Hey guys! Well, I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to regularly update my site. My laptop has decided to try and make it difficult and I haven't been able to hook it up to the network at the house where I am staying. So.... at this point, Chris Wighaman has been gracious and has let me come and dial-up on his computer at home.

Life is good here. I am learning a lot. About people and about myself. I was talking to my friend Carrie Cutrer on the phone last night and I was telling her that I feel like I am in a very teachable place. The most teachable place in at least a few years. No, not physical location, although this place is great. But just for me as a person. Moving over here and in essence, starting over, has put me in a very vulnerable position. I feel like my emotions are raw and are close to the surface and I feel like a lot of the things that would typically distract me have been taken away. So, many times it's just me and God and I feel like He has been showing me some things about myself that I have never really stopped and seen before. My friend Toph wrote me an email just the other day saying that he was finding himself in a similar place.... this is not always the most comfortable, but I think that it is pretty obvious that God gives us these times for His purposes.

I just started reading a book the other day.... Many of you have heard of it, because you have recommended it to me at one time or another.... It is called Hinds' Feet On High Places, written by Hannah Hurnard. I am only 50-some pages into the book, but as I read the allegory, whose main character is named Much-Afraid, I am beginning to see so much of myself in her. I am learning how I have spent so much of my life in fear. Fear of failing, fear of upsetting people, fear of making the wrong decisions, fear of going down the wrong path, fear of messing up, fear of loving and of not being loved.... and the list goes on. Even now, as I sit and think about this, I can look back and see how quite possibly, the majority of decisions in my life were made based on fear. And then we can read in His Word that, "Perfect love casts out all fear." What does that mean? What does it mean to experience true Freedom? What will that look like in my life today?

I really don't have many answers right now. Just a lot of thoughts and ponderings and a wonderful peace that comes with knowing that God is speaking and I am finally in a place where I can hear Him and I am willing to listen. There will be more updates to come on this journey.... I promise.