I’m a Jesus follower, wife (to David, whom I waited 24+ years for, by the way), blogger, Bible teacher, researcher, healthy-living enthusiast, avid reader, and lifelong learner who has been forever ruined as far as what some call normal. You see, God dramatically invaded my life when I was 12, and I’ve never been the same since.
Why I Blog
In the Introduction to her book, Praying God’s Word, Beth Moore writes:
“I have often been asked how a believer might identify whether God had given her or him the gift of teaching. I believe I have stumbled on at least one possibility: if you are compelled to tell others virtually everything you learn from God, you might be a teacher! My friends who have other spiritual gifts can learn something from God without feeling the overwhelming need to share it with everyone they know. Not me! I am not content to keep to myself any hidden treasure I’ve discovered. What little I know, I want others to know.”1
That about sums it up. Whether it’s about the Bible, health, a great recipe, a good book, or even a fun game like Wordle, if it’s something I’ve learned, experienced, or stumbled upon, I’ll probably write a post about it here. And often, it’ll be a story as that is my thing.
A Brief Bio and a Few Fun Facts
- I grew up on a dairy farm in Texas. My first job was carrying feed to the cows and cleaning their udders before we milked them.
- I started playing the piano at age 3 1/2; first song was Petula Clark’s “Downtown.”
- I have traveled to 46 of the 50 states, most of them on family vacations in the 60s and early 70s.
- Instead of horses, we used motorcycles on our farm. By the time I graduated High School in 1976, I had “owned” (via my parents) six motorcycles.
- One of my favorite memories is of shooting bull frogs on the bank of our cow ponds (with a 22 caliber, over-under shotgun rifle), cutting off and skinning the legs, then having my Granny Outlaw fry them. Yum!
- I started my computer career by attending a technical school in Dallas. It took 3 months, cost less than $2000, and lasted 32 years.
- I moved to Lynchburg, VA in 1981 with friends, $900 in my pocket, and a clear word from the Lord: “Go to Lynchburg. I have a music ministry for you there.”
- I led worship for six churches (three were church plants), wrote a few worship songs, and produced four music CDs in my home studio between 1985 and 2005.
- I’ve logged over 35,000 miles on bicycles in eight states plus Washington D.C. My greatest bicycling achievement: 155 miles in two days in a local MS-150 (fundraiser) ride.
- Then God sent David and rescued me from my boredom. 😀
Our Amazing Story
David and I met in 2006 on BigChurch.com, a Christian dating website that had a rather unique feature: blogging. (BigChurch called it blogging, but the posts were more like what we now see in our Facebook news feeds — a paragraph or two written BY friends TO friends about something going on in their lives.)
Why is this significant? Because David was in Gainsborogh, England, I was in Lynchburg, VA, and we had our geographical regions for meeting people set to 50 and 300 miles respectively. However, everyone on the site, regardless of physical location in the world, could see the blog feed.
And that’s how it happened. I was writing blog posts and David was reading them. One thing led to another, and…well…here we are, in our 16th year of wedded bliss! (Okay, that might be stretching it a bit. But we ARE quite happy and very blessed.)
If you have about an hour, watch our YouTube video appropriately titled, Our Amazing Story. For a slightly shorter version, move the slider to the 9:45 point to skip past the introductions. And if you run out of time (or patience!), be sure and check out the slide show of pics from our first year together in Virginia starting at the 52:50 point. I wrote and produced the background song, Oh Lord, You’re Faithful, and David put it all together. What a team!