Good morning…
I was twenty-five years old in 1988 when my pen touched a journal for the very first time. Having put my best foot forward to snag my husband of a year, my less acceptable foot planted her self prolifically on the page. Journaling became my daily release, my best form of prayer, my own private lifeline. I had recently graduated with my Masters Degree in Human Development and Family Relations from the University of Connecticut, so starting simultaneously my marriage and my first job as a therapist was overwhelming, completely overwhelming. I began journaling to keep my head above deep emotional waters. I continued writing most days for the next fifteen years, through four child-free, young professional years and four years of powerless infertility, through four painful miscarriages and four natural childbirths.
God regularly stirred me from sleep in night’s wee hours, so it was around 3:00 am in 2003 when I opened the Bible to meet my life verse: Do not neglect your gift… Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers, 1 Timothy 4:14-16 (NIV). Back then I was a busy stay-at-home-mom. Who knew that I would eventually have “hearers”?
Embracing more firmly God’s vision for me, I did not neglect my gift of daily writing. I gave myself wholly to the art of journaling. Yearning to make meaning of my ordinary days, I watched my life and I watched my doctrine closely. With nearly four hundred blank journals filled with my handwriting, for nearly twenty-five years my LORD and my true self were my words’ only “hearers”.
Then in January of 2012, I began crafting daily messages of encouragement for “Ladies on Line” (LOL), a private google group we formed as part of a Bible study I was teaching. What began with twenty-five female LOL “hearers” has now grown to reach daily over 625 women and men, adults and teens, in Atlanta and throughout the world. To make my morning messages easy to pass along and more accessible to all, I have created “sue2you.”
More and more of my true self is saved by the fresh wisdom God pours into me, morning by morning. My heartfelt prayer is that God’s redeeming power overflows daily from me to you. Unwrap your gift. Do not neglect. Be diligent. Give yourself wholly. Progress. Watch. Persevere.
God is in the process of saving you and those within the sound of your voice,
Sue
