This is a newsletter about walking, running, and sometimes stumbling to God in our faith journeys.
Hello! I want to welcome you and invite you to experience life with me and to hear the faith journeys of others. Many years ago, I was struck with a calling from God. It happened in a sermon when our pastor challenged the congregation with this question. “If you could do one thing for the Kingdom of God, and you knew you could not fail, what would that be?”. Right away, I knew. It would be to write a book about faith stories and testimonies that would hopefully encourage others. Stories that would draw people, who were unsure of God, to explore a relationship with Him because they could see some aspect of their story in someone else’s. Note how this calling was many years ago and I am just starting now! I guess I am embracing the role of the “tortoise” in this particular race. The beautiful thing is that in my stalling….er I mean “refinement”, God has given me greater clarity for what this would look like. It is not just sharing of stories of surrender, but a look at people’s journeys of faith. Somewhere along the line, the Lord reminded me that all the ways in which He moves, not just the exciting times of our initial surrender, are special. So over time I hope to present stories that would spur on believers as well. In all of it, I think it is fascinating and so encouraging to see how God works in our lives, in the highs, the lows, the challenges of refinement, and the everyday. The name of this newsletter, Draw Near to Me, came to me when I was sitting in church. I would love to say it was this beautiful and ethereal moment, but I would have to say it was likely one of my sassier ones. God again gently reminded me to start working on these stories and I said to Him, “Well, if you really wanted me to do this, you would give me a name.” I figured it would be silent and I would be off the hook! Literally the next moment the words “draw near to me” came out of our pastor’s mouth and I thought to myself, “Well nuts, that is a good name!”. Again, my obedience to the Lord is just astounding! I love the name though because it is what He beckons and calls us to do. To draw near to Him. To find rest in Him. To be in love with His presence in our lives. The name was perfect, and it came from God, go figure!
This newsletter is a way to continually invite people in and serves as a place to help fulfill the calling God placed on my heart. I hope that it will be a space where you will find encouragement, joy, and inspiration for how God moves. Now, there is also a wee bit of randomness, in the sense that I will be writing about my story, faith journeys of others, shorter testimonies, thoughts that the Lord brings to my mind, and, for fun, a recipe here and there. Where does the recipe fit in? I am not sure, but if you know me you know I like food! I like to think it’s because people often gather together around food, but recipes are also remnant of having been a scientist and enjoying the process of experimenting with something. The other alternative is that I am just a sugar addict. I am not sure. See, I warned you…. randomness!
Joking aside, there is something that I love about this newsletter that ties it all together for me. Hang on a moment with me here because it may seem like it is going nowhere but we are going somewhere. If you have ever read the book or listened to the YouTube video, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, you may know where I am going. In it, Randy, who was dying of cancer, tells stories that will make you laugh and inspire you about his childhood dreams. He is transparent and gives insights that he has learned throughout his life. At the end of the lecture (yes, spoiler alert), Randy spoke of a final “head fake” in the lecture. A head fake being that you think something is about one thing, but it is actually about something else. The final head fake? The talk was not for the audience, it was for his children.
I believe this newsletter and our faith stories are special opportunities to express part of our life with our family, friends, and others. To me, this is partly about leaving a legacy for the child that my husband and I still hope to have. The one we are still believing that God has promised us that will be to come. The one we have been waiting years for God to place in our lives and have walked through many valleys and heartbreak to meet, and are still waiting to meet. It is about sharing something with not only believers and non-believers that I hope will be reached, but also with our child of promise. A child that may not be interested in reading it right away, but he or she will have access to it in the future. It is also about giving others the opportunity to leave their own legacy through their faith journeys and testimonies to those they love and others who may be touched by them. Our words are powerful. Our stories are powerful.
This is something I wish my parents had done and that I had access to now. When I truly surrendered to Jesus later in life, my dad had already passed away long ago, and my mom had unexpectedly return home to heaven only months later. Both were incredibly faithful and loved Jesus. I never took the opportunity to ask them what their faith journey’s looked like and then they were gone, and now I no longer have that chance. I still have several issues of the Daily Bread devotional that I took from my mom’s place after she passed away. I hold on to them because I know my mom would read them and she even had a few of the devotionals dog eared and a word or two underlined. Those are the special ones to me. Sometimes I like to look at them and wonder, what was it about them that resonated in her life at that moment. What was the Spirit saying to her during those times?
For so long, when I had turned my back on God, my mom’s prayers would intercede for me. In my darkest moments of life, when I was still not walking with God, I still knew that somewhere, my mom was praying for me and my siblings. Outwardly, it would be praying for us to be blessed and find the right people to marry etc… but there were also the prayers that we did not hear that she would lift up to the Lord. After I surrendered to Christ, she mentioned those prayers to me. She said she had been praying for years that each of us would find our way back to Christ. Mom never gave up on those prayers. She never lost faith. To all those moms and dads out there that are praying for your child/ children, and you do not feel like God is moving and that you are making a difference, He is, and you are.
So today, I am launching this newsletter. It is to honor God in what He has called me to do, but I also launch it today to honor my mom. Today would have been her birthday. Though she is no longer on this side of eternity, her legacy lives on. I once told her that if I could be even half of who she was, I would consider myself successful in life. After she passed away and I learned even more of the extent of her humbleness, I realized I would maybe have to settle for trying to be only a quarter of who she was… a half no longer seemed achievable. I cannot thank God enough for giving us this amazing example of a woman of faith, a humble person who loved others well, and a mom that I will miss so deeply until I reach the other side of eternity and get to be with her again. Happy Birthday mom.