Nomination for the Blogger Recognition Award

In his mellifluous voice, I can hear Winnie the Pooh gently suggest to his friend, “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”A.A. Milne’s words characterize why I started blogging. It was time for me to move from my quiet corner of our farm to engage with others by crafting words and sharing them on my blog.

Early on in my parenting when my days blended in a sleepless haze, I would manage to scribble inspirations for writing on supermarket receipts or on the back of coffee-stained bank envelopes. Then, I would toss them in some random pocket of the diaper bag where they would remain until a stray soiled diaper forced me to clear out the contents of the diaper bag.

On rare occasions when I drove solo to run errands, my writer’s mind unhinged ideas for possible topics for articles. Mindless activities like blow drying my hair afforded me a good ten minutes to day dream of writing a book.

Homeschooling absorbed both my time and my energy. As I look back over two decades of educating my children at home, I now know that those days provide some of the richest material for a writer.

I am not a millennial, so the technical aspect of blogging initially intimidated me. For a few years, I fooled myself into thinking I could write in the 21st century without blogging. With some coaxing from my millennial children, I mustered up enough courage to go live with my faith-based blog in 2015.

The mission of my blog is to equip, encourage, and inspire people to nourish their body and soul.

So what in the world is my holy and healthy blog about?

Nourish Your Body

Food is a beautiful gift from God given to us so that we can nourish our body. When we eat, we don’t often consider why the Giver of food made us creatures that rely on food for survival. Our dependence on food and God’s provision of it should make us want to care for and nourish our body.

Adam Day offers a hearty perspective on food from a biblical worldview, “a study of Scripture indicates that food reveals to us God’s provision for our daily need for humility since we recognize we depend on him, and the importance of trusting him. God’s provision of our daily need.” When we have a biblical perspective of food, we eat to God’s glory.

Food science, industrial agriculture, government regulations complicate and distort this gift of food bestowed upon us by our Creator. Our frenzied American lifestyle causes us gobble down food without pausing to appreciate or reflect on the food piled on our plates.

With every post, recipe, affiliate, and product I offer in some way to revive or sustain a healthy perspective on food.

Nourish Your Soul

While our physical bodies depend upon nutrient-dense food, our spiritual life requires daily nourishment from the Word of God. My articles on Christian living serve as a supplement never the main course to an insatiated hunger know God through scripture. Your heart should crave sound bible doctrine that transforms your life, influences your finances, molds your career choices, and restores your relationships.

Tips for New Bloggers

Who Are You Writing For?

Know you audience-avatar and treat them like a friend. Pen your posts to solve her pain point. Write as if you are sitting down having coffee with her at your kitchen table.

Check Your Season of Life

I declared my calling as a writer the summer I turned ten and peddled five miles to the local convenience store for a pack of loose leaf paper and a Bic pen so that I could write my novel. However, not every season in life lends itself to pursue a calling. Once my children arrived on the scene, I happily and willingly temporarily shelved my endeavor to be a writer. Because writing runs through the marrow of my bones, I never really ceased to write. I just did it in a way that conformed to my particular season of life.

As I nursed babies, I voraciously read novels that fed my intellect so that when the season opened for me to write again my words flooded onto the paper. During my hiatus as a writer, I spent years reading the words woven by great writers which sharpened my wit and honed my style.

Those sabbatical years, afforded me time to collect precious memories by living in the present with my children unhindered and unencumbered. I like what cartoonist Bill Watterson said: “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.”

Develop Strong Writing Skills

Writing is a skill that requires practice. Few are gifted with an ability just to sit down and compose a compelling piece of writing without numerous drafts. Ann Hadley offers this priceless advice to writers “taking your writing muscles from puny to brawny is to write every day. That writing is a habit, not an art.”

Effective writing will impact and minister to your readers more than developing a product. Product chameleonism is no surprise to a blogger. However capricious the market, it’s a sobering and necessary fact that products pay the bills.

In all honesty, paying the blog bills and technical development are my least favorite attributes of blogging. The part of blogging that causes me to race enthusiastically to my desk every day is the opportunity to craft a post that might resonate with just one soul in this vast world brimming with people. Writing posts that inspire, encourage, and equip people to move toward change is the heartbeat of my blogging.

George Washington and my blog… say what?

In 1789, George Washington traveled to New York for the first inauguration hoping for a serene trip. Instead of a low-key, tens of thousands zealous citizens filled the streets eagerly greeting the first President. After the fan fare subsided, Washington humbly walked back to his temporary residence embarrassed and frightened. Washington is noted saying, “I greatly fear that my countrymen will expect too much of me.”

I don’t mean to elevate myself to the ranks of George Washington, but his humility is a characteristic that I aspire to replicate. Washington’s inaugural address references that he thought himself unqualified for the position of president of the new nation.

When I opened my inbox and read the nomination for the Blogger Recognition Award, from Timberley Gray at Living Our Priorities, stunned, I could not imagine how I obtained such an honor. After all, I am a fledgling blogger whose site stats pale in comparison with so many other bloggers who are far more worthy of this recognition.

I remind myself and pray that my writing reflects the grace that I receive from God, the grace I offer myself when I fail, and the grace I should bestow upon others.

Nominees for the Blogger Recognition Award

Limited to nominating only fifteen bloggers for the award, I spent the past month visiting and revisiting blogs, then returning to leave comments, and just hanging out at sites as if I dropped by a friend’s house for a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea.

Trust me; I realize the time involved in accepting this award. Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, there exists a community of esteemed artisans who craft replicas of waterfowl out of wood. Our local duck carvers hold a Rockwellian celebrity status. The carvers start with a piece of ordinary wood, and they meticulously chisel life-like details until a piece of artwork evolves.

Much like the carver, a writer’s art starts from something blank and ordinary. Writers are word-architects who chisel words into stories with the intention of showing love to someone by putting ourselves in their story. Writer Megan Garber speaks of writing like this: “Writing is a craft in the way that carpentry is a craft: There’s art to it, sure, and a certain inspiration required of it, definitely, but for the most part you’re just sawing and sanding and getting dust in your eyes.

At the end of a writer’s day, it’s not about the length of our subscriber list. Our writing is more profound and more significant than a list. It’s about pouring our words onto a page that will sooth a battered and broken heart. Maybe our carefully constructed words will offer some small measure of hope to the overwhelmed mom with the tear-stained face. Continue to offer your writing as a holy sacrifice.