Hello Again

This blog was started in January 2010. At the time, circumstances prevented me from writing for my blog "Building His Body," where I’d posted Bible insights daily since March 2008. Though I willingly paused writing about the Bible when I knew it necessary, I found myself far more devastated by the loss than I’d anticipated.

I am a writer. Others call it my gift and I’m inclined to agree. While writing is not my primary identity, it nourishes my soul in a unique way because it affords the opportunity to share with others the things God shows me that are just too good to keep to myself.

Sharing about my God is happily done via other avenues. The rare invitation for public speaking is a treasure, whether to lead prayer among citizens and community leaders for National Day of Prayer, to talk with familiar faces filling any sized room, or to preach at the county jail for women once or twice a year (my favorite).

Talking one-on-one is nearly the opposite kind of sharing. It is impromptu rather than prepared, for a moment or for hours, and may affect one or both of us for a lifetime. The Lord amazes me by what He does when I suddenly face a treasured friend, a nearly forgotten acquaintance, even a complete stranger, and suddenly find Him ministering to them through me. It fosters a special dependence on the Holy Spirit. On any given day, some appointments are written on my calendar, and the divine ones are written on the Lord’s.

How else do I share the Lord? At church, there's children’s Sunday School, drama team, and sometimes the praise or dance teams. Among relatives, sharing is by turns candid around dear ones with whom I’m most at ease, or cautious because they best know my failures. At home I feel my every move is a sharing of God with husband and children. I am keenly aware—often painfully aware—of how much impact I have on their lives, for better or for worse.

But my primary identity is also not wife and mother, or any one of those other multitude of roles I enthusiastically embrace. My core identity is ambassador of YHWH—of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Synonyms for ambassador are representative, diplomat, emissary, envoy. ‘Ambassador’ carries connotations the other words do not. It is derived from the Latin ambactus which means “servant.” And the Oxford dictionary defines ‘ambassador’ as “a diplomat sent by a state as its permanent representative in a foreign country.”

This is a permanent servanthood assignment rather than missions trip. My citizenship and nativity are of another place. I’m in close contact with my kingdom but don’t receive furloughs at home.

I live among foreigners inclined to misunderstand me.

When I paused Bible writing for my other blog, a friend suggested I keep writing anyway, even if it wasn't shared. Writing, for me, has never been about the recording, but about the sharing. So I started this blog to simply share what God was teaching me personally. I quickly discovered that God had far more in mind than I did. He took me through the darkest of deep pits, and there I heard the Lord speak more clearly and frequently than I ever have in my life.

I've felt exposed. I've been misunderstood. And I've been called to account by more than one person who alleged improper motives where I knew myself guiltless.

I’m by no means sinless. The Lord does a plenty adequate job of calling me to account where needed. My desire is to be blameless—that is, to settle accounts with the Lord as soon as they come to my attention. I've no reason to resist the One I trust implicitly. I respond to Him as He enables with confession, repentance, and change. I never do so adequately. He nonetheless assures me that I am not condemned.

When I felt overwhelmed by exposure and accusations, I quit posting here and took the blog offline. I’m ready to go back online with it. It will be a chronicle of things I learn on a personal level while I continue my wayfaring as an ambassador in a foreign land. I leave in place the private, precious conversations I had with the Lord in my darkest hours, labeled "Abba Whispers." In days to come the blog name will change. Though the comments remain off indefinitely, I've no objection to emails when a situation calls for it. I'm praying about what else this blog should be.

For the next few posts, I’ll simply tell what the Lord’s taught me in recent weeks that I’ve yet to share.