A Melodious Sonnet

Thinking

Micah and Mary

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Morning Devotions: Micah and Mary

Currently, I’m doing a reading plan that involves reading ten different chapters in ten different books of the Bible per day. For me, it’s a fairly flexible one—some days, I only end up reading one chapter, other days it’s just five, but I always aim for all ten. The way this particular plan is set up is that once you finish reading a certain “section” of the Bible, you just start it over—and that can cause some interesting mashups at times!

A few days ago, several chapters really stood out to me, and I thought I’d share my notes from them today, as I’m still thinking about them this morning.

2018 Blogging Goals

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This Year's Blogging Goals 01

As I was working on finalizing my goals last Sunday on the way home from church, I remembered a footnote that was added somewhere in the planning process: Blog Mon/Wed/Fri. While I am not planning on setting three blog posts as my goal every week this next year, it did reinforce a point to me as I was planning—I needed, wanted, to schedule in time every week to blog.

I’ve been writing online since I was twelve, and in the years since then, I’ve often discovered I love the process of composing my thoughts into something half-legible, and sharing it with the world. I’ve also loved following other bloggers who do the same thing, sharing their thoughts, opinions, and encouragements as the muse struck them.

Over the past two years, I’ve sort-of lost out on my desire to blog. But now, in 2018, I want to get back into that. My goal is to post at least one time a week, ending up with fifty-two posts by the end of year. My prayer is that I can encourage the body of Christ over this year.

Old Word, New Word: Hope and Rejoice

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Old Word, New Word: Hope and Rejoice 01

Well, I wrote a blog post yesterday, and assumed it had saved (because Wordpress always saves what you write, right?). No. Obviously it was too long or something.

How did your 2017 go? Mine went by in a flash, and I’m still trying to figure out what happened the last two months! In many ways, it felt like a rebuilding year for me—recovering from several difficult happenings, and going on to deeper depths with the Lord.

Near the beginning of last year, I wrote a blog post about my word for the year. “Hope” was—and still is!—something I had much to learn about, but that was the main thing I wanted to remember throughout 2017. There is hope. Whether I can see it or not, it’s there, and sometimes simply clinging to the promise of hope was all I could do in certain months.

Little Things and NaNo Update

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Little Things and NaNo Update

Early this morning, I remembered that today marked a year exactly since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that disrupted our lives and the lives of thousands of people here in New Zealand. Wow. Amazing how many changes can be made in a year, and how two minutes at midnight has created challenges for people to this day. One main road still hasn’t been opened yet as a result (although the current hope is that they will be able to open it within a month).

So much in such a little time.

Website Building and the Vine

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Website Building and the Vine

Ever since—well, almost before Learning Resource Directory was launched, I’ve been wanting to change to a different name. I knew I wanted something shorter, easier to type, and catchier, but laid that aside to let my subconscious mull over it while I got more important things, like the website launching and more book reviews written, done.

Just a few months ago, I finally came across the perfect name. And although I’m not (quite) ready to share that with you yet, suffice to say I’m thrilled to finally have a name I love!

I bought the domain name several months ago, but didn’t have time to do any more then, as I wanted to research hosting (Gretchen Louise’s tips have been extremely helpful in that area!). I eventually decided to do in-between hosting on Bluehost, where I’m currently hosting this website. I’m not planning to stay here long-term due to a plethora of problems I’ve had, but for now I’ve got another year on the contract I’m on and I may as well use it.

Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude

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Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude 01

There were maybe twenty of us youth together that December evening eight months ago—perhaps a few less; I’m not certain. Together, we had just come through a week-full of meetings at a youth conference, each day, on average, infusing us and the many other attendees with four Biblically-rich, challenging sermons. I don’t know if my sentiments then could express what the others were feeling or not, but I felt full. Spiritually fed, my soul enriched far beyond what I normally encountered in my everyday life. The Lord had shown Himself faithful in the days leading up to that chilly Saturday evening, showing me areas where I wasn’t serving Him to my fullest extent, and overall just drawing me closer to Him.

I felt full. And as I looked around the room at all the other youth—spread across the assortment of couches in the spacious, yet cozy-feeling living room, I felt so blessed to be there. To be able to spend a bit of time with these special people, some who were very close friends, good friends from years past, or relatives—and to have shared the enriching week with them.