200 Blogs of Growth:

This weekend is my 200th blog! I am very happy I have achieved this milestone in regards to my writing career.  I am so blessed I have had many people read my blogs and follow it on a regular basis.  I can not believe there have been so many people who have been willing to read the words I have written and have hopefully gotten some good advice or wisdom out of them.   I am very filled with joy for those who have been through the journey of my blog, even if it was just for a portion of it.  

Looking back, I have written about my finding of God’s messages through nature, different hobbies, church sermons, and the messages found in many devotional books.  I have had a lot of different changes through my life while writing my blog such as a few years of teaching, COVID and the pandemic, grief through death of family members, changing of careers, and moving back to Cedar Falls.  I am glad that I have been able to write all these parts of my journey in the past years through this blog.  

This blog has definitely taught me to be reflective. One of my greatest blessings of my page is the time for me to be reflective and evaluative over what I am learning in church or through devotionals and through my time with the Lord.  I am very happy with the opportunity to be reflective in my everyday life and learning opportunities.  I have been able to learn and gain so much more wisdom through all life has given me. It has taught me to be more aware of my heart in all situations.  Do I have bitterness in my heart, or do I need to show gratitude and thankfulness? Am I staying humble and not committing myself to the world’s successes or praises?  How can I find God in nature, in interactions with those around me, or in my quiet times?  I love being able to find and evaluate these answers.  

I know that I have a long way to go. I have a lot of learning and growing, and becoming more committed to God.  I still struggle a lot with my patience, caring about what others think more than I should at times, my inappropriate language or swearing, and my jealousy of others.  I have a lot more topics to expand on in the years to come, and I hope that my blog will be a great way to showcase my journey as well as help any others on theirs.  

My particular goal for this next year is to try to grow pieces of my blog.  I changed my logo which does capture a bit more of what I am trying to show throughout my posts.  Then one of my goals is to grow my blog post range.  I am trying to remember that I need to do this in a heart that is wanting to serve God and not just because I want to have blogs and my writings really popular for my own glory.  I need to remember to have the humbling strive to do my best and grow my outreach.  

I want to again say thank you for reading any blogs.  Thank you to those who have followed my blog or helped me grow my page.  I greatly appreciate all the support and the love from my followers and friends of this dream of mine. I hope that I have been able to help someone through lessons I have learned in the past. 

My challenge for you this week is to think about a particular dream you have.  One of my dreams was to have a blog and to share my thoughts on a weekly basis.  However, one of my other goals was to work more on writing another draft of a book.  Sometimes I avoid working on my book draft because I know it takes a lot of brain power and work, but at the same time I have great dreams about working on another book and having a book published, so I do need to keep striving towards that dream, God-willing. I think it is important to think about one’s dreams.  I know I have written about that before, but I think that it is important to remember that we can achieve a lot of our dreams through Jesus Christ.

I want to end this blog, my 200th blog with a verse of praise.  God is the only reason I have been able to write as much as I have been, and I am so grateful for his guidance and his help all along the way.  “I praise you, God, because “who is like you, LORD God Almighty? You, LORD, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you” (Psalm 89:8).