Where my words are

This has been a quiet little space these past few months, hasn’t it? 

And it hasn’t been intentional. Every month I take time to think about and plan my goals, and for January, February, and March the goal has been to blog at least twice a month, if not weekly. 

And there have been things to blog about! Since the start of the year, and I last blogged, I have:

• been at a staff training conference with my organisation,
• had a visit from my sister, and other dear friends, 
• gone on holiday to Narnia (that may need more explanation)
• had a personal retreat
• had an executive team planning retreat and my S-Team planning retreat
• been on our international team women’s one night retreat
• gone on my church’s 20+ weekend retreat

These have all been incredibly good things, and each deserves it’s own blog post. But perhaps they also explain why it has been quiet here - it’s not due to the absence of things to write about, but perhaps due to their abundance. And once I get out of the habit it’s hard to feel like I can come back here without pressuring myself to catch up on all the other pieces.

One of the other factors in my quietness is that since I last blogged I also started what may turn out to be a masters degree in transformational leadership. I had my first teaching week in January, a module on biblical interpretation by Craig Blomberg. It was an incredible week, to get to learn from someone who knows and loves Scripture that much (if you search for his name on Amazon you may start to get a sense of the breadth of his knowledge).

But that also means that there is now another place for my words to go - right now, I’m mostly reading in preparation to write two essays due in July. One essay is 1500 words examining two factors that influence how I interpret Scripture. And then I’m writing 6000 words of interpretation and application of Ephesians 3:1-13 and stumbling across beautiful quotes such as this one:

"The building up of God’s kingdom, taking God’s light to darkness and standing fast, is organically connected to one’s status as a child of God. The missional aspect of salvation is not optional.” Cohick, in Ephesians

This masters simultaneously feels like it has the most perfect timing ever and the worst timing ever. I am so aware of all I need to learn and that I, God willing, have another forty plus years of serving the Lord ahead of me, whatever that may look like. This feels like an updraft helping me become more equipped for the good works God has prepared for me. But it has been challenging to learn how to effectively juggle this and my role.

So that explains where some of my words have been, are, and will be going. 

I love this little space and the people who frequent it. I’m thankful for the record of God’s faithfulness that it is. So I want to continue to faithfully record His faithfulness. I’m hoping to sit down and write for 15 minutes a week here, publishing what I get written in that time and hopefully catching this space up on what God has been doing.