Who Am I?

I realized, after gaining some new followers recently, that I should probably re introduce myself to anyone who doesn’t know me.

I’m a wife of 27 years, a mother of 5 daughters, and a grandmother of 7. But most important of all, I AM A CHILD OF GOD! Saved. Redeemed. Justified. Forgiven. Blessed. Chosen! 

I have a passion for sharing God’s Word and trying to explain what I learn, in a simple, tell it like it is, yet loving fashion.

This was not always the case. For years I was happy just coasting along in my Christian walk, raising 5 girls under the age of 7, home schooling, teaching Sunday School, playing the piano for church, working in Youth Ministry, but not really growing in my Christian walk. I wasn’t searching out the scriptures in my own quiet time or digging deeper to find the precious truths held there.  

But God has ways of changing our lives for the better. He brought me through years of illness that left me depleted of energy, drained physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. He was longsuffering with me and stayed beside me through all the hard times, despite my faithless, complaining, sad and sorry state.  

And, being a slow learner, he has had to take me through several seasons of growth through trial.

I began a family blog back in 2013, when our family first moved to Katherine, NT, where we still live today, as a way to connect with my family and friends and send them photos of our life and adventures here. And what an adventure it has been.

What started as a family arriving with all their belongings in a bright red truck, an old 60 series Landcruiser a camper trailer, a car trailer and a Hiace van, with 5 daughters in tow, ages ranging from 10 to 17, living in a motel room for 3 and a half months, to present day with 3 daughters married, 3 great sons-in-law, 7 adorable grandchildren and 2 grown daughters living at home but independent and growing in the Lord and serving him in the church! What a ride the last 9 and a half years it has been.

I have gone from being a stay-at-home mum, home schooling, baking, taking photographs, sewing etc to owning a Transport Company with my husband, learning to drive a truck, learning to drive a bigger truck, then learning and getting my license driving Road Trains and becoming the most unordinary Grandma this family has ever seen!

It’s amazing how God works. If you had told me 9 years ago that this is what I’d be doing right now, I would have laughed out loud! I pictured myself, happily sewing and baking and spending time with Grandkids on my knee, singing to them, dancing across the kitchen, teaching them silly songs and waiting on the verandah for hubby to come home after work, with dinner bubbling away on the stove.

Well………okay, so maybe I do do a lot of these things. But not quite the way I pictured it. My days and nights look nothing like what I had planned, but they are what God has planned for this season of my life, and who am I to disagree with the Creator of the Universe and the Saviour of my soul!

So here I am, working most days, either driving a road train, or maybe a small truck or ute, lifting heavy boxes and delivering them around town, tying down loads of hay, shifting things around with a forklift, loading and unloading, sweating it out in 38 degree heat, dry, dusty, dirty and yet strangely enough, happy with where God has put me!

I still get to spend time with family and hold those precious grandchildren, I find a little time for hobbies and I’m able to prepare meals for my family, it just requires a lot of juggling and prioritizing and a whole lot of prayer asking God for wisdom for my days.

God has worked in my heart in a big way the past few years. He has given me a passion for women’s ministry and a desire to be an encouragement to others, teaching through writing and speaking wherever and whenever I have the opportunity, longing to share with others what God has taught me through the trials he has brought me through and to give hope to others struggling in their Christian walk or just in need of a word of encouragement straight from the pages of God’s Word.

As the desire to serve in this way grew, I decided to start a second blog, Learn. Live. Love. Share. (learnliveloveshare.blogspot.com) devoted completely to writing about my Christian walk and sharing what God teaches me through his Word.  

Having gone through long illness, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, I felt that I needed to write and encourage others that they too could make it through with God’s help. Sometimes we go through things so that we can help others in their time of need. God can use our trials and testings, our failings and our victories to speak to others.

And so, I pray that as my posts pop up in your feed on social media, that you don’t just click ‘like’ because you like the photo or the quote or the verse, but I pray that you would actually read the content, not because I have finesse or am eloquent or have great knowledge, but because I am writing to encourage, to inspire, to convict at times, to lift up, to bring hope and to share what God shows me through his Word.

We are all going through things, and we are all in different seasons of our lives and we just never know how God is going to work through something we say or share. If God has showed us something through his Word, or if we have gone through a difficult time in our lives and God has brought us miraculously through, we need to encourage others and give them the hope that they too can make it through those hard days and that God will be there to guide them.

So, please don’t be content to just ‘like’ pretty pictures, but take time to read the whole post, and not just mine, there are many others with the same passion as me, take the time to sit and read and meditate on the Word of God.

And please feel free to comment and share if what you read has helped you or what God has taught you through his Word. We really never know whose lives we can touch and the help we can bring by just being willing to speak up and let others know that God is a good God, and he is faithful, and he sees you right where you’re at and he loves you and cares about you and longs to hear your voice.

God bless,

Jill

 

Philippians 1:9-11

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.