Digging Deep: Learning to Love God’s Word

I’m going to try it. The Nester’s 31 day writing challenge, that is. For years, I’ve watched bloggers participate in this annual event by writing every single day in the month of October. This year I’m going to give it a shot. Here are a few reasons why…

1) September was crazy. Like seriously nuts. We were out of town almost half the days of the month, and when we were home we were throwing birthday parties and hosting visitors. It was fun, but it was exhausting. I hardly worked on school. I rarely blogged. I basically unpacked and repacked suitcases all month long. When I flipped the calendar to October 1st, I took a big sigh of relief. I can’t wait for the rest and routine I’m hopeful this month will bring. I think blogging daily will help me reset and find a good rhythm for fall. I’m also starting to work on my dissertation this month, and I usually find the more I write, the more I write…. meaning if I write for fun, I am usually better about making time for my academic writing. If I focus on my academic writing, I’m also inspired to make time for blogging. Writing begets writing apparently.

2) I’ve talked about this before, but when you stop {or significantly slow down} blogging for awhile, it is so hard to jump back in. When you are posting consistently, you are constantly thinking of ideas, jotting notes, snapping pictures and making room in your schedule to edit them. When you get out of blogging mode it’s nearly impossible to set aside even five minutes to upload a photo or respond to a blog email. Even if you want to blog {as I usually do}, it feels overwhelming when you haven’t done it in awhile. That’s why I’m taking October to jump back in. Every single day, I’m going to try to write on these pages, even if it’s only a few words. Does it feel overwhelming? Yes. But it’s an achievable goal with an end-date in exactly 31 days.

3) And finally… what am I going to write about for a month straight? It took me only a few minutes to figure it out. For a long time, women have been asking me to share more about my Bible study process… from how I make time to study Scripture to how I set up my quiet times and what I choose to read in the Bible. This is a topic I am very passionate about and every time a friend or reader asks me about it my heart beats a little faster and I get so excited… and then I think “That deserves a good, long answer. I should write a blog post about that.” And as with most things in life, when we wait for ideal conditions we often get frozen and never accomplish the goal, speak the words, or create the product. Because I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment and all the right words about studying Scripture, I’ve hardly said anything about the topic at all. I have so much to share and people with willing ears who have asked to hear my story, and until this point I’ve done nothing about it. So October is the month. Day by day, I’m going to talk about the Bible, how I study it, and why. I’m going to share my story – how God changed my life through reading His Word, how He changed my habits about quiet times, and also give some practical steps to help you study the Bible on your own.

Welcome, October. I’m excited for this journey.