Truth in my Travels

Tag: Blogging

  • Thank God for Stones

    Thank God for Stones

    Dear God,

    I thank you for the way that You speak to me through Joshua 3. Through the story of the path You created through the Jordan River, You spoke perfectly as I approached  a day when I sort of gave up on this blog. I don’t have a stone from the Jordan River (details later in this post), but I celebrate Your perfect blessings by sharing You here after you inspired me to return to writing.

    Lord, You make a way when there seems to be no way. No obstacle is too great. The Jordan River separated the Israelites from the Promised Land, but having already parted the Red Sea for their ancestors, You again commanded the water to make a dry path. The instructions to Joshua were followed. The priests carried the Ark of the Covenant, and as they took a few steps into the water, it pulled away and allowed everyone to cross.

    As You commanded, stones were taken by a leader of each of the twelve tribes to be placed as memorials to Your faithfulness. Joshua also piled twelve stones in the river where the priests had held the Ark. 

    https://bible.com/bible/116/jos.3.6-17.NLT

    If I had a stone for every obstacle you’ve removed, every act that required my trust, I could build a stone house in Your honor. I could add another stone for the blessing of direction I received at just the right time.

    I had gotten discouraged last year by the infrequency of visits to this blog and the Likes that were few. I realized then that worrying about statistics was evidence of a misplaced purpose and a sort of validation for myself. I turned off my statistics. You had also led me toward substitute teaching, which I love doing at the elementary school, so I got focused on preparing for it and then teaching.

    I failed to have any desire to write—to have ideas and words that once nagged me until I wrote them out. So I just stopped.

    I was going to let my premium plan expire. On the last day, I went to the app and saw the daily prompt about quotes, so I simply posted Proverbs 3:5-6. The number of Likes gave me such joy! (Thank you to those readers.) I checked the stats, too, and they are enough to encourage me as a sign to write again, though they are not a focus or deterrent. I write for You, God.

    I renewed my blog plan on the very last day before the expiration date! I immediately got an idea for a different approach, too, to simply share how reading in the Bible is relevant to daily life. And I love writing directly to You, but I feel you leading me back to a standard format. I pray that You will impact readers through me.

    I love you, Lord.

  • Learning, Growing, Changing

    Even as a lifetime crafter of words, I find that creating a blog is more challenging than I anticipated. I am waiting to publish the next post while I determine potential changes, and then make them, in an effort to focus more fully on the purpose of God’s writing gift for me and to improve on general elements of the blog.

    My years of dreaming to be a travel writer can distract me from the purpose God has for me–to share how the Bible and my joy in Jesus are relevant to our everyday lives and to all that we see and experience when we travel. So, though I have a third post nearly ready in the series about Door County, I’ve stopped and been assessing. I want to set constants in the way I do things.

    God ultimately answers my prayers to get me on the right track; He reminded last night that my title’s reference to “travels” does not confine me to physical destinations. Our travels are also through life, through the Bible, as we go to the “distant and unfamiliar places” referenced in a Merriam-Webster’s definition of travel. This has led to the change in the subtitle for the blog.

    Being more general, I can be freer to write shorter posts about God working in my ordinary life. He is just so good! I want to share some of the God moments at home. I love how He provides what we need when we need it. He changes our plans for the better. He speaks often, through the theme of a devotional I am reading or the sermon given at church. Or through the words of bloggers, like Anna of http://creativelyunfilteredgrace.com/ , who reminded me to strive less and be still.

    The pastor in yesterday’s church message used a roadmap approach as we followed the outline; it conveys what is ahead in the sermon. I plan to use the same approach for the first three lines of my posts, for example, a thought for my next Door County post: Plentiful Shipwrecks, Acts 27-28, and Jesus Against the Waters of Destruction.

    My husband, the dogs, and I are preparing for an RV road trip from our home in Illinois to South Dakota and Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. I will finalize and publish my next writing when I get a chance.

    I appreciate the patience.