Anchoring Soul

"This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary." Hebrews 6:19

I haven't always been the hopeful type of person. Actually the only hope I ever wished for was for a long hard day at work to be over, for the Georgia Bulldogs to win against Alabama in a championship game,and for a little peace and quiet every once in a while. However, I never thought that I was someone who was spiritually washed up. If my relationship with God had a pulse, it would be almost nonexistent. I was within moments of just being flat line. Don't get me wrong, I did pray to Him occasionally and that was only when I was in dire need of something. I went to church every Sunday & Wednesday until I was 17 but that was only because I was made to go by adults. I knew that He was my God and that He sent His son to die for me, that he created all the wonders that surrounded me, but all of this was because I was told all of this by Sunday school teachers not because I believed it for myself. Status quo speaking, I was a mediocre Christian. Even that however, is giving me too much credit.

For a long time I believed because my heart & my intentions were good, I was good in God's eyes. What a naieve thought and assumption! I know that His love for me is unconditional and I just realized that only but a few days ago with help from a book. A book for crying out loud! Not a near death experience, not losing my job, not losing a family member, or anything so miraculous that I could even tell you about. It was a book, one that I feel God led me to. I even said standing in the aisle at Walmart with a grumpy husband who watched me run my fingers across the binders of each book, promising that I had no intention of buying anything, I just wanted to take a 'look'. Then I saw the bright gold cover and written smally on the bottom read "A True Story of Brokeness, Heaven & Life Again." Brokeness. The word may have been there in front of me in a size 10 font, but my heart saw it as a size 72! I knew I was broken, that the pieces of my soul were shattered and that the pain, like a small creek ran rapid through my veins. It was right there in a Walmart book aisle, that I stopped long enough to realize this. I grabbed the book and smiled sheepishly at my sweet husband who at that point was rolling his eyes and motioning for me to throw in the buggy so we could go. With a small voice I said to him, "I think this is a sign from God. I think He led me to this book." That's all I said but looking back now those words seem HUGE. My husband's response, "Maybe so, get it and you'll see." The name of that book is "Waking up in Heaven" by Crystal McVea. I encourage you to read it, irregardless of where you are in your own personal expericence with God.

This is my story. This is a beginning accord of my journey that led me to where I am now, this very day, in my faith & hope in our Savior. I feel like the blinds have been lifted off of my eyes and all of the wonder & curiosity of walking in the path of righteousness with my Lord is fully raised. I am excited, anxious and desiring more & more to build a relationship with my Heavenly Father. I can only describe it right now as getting the 1st taste ever of your favorite food and once you've eaten it all, you can't wait until the next time you get to have it again.

Since I was knee high to grasshopper & was old enough to hold a pencil, I loved to write. It started with my diary as a child, newspaper publications of poetry in elementary school, writing camps, heck I was even excited when we were assigned book reports for homework because it gave me an opportunity to put pen to paper. My desire to get my ideas and thoughts out to the world has always appealled to me. I've been in sort of a damper in the past several years & I haven't wrote as much because of several reasons; 1)Time, I have none 2)Thoughts, I didn't think they were important enough 3)Block, anything non fiction both poetry or short stories, I couldn't produce a single thought to render anything worth reading. I've started probably 5 blogs in the last 5 years, all resulting in me deleting them because what I thought was good at the time, seemed stupid a few days later. The only one I truly put my heart into is my family blog documenting my struggles TTC (trying to conceive). Now in that blog, you could probably say that it is filled with hope & faith and it was. Was. Just as soon as my prayers for years pass didn't come true, I became hopeless and threw the towel in.

I have so much that I want to share. Even it's only sharing with myself. Jr, my husband, has always encouraged me to write & share my life story. When I couldn't find a single thing to write about even when I was on my bed, frustrated, pen in hand and couldn't think of a single worthy thought, Jr would tell me write about my life story. MY life story? Of course, it is filled with tremendous heart ache, hard learned lessons, and pain but nothing I felt anyone would care to read. Surely what I had to say wouldn't help someone else. My story is probably like almost every other broken kid that came from a dysfunctional family, or what I like to refer to as the 'broken record cycle". It wasn't until I read Crystal's book did I see the bigger picture in sharing my story too! Broken record or not, it's that moment when you hear or read someone else's account of things that you've been through and how they overcame & how they relate that is so thrilling and inspiring! I finally have a solid purpose in writing! Excitement is something I've defintely lacked when it came putting my thoughts down here lately.

In the days, months & years to come, I HOPE to inspire you with my stories & lessons. My prayer is that this is not another blog that I will abandon, because self conscious of & delete. I have a nagging feeling in my heart though, that this may be life changing for me and that it will be around for decades to come.