Back To Blogging

At a graduation ceremony, my pastor talked about a man's gifts, to know your gift and operate in it.
I believe writing is a gift my Lord has given me.  It was been a year since I took a break from blogging. It's time to begin again.

It didn't feel right to try to add to my first blog. That blog was a sacred time. A time of God's working on my shattered heart and bringing me to a place of acceptance and healing. God is still working on me. On all of us...but I feel less like a widow and more like one of many single moms in this nation. Just like Snurr's birth started a new chapter in my life as a single mom to three boys, surviving ten years without my beloved Jim seemed like the closing of a chapter to me. So that is why I titled this The Next Chapter.

If any of you are new to my blogging, I encourage you to go to bb4thelord.blogspot.com For years I wrote about the Lord fingerprints on our lives as a young widow with three young sons. Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr are now all in double digits and either are taller than me or will be soon. Oh, there are still days of longing for my best friend, my husband. There are times that tears fall and my heart aches. But I am no longer raw with pain. I have learned to function as half of me. And though I fall many times, the Lord is ever faithful to catch me and help me get back in the game.

There came a day when I took my wedding ring off my left hand....though I felt married, to the world I was not. I had my ring resized and wear it on my right hand. Similarly, this blog will continue to share God's fingerprints on our lives. But not as a limping, staggering young widow clinging to the Lord trying to just breathe, instead as a rehabilitated widow holding Christ's hand walking side by side with just a limp in my step every now and then.

Thank You, Lord, for Your tenderness and mercy to me. Thank You for all the times You hugged me close and caught all my tears, for giving me Your strength and direction every time I fell to my knees weak and wondering what to do. Thank You for calming my fears and teaching me to fight against the enemy of my soul. Please stay close because raising teenage boys without a dad is a whole different ballgame then when they were little. Help me to lay them at Your feet and for them to look to You as their Daddy, their Abba, their Everlasting Father. They are being weaned of me, Lord, I must decrease and You must increase in their lives. You have been there through so much already. May we all keep our eyes fixed on You as we begin the Next Chapter. I love You! Amen.