A major catalyst to starting this blog is the recent opportunity to write a daily journal for a financial Bible series I am leading at a Church in suburban IL. Before starting this Bible series and doing the recommended journal, my writing lately has been limited to the occasional email to family and friends.
In my early life I wrote a lot. Writing was a true
joy for me and was often well received. In addition to writing for school, I wrote short stories for fun and poems for love. I used to write letters, real "in the mail letters" to people until I realized they served mostly to make people feel bad about not writing back.
When I was thirteen I wrote in a diary. It was short lived and mostly used to document the hurt and confusion growing up can bring. Writing in my diary then offered little more than proof to my Mother and Brother - the lock was easy to pick - that I had issues and at thirteen who does not have issues, right?
The Bible series I am leading is the title of this post and has really brought a new level of reflection on purpose and potential to my life. Not just from the aspect of money but for everything I have done and am doing with my life now.
Leading a group in a Church setting is a new journey for me. I do not attend Church regularly for many reasons. The main reason I have not attended is because my idea of "Church" has been hard to find, another but far lesser reason is I usually work weekends and evenings.
I intentionally do not wish my postings to be religious in content as my belief system is to allow everyone their beliefs, but for the purpose of this post on how blogging has come into my life and the intended purpose of blogging, I have to include it.
As a girl in
New Orleans I attended church All the time and loved it. It was a great sense of
Joy, Community and Love in my life. After moving to IL I sporadically attended Church as a teen and young adult finding Church to be not at all like the "Church" experience of my youth. Instead I found it to be superficial and petty, centering on the Pastor instead of the parishioners. Even in my later attempts to find a Church home, it has been lacking in the congregational connection and community impact that feels right to me.
With that, it was unlikely for me to be in Church leading a Bible series of any kind. It was listening to the "Dave Ramsey" (highly recognized financial guru) radio broadcast that got me to thinking about my feelings and dealings with money and got this ball rolling. I started listening to Dave on my way to work to gain perspective of other views about money. This was in effort to begin a dialog with the man I live with about money, mostly the lack of and use of
his money. The attempt to talk about budget, saving and revenue generation ideas for us to try resulted in many long night conversations, a few shed tears and no change at home to our financial "one-ness". For me, listening to Dave helped to gain a new take on my own views abut money and what I have done and can do financially in my life for myself and my family.
As a career corporate educator I have learned by teaching and thought a great way to begin to make these new revelations come to life for me would be to teach the "Dave Ramsey" principles to others. After mentioning this idea to a few people, a Church found their own Bible centered financial series they wanted to offer to their congregation and asked me to lead it.
That is how "Reaching Your Financial Destiny" came into my life and has opened up new and old thoughts and feelings about me and my life. The Bible study teaches what it means to be Christian and how to use your life and money for the advancement of the "Kingdom of God". It also touches on budget and material possession obsession, living with less etc., something I think we all can reflect on with the current state of our economy.
What leading this Bible study has really done for me is affording the time and opportunity to do something I love - Learning and Teaching! It has been a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family and friends and meet new people. It has also allowed me time to be reflective of my life. Sharing my financial journal in the Bible series reminded me how much I loved to write while also making me aware of how my thoughts and feelings can impact others.
With the journaling I began asking questions like "Where am I" and "Where do I want to be"? "Is this enough"? "What more can I do to have a better life"?
To better understand the first question "Where am I?" I begin by reflecting on how I got here. Part of that reflection has led me back to a first love - writing. It has been a long time since the teenage diary days, school papers and prose posing poetry to long lost loves, but the j
oy I remember having from writing then is the
joy I crave more of now in my life.
Blogging, I hope, will help bring back the joy of writing to my life.
Unlocked.
