Welcome to Over the Brim

My first blog post. Hmmm...let me just drink in this moment. (Long pause) Okay, here we go...

My husband, Micah, says I've really always been a blogger, I just haven't published them. He's right. I have a constant blog running in my head throughout every day. By being a stay-at-home mom of three young kiddos (ages 5, 3 1/2, and almost 2), I don't really have much of an outlet for those thoughts. I typically journal those out to the Lord here and there (which I love) and spew a bit to Micah when he gets home from work, but I had yet to enter the blogging world. I'm not sure why except that it seemed like something that would take too long. You see, I'm addicted to facebook. I tell anyone I meet it is my little window to the world outside of my home during the day. If you are a stay-at-home mom you'll probably understand that "trapped" feeling we sometimes feel--facebook allows me to "get out" without really getting out. However, there are things about facebook I wish were different. I wish my one sentence posts could sometimes be a paragraph instead. I wish you could hear my thoughts and feelings behind my posts, which are sometimes hard to explain in a simple, short line. So, I have found myself at a place where leaving those longer thoughts somewhere seems refreshing. Those who want to "go there" with me can do that on this blog. Those who would rather just know me by short phrases can easily still meet with me daily on facebook! : ) Micah also says someday I'll write a book. Maybe he's right, but for now that seems too foreign and a bit scary to me, so I'll just jump onto the blogging wagon first.

So, why "Over the Brim" you may ask. Well, after about a year of brokenness, emptiness, frustration, humility, searching, and crying out to the Lord, I found freedom. This freedom is not something I take lightly. It is life-changing...life-giving. This is not the freedom I found when I accepted Christ as my personal Savior-- I did that the summer after my 6th grade year at a church camp. This new-found freedom is something different...something deeper. This is freedom that makes me live life TO THE FULL as Christ has offered in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." It's not a freedom that makes me a perfect person. It's not a freedom that makes me better than anyone else. It's a freedom that makes me OKAY that I'm not perfect and frees me from the incessant need to be perfect. It's a freedom that makes me know I'm not alone in this world and that many of us go through the same things, struggle with the same issues, and can find the same joys through our commonality of having a loving God as our Father. It's a freedom that allows me to see myself as the esteemed woman God has made me to be instead of the stupid girl I tended to view myself as.

This freedom has filled my heart, my head, my life, my "cup" to the brim with miraculous love, joy, peace, and energy. I am so full of these amazing God-given qualities that I can't help but allow them to overflow into my relationships and life. They may not look like what you want them to look like--or even what I want them to look like sometimes--but they are real and I try to work out of them. It's a conscious decision I have to make--will I live and act out of my humanness or out of the freedom I have found in Christ? The Message's translation of Psalm 33:20 reflects my heart to a T, "We're depending on God; he's everything we need. What's more, our hearts brim with joy since we've taken for our own his holy name. Love us, God, with all you've got— that's what we're depending on."

I have a whole new level of compassion for others...especially women, with this freedom. It is my hope and prayer I can even use this blog to touch others and encourage them to find this freedom for themselves. I want the freedom I have found to go "Over the Brim" of my own cup and spill into others. So, will you join me here? Will you allow yourself to go deeper with me? I promise you won't regret it. I promise the same God who met me in those low areas, those dark corners, those secret places, WILL meet you and bring you to the freedom you so desperately long for...if you go with Him. I hope you will allow my words here--my overflow of my brim-- to encourage you along the way. Blessings, friends, as we start this journey together.