My blog is a personal challenge for myself to be vulnerable. I’ve always associated vulnerability with weakness. I grew up learning to hide shame and fear behind a mask of “I’m okay” only to have all that ripped off and healed through many events I encountered on the mission field and through reading authors like Dan Allendar, Mark McMinn, Brene Brown, Elisabeth Elliott, Brennan Manning, Augustine, Robert J. Wick.

I love Theodore Roosevelt’s quote “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Our family dared greatly moving overseas as a mid-life career change, taking children ages 12, 8, and 5 at the time half-way around the world, only to add two more into the family a little over a year later. I dared greatly, and continue to do so, in the continual, on-going healing from childhood sexual abuse. And there is a sentence that sparks a shame thought, “oh, you shouldn’t say that.” But it’s true.

As Psalm 145:3 states, “One generation shall commend Your works to another and declare Your mighty acts.” And I have many “mighty acts” stories to share. God is so faithful and so loving.

And I offer this blog as a story of hope, resilience, vulnerability and courage to others facing challenges living overseas, dealing with hurts from the past or currently, facing challenges to personal growth, etc… I encourage anyone to pick up Dan Allendar’s book “The Healing Path” and for those sexually abused, “The Wounded Heart” and read and reread.

I’ve learned to see God in every moment of life, every event, to be thankful, to praise Him in the good and the hard, to see ushering in His Kingdom in acts of daily life.

I’ve not arrived, I’m not perfect, and I keep falling uphill seeking Him first in all my ways (Matthew 6:33).

Join me in this journey.