Meet your blogger...
At the top of our Home page are the words...
Refresh your spirit...
Build your faith...
Renew your hope!
Those words represent the things I was so desperately searching for during the darkest, most oppressive time in my life, and which I now often see others struggling to find as well. Thus the reason I started blogging. To provide a safe place of retreat, discovery and learning about ourself and life, and how it all relates to God.
My story is one of brokenness ... but thankfully one of victory too.
I know what it's like to believe I've been a "good" person who didn't deserve the horrible situation I suddenly found myself in. But through a series of events, reality hit. I suddenly discovered doing everything "right" in life doesn't guarantee we’re going to be shielded from hardship, or physical or emotional trauma that can trip us up and cause us to crash hard and burn like I did.
I had become emotionally and physically broken, spiritually defeated, and mentally confused... which suddenly thrust me into the deepest, darkest pit of despair I had ever heard of or experienced. Later I learned I had a major nervous breakdown that seriously affected every area of my life. To add to my confusion and pain, except for my faithful hubby, those whom I had fellowship with for years had failed me. Those I thought were good friends and co-laborers for Christ, literally dropped me from their lives. Deliberate or not, I felt abandoned by those I had trusted the most.
Feeling deeply alone and confused... deep depression... dark despair and sorrow... all became my daily norm month after month, with no end in sight.
Worst of all, I felt betrayed and abandoned by God too.
After a while, I finally realized I was extremely angry with Him because of what I believed He had allowed to happen to me. This meant I felt cut off from God too, during what became the most traumatic, agonizing time in my life. I literally could barely function in my day-to-day life, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was like a zombie who was going through the motions of life, feeling more dead inside than alive.
I truly reached the point of giving up on God and the Christian faith, but thankfully he never gave up on me! And that's not just a cliché... it's a truism. It is because of His loving grace and mercy that I'm able to be with you today, through Wall Postings for the Soul ... to share about my journey through brokenness to wholeness would take much too long for this post. But I can share how only recently, I've come to realize…
The seeds of the blog posts and resources I've been developing for more than a decade, and those you see here, sprouted and started growing from that time of dark despair and God's TLC as He kept bathing me in his light of hope, until breakthrough came.
I feel blessed to be able to share with you what God has been showing me on my journey—like how there are many wondrous things about the Christian faith I somehow had missed before, even though I had been a leader in my church! ...and that most of my life I had somehow been missing the simplicity (note I didn't say easy!) of how to be an over-comer and victorious in my walk with Him.
The new life God gave me following my breakdown has been opening up an amazing world to me, and it is my hope and prayer you find He's doing the same for you too... one step at a time.
Just learn to trust him and not yourself.
My career background for those interested...
After retiring from a long career, first as a grant writer and project manager in a missions organization, then as an office administrator in churches for 18+ years; overseeing community projects, and leading women’s small group studies too -- I never heard that booming voice from heaven like we all wish we could hear from time to time, telling me what I was to do next with my life. But I did find myself increasingly utilizing the internet and social media to encourage others and be a voice for hope in Christ. In looking back, I can see how He was helping me learn about blogging and social media by trial and error! And the more I got into it the more I could understand why some people loved it while others hated it... why some saw it as a blessing, while others saw it as a curse! The internet with it's many social media platforms, present a challenge -- and opportunities -- like no other! And it continues to be so for me, even today. It is a place of deep spiritual darkness that needs more carriers of God's light and hope. Since I've been in the pit of darkness, my heart goes out to those I see there who are desperately looking for a way out of its chocking hold... and are seeking answers about this crazy world we live in, so they can find hope. My continuing desire is to point them to the giver of life and light, and the type of long-lasting hope that only He can give.