The first words of anything are always the hardest to write, and this blog is no exception. I know what I’d like to write in the future (and I know that I would love lots of people to want to read it!) but it didn’t feel right launching into something with no preamble, and no explanation. Why am I writing this blog? Why should people read it? Who am I, anyway?!
Put simply, I am on a journey, and I would love to share my travels with any kind and interested folk who care to read about them. Unfortunately my days of actual travelling (as in the go-to-different-(preferably sunny)-countries type) were somewhat curtailed by the expansion of our family and shrinking of our income (not that I would swap my two gorgeous girls, or the husband, for a life of jet-setting, of course… but I digress). No, the type of journey I am on is a rather more abstract one. I became a Christian at the age of 18, and have been travelling ever since. Sometimes the route has been quite smooth, like a gentle ramble through the Kent countryside on a warm day in September. Sometimes the terrain has been much less even, more like stumbling up Snowdon in the fog. Sometimes I haven’t had the faintest idea where I’ve been going at all.
The past two years have been rather different. After a good many years of what has often felt like aimless stumbling about, I finally feel like I am starting to walk the path that God has made for me (or rather, that he has made me for!). 2 years ago I took a step of faith. I acted on a passion that God had placed in my heart, that had been welling up inside me for a long time. I stepped way out of my comfort zone, and founded an organisation to come alongside and support new mothers, especially those young single mums often isolated within our communities. I was also challenged to go deeper with God, to get to know Jesus better, to spend time with him daily, be filled with the Holy Spirit, read my Bible. I have discovered (better late than never) that doing things in his strength is so much better than doing things in mine.
All this has had a profound impact on me. I honestly think that if I had looked at the future me two years ago, I would not have believed it was the same person. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul writes “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.” I used to be crippled by that spirit of timidity. Now I find myself speaking up, being bold, being confident in my identity as a daughter of the Living God. I am very much a work in progress (goodness am I!!) but God is gracious, and transforms us ever so gently and gradually into the people he has designed and called us to be. I’d love it if you could join me on my travels.
Emma Tanner 