Hi there!
I'm Hannah and I'm new to the blogging world so I'm not sure how it all goes, but I guess I'll figure things out along the way. I decided to create this blog because I needed someplace where I could write about my life without having to carry a thick journal everywhere with me. I'm going to use this site as my portable journal. I might write entries about my day and how it went. I might also post some poem or short story I wrote since I'm into creative writing, so no harsh comments please. I'm also gonna put it right out there that yes! I am a Christian! so I will use this site as a place to post encouraging scripture verses that help me get through the day or talk about and discuss a passage I've read recently. If you don't believe in the God of the Bible, then you don't have to continue reading if you don't want to. I don't want to worry about accidentally offending someone because I might not hold the same beliefs I do. However, if you don't mind hearing the points of view of other people, feel free to keep reading. First, I want to give any possible readers a peek at my background before I dive head first into my problems, so here's my (kind of) testimony. All throughout my life, I was raised in a Christian home, but I didn't always act like the perfect Christian. I may have looked like it in public sometimes, but inside I had doubts about my religion, unfriendly thoughts about people, and disobeyed and rebelled against my parents all throughout my early adolescent years. I'm still not quite a full-fledged adult yet, and I still make a lot of mistakes, but during high school, I learned that the only opinion about me that matters is that of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Freshman year of high school, I entered as a quiet, sheltered young girl, afraid to form and express my own opinion about how I should act, what I should wear, and who I should be friends with. I had been homeschooled up until high school, so I hadn't had a lot of experience with life's harsh reality. I stopped caring about how I acted towards people and I felt like I didn't belong for a while because I started high school in a place where most kids in my class had been together since elementary and middle school. I was the typical new girl and I had trouble finding the right kind of people to hang around. Even though my school was a small, Christian private school, a lot of the kids attending didn't always seem to act out their faith around their peers. I saw this and thought to myself, "What hypocrites!" Some of them might have stood during worship in the weekly chapel, raised their hands to praise God, but the next period, they were gossipping about someone behind their back and cussing left and right. It was then when I knew I wanted to turn my life around. I didn't want to act fake when it came to God, especially with my friends. I ended up finding a great group of friends who genuinely loved God, weren't afraid to act like their true selves and encouraged me to keep my faith in God when I felt down about something. Even though, since my entrance into college life, I don't see them as much anymore, I still look back on those memories fondly as the turning point in my life. From about Sophmore year on, I started finding my way back to my Christian faith. Senior year, a group of my friends started a weekly prayer group where we would go up to the school chaplain's office every Monday during lunch and could ask each other for prayer and intercession for problems without feeling judged. I loved going because I knew I could be real with them about my struggles and triumphs. This support continued until eventually, at the end of this past school year, 2010, I graduated from high school, thus ending my connection to the prayer group support I had started to depend on. Over that summer, I went on a mission trip to Mexico with some friends from church that helped change my heart about ministry forever. That's a very long story and I'll save that testimony for a later entry. Around that same time, however, I was able to connect with other people from my alma mater who were meeting outside of school time to conduct a bible study once a week in the evening. I started going to that and I still attend whenever my calendar permits. That bible study has inspired me lately to get back to reading my Bible during any of my free time. I realized that if I just took more time to actually read the Bible, I can get a completely different message each time I visit a passage that I thought I had known before. Since the year of 2010 is drawing to a close, I'm reminded of how much my life has changed within 365 days. I turned 18, graduated high school near the top of my class, went on my first plane ride, travelled to a foreign country for the first time, rededicated my life to God, got my Driver's License (finally), got my first real part-time job at Target, started my first semester in college, figured out how the public city bus system works so I can get to school each day, and I am now finishing up my first semester of college by surviving finals season at school. Life has been hectic, and the challenges keep coming, but with God's grace, I will keep on going to face even more problems in the future ahead. My favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11 says "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (NIV) God has a plan for my life, and I pray that by hearing my testimony, you yourself can be encouraged as well.
