A little about me…

Have you ever been asked to introduce yourself?  Yeah, that’s what I’m going to try to do here.  How do you cram 53 years of stuff into a few paragraphs?  (Well, now you know my age, don’t you?)

Here’s the Clift’s Notes version of me.

I was raised in the church.  I have amazing parents who are not perfect but have done everything they can to raise my brother and me in a godly home.  They were saved when I was about a year old so I don’t remember NOT going to church.

I was a good kid.  I rarely got into trouble and when I did, it was minor.  I was a very inquisitive teenager.  Don’t just tell me what you believe, tell me why you believe it.  I’m pretty sure I gave a few Sunday School teachers some big headaches.  Especially growing up in the 80’s when churches were burning rock & roll albums and giving kids the impression that they were going straight to hell in a handbasket if they went to a school dance.  I lived in Footloose.

After graduating from high school, I moved to the east coast just outside of NYC.  This is where life began to change.  I was FREE!!!!  I started going to the bar regularly (no, I was not 21 yet and yes, I drank while I was there).  I never drank much at that point.  It was completely social.  I  loved to dance (and was convinced that dancing alone wasn’t going to send me to hell) and I loved boys.  Honestly, at this point, I was still relatively well-behaved.

I eventually moved back home, moved back to the East Coast, and back home again.  Somewhere during this time, the bar became my life.  I bartended but if I wasn’t working, I was there ‘socializing’.  When I drank, I drank a lot!  I wasn’t an alcoholic.  I didn’t go to meetings.  (That was the common joke around the bar.)  I also became very promiscuous.  We’ll leave that at that.  I’m the queen of TMI so eventually, I’m sure more will come out.

Around 2005, I met my son’s father who was married at the time.  This did not stop our relationship which was only supposed to be a one night stand.  I joke that he just never went away after that.  He ended up getting divorced and moving in with me.  The relationship was never healthy.  We drank.  He cheated. We fought.  And then we started the cycle over.  

I got pregnant in 2008 at 37 years old.  I truly thought I was unable to get pregnant.  In all my promiscuity, I’d never had a pregnancy scare.  When I told him about the pregnancy, we agreed that I would have the baby.  There was no other option in our minds.  

I had no insurance so I went to our local Care Pregnancy Center to get an official pregnancy test in order to be put on Medicaid.  Once the test came back positive and I’d told the nurse that I was having the baby, she asked if she could pray with me.  This is where the obvious move of God began in my life.  Something happened that day.  It was definitely the Holy Spirit.  There’s no other way to explain it.

I began going back to church with Mom and dad and eventually surrendered my life completely to God.  Vance was born in 2009 and we lived with his dad for about 6 months when I finally moved out and moved back in with my parents.

I started singing in the choir at church.  Getting involved in church was a huge help in my hanging on to my faith.  Eventually, Pastor Jason, who was our worship pastor at the time, asked me to volunteer in his office with administrative tasks.  I wasn’t working so… why not???  And here came another life changing moment.

My volunteer hours turned into a paying job.  I learned so much in this position; about how a church runs, how a worship department runs and most importantly about theology, my relationship with God and GRACE!  I LOVED my job!  All of it!  But my favorite part was when Pastor Jason would burst through the door after studying and say “You gotta hear this!”  And then he’d go into about a 2-hour long message on what the Holy Spirit had revealed to him.  I’d never heard the Bible interpreted the way he saw it and more importantly, I’d never seen anyone get so passionate about the scriptures!  It was contagious!

He inspired me to study, learn, and grow.  As a worship team, we read Psalms in a month.  (Every worship team should do this!)  He read the entire Bible in 90 days so I did too. Only it took me about 180.  But hey…My spiritual growth and passion for learning haven’t stopped.  I’ve had moments of stagnancy but it’s never stopped.  

Learning is contagious.  The more I learned the more I wanted to learn.  As a single mother, I realized that I was not in God’s ideal situation.  I wanted to learn how to parent solo to the best of my ability.  I questioned if I could survive on a single income.  I wondered if I should start dating, and if I did how long before I introduce my son and the man I’m dating.  I had so many questions, but I couldn’t find any answers.

I intend to share what I’ve learned through my years as a single mother and follower of Jesus. The things I share may be things you already know but they were ‘Aha’ moments for me.   I hope that you feel my passion, and maybe you have an occasional “Aha” moment too.

Blog Post Title Two

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.