Good morning…

People I deeply care about were surprised and confused by yesterday’s morning message, Plant This Seed Of Gratitude. Fairly new to our online community, they assumed our daily blog was part of my role as Women’s Ministry Director at Northside Church. If I am paid a salary for my work hours at church, why create an opportunity for our subscribers to give an optional “gratitude gift”? It makes no sense to add a “Give” link to our website and daily email if the two or three hours I spend writing each morning are already paid for by the church.

So I met with those concerned, we talked through the history of our blog, and in the process we began to wonder if other people shared a similar surprised confusion. What is the differentiation between my two distinct roles: “Women’s Ministry Director” and “Everyday Blogger”? Before we move forward, together let’s look back.

I put my best foot forward to walk down the wedding aisle with my husband Steve. Within our first year of marriage, the question nagged: “What do I do with my worst foot?” That fumbling foot of fear and frustration planted herself firmly in my first journal in the spring of 1988. Most every day for the past thirty years, I have prayerfully processed myself on the page in the early morning hours, a time when no one needs a wife, a mom, or an employee.

I was hired at Northside Church in the Children’s Ministry in 2006, before becoming the Women’s Ministry Director in 2008. In 2012, I began crafting in the wee hours of the morning a daily, inspirational email to send to 25 women in a weekly Bible study. Interest in these mailings grew and I soon started blogging daily for a group we called “Ladies Online.” In two years, the online community had grown from 25 to 625 women and managing the requests to add new members manually became cumbersome. Also, more men were interested in our morning messages so “Ladies Online” no longer described our group, and subscribers had expanded from our Northside Church family into the broader Atlanta community and beyond. So in 2015, to accommodate God’s expansion process, the minister, executive director, and I prayerfully decided to separate “church” and “blog.”

In the summer of 2015 when I was off from the church for June and July, my husband and I met with a mutual friend who generously she set up a free blog site called “Sue2You.” Separated from the church, we began fresh with zero subscribers on September 1st of 2015. Within two years we grew again to 675 subscribers, and last summer, Steve and I realized it was time to take the financial plunge, paying a professional web designer to craft and coordinate our new website, “SueToYou.com.” Through our written word ministry, as of today, God now reaches 846 subscribers each morning, men and women, from different states and various countries.

Day after day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:47, EHV).

…Sue…

P.S. Remember, this will be our final fresh morning message until September 1st. Individuated from the church, now I annually “gift back” to Northside words for our Summertime Devotional. This summer, I hope you thoroughly enjoy revisiting our favorite school-year posts as together we experience Breathe God In – Live God Out.