hiatus over the holidays, and then, just didn't think about the blog.
A couple of days ago, however, I was out with a couple of girlfriends and one of them, that I hadn't talked to in a while, asked me why I hadn't posted anything on my blog for a while. I didn't know she even read it. I told her, in a nutshell, basically what I had just typed, plus a few more details. She said that even though she didn't know why I was posting, she had been encouraged by what I had posted.
With that one statement, I made up my mind. I had to start posting again. However, I will be doing so with the right motives this time.
I wish I could say that this was the first time this kind of thing has happened in my life. The first time was when I decided I was going to revitalize the United States Postal Service, and get more "real" mail in my mailbox by starting to write letters again. To be honest, it had more to do with getting mail than caring about the postal service, in case you couldn't guess.
Anyway, I started sending out letters. I would spend hours at my local coffee shop after I dropped the kids off at school, before I really started my day, writing to various folks. Some I knew. Some I wanted to know better. Some just popped into my head randomly. Sometimes, I had been thinking about them for days. At first, I was using my coffee shop time as my "quiet time" to do some Bible study. I love the atmosphere in a coffee shop. It's like white noise for me and I can really concentrate. Eventually, the letter writing became my quiet time.
One day, I was about to drop a particularly personal letter in the mail to a woman that I was not quite sure I knew well enough to write this kind of letter. I mean, I knew enough about what I was writing about to encourage her, but I couldn't say that I knew her well enough to be the person to say those things. As soon as I opened the mailbox, a steady stream of second thoughts washed over me and I was suddenly overcome with doubt about dropping the letter. Before I could talk myself out of it, I let the letter go and decided to trust God.
The next Sunday that woman came up to me and told me that she got that letter on exactly the day she needed it. She had been having a rather rough day and just needed some encouragement. Then she went to the mailbox and saw my letter. That was when I knew that, even though I may not have started my letter writing with the purest of motives, God had his own plans.
The next time it happened: a dear, dear friend of mine came home from the hospital to find one of my letters in her mailbox. She and I had been exchanging letters for about a year. She was always a very good letter writer and it was the highlight of my day to get her letters. Well, it had been her turn to write me for a long time. But, "for some reason" I just felt like I needed to write her and check on her. Sure...in hindsight, I know that I could've called. But that was not our thing. We write. Well, the day she got that letter, she was coming home from the hospital, as I said. She had been at the hospital that particular day because her husband, who had been having heart troubles for years, had passed away. I received an email from her that evening thanking me for my letter because it had come at just the right time. Even thinking about that email brings me to tears. That God would use me to brighten that horrid, dark spot in her life is humbling beyond belief.
But it goes right along with the why behind this blog, and the why behind my letter writing. When I started, it was all about me and what I could get out of it. Attention. Recognition. A response. Mail. But what I have received that has blessed me in ways that I never dreamed are the stories I shared above.
One thing I do know: I have always really really wanted God to use me for something in His Kingdom. I've always wanted to know that I make a difference in someone's life. Of course, I'm a mom, so that means that there are people around me everyday that count on me. But I wanted something BIG, you know. Well, what I didn't realize is that BIG doesn't always look like what I think. And what was BIG to those two women is that someone cared enough about them to drop a letter in the mail to them out of obedience to a still, small voice. And the provider of that still, small voice knew just when those letters needed to get into the mailbox on my end so that they would arrive at their mailboxes on the exact, right days when they would be needed.
To be fair, I have received a lot of letters. And they have been wonderful letters. Encouraging. Helpful. Hopeful. But all of those letters put together pale in comparison to the "thank-you's" I received from the two women who got their letters just when they needed them.
But what does that have to do with this blog? For the most part, this has been entirely self-serving. Is that wrong? I don't know. But what I do know is that there have been people reading, you have been reading, and some of you have told me that it has been encouraging. Well, folks, I don't know that I really have anything to offer that is all that inspiring because, most days, I end up feeling like I'm just barely making it. But, I've talked to many people who tell me they feel the same way most days as well. So, if writing about my own struggles with "barely making it", can help anybody else to carry on who is just barely making it, then, maybe, this blog will have served their purpose. At least, that is my prayer.
I promise you will not have to wait as long for my next post.
Be well & God Bless!
Patty
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