Heart-filled beginning

My heart is pounding and overflowing.

I always said I’d do it… and so I finally did. Thanks to the nudging (read: shoving) of trusted loves, this blog journey begins and I’m putting it completely in God’s hands. He understands the internet better than I do and He certainly understands the need for human connection best too.

My motivation for writing originally stemmed from a basic need to catalog the little funny things my children said or did. I don’t keep a baby book, because even using scissors is too crafty for me. So Facebook became the easiest way to log those stories and pictures. And Chatbooks automatically prints every 60 experiences of our life in pictures with captions and sends the whole precious thing right to our home. As that venture has evolved, those little funnies now beautifully pictured in bound books have become our family memoirs. Our life in pictures.

But as these little people grow bigger, their stories are longer. As our life together grows richer, our dreams are bigger. And my heart contains more than 140 caption characters will allow. A full life routinely outgrows itself, requiring change and new beginnings. So now I find myself here, with wide open spaces of white begging to be filled with stories. Love and laughter stories, heartbreak and disappointment stories, questions we’ll ask that aren’t answered this side of Heaven. Our life in words.

My simple intent is to meaningfully connect with wonderful humans (most importantly my own) in real, raw, authentic, heartful life – faithful Christian living, raising a family, putting a marriage back together and keeping it strong, shining light in a world full of chaos, and finding fulfillment right where we are. There is brilliance in simplicity and I have found we’re the most joyful as a family when we throw off the “we should probably’s” and just embrace peace-filled living our own way.  We can spend so much time worrying that we miss the beauty right in our own hands or we can choose to be present. Mindfully present. Heartfully present.

Thank you for having the heart to be real and true with me. It’s even more fun when we do it together.

Heartfully present,

Jessica