Yeah!  Another award, and another cause for celebration on Grace and Truth!

Thanks a lot to my new found Blogger buddy, Joseyphina, for nominating me for this honourable award.  I am so grateful!  It has been a great pleasure knowing you, and exploring your mind through your blog, and sharing your love for Christ.  Your blog is one I must check everyday, because you always have something uplifting for the soul.  If you aren’t following, Joseyphina’s World, you’re missing out 🙂

Okay, so in accepting this reward, I am required to:

1. Write a post to show the award (Ongoing)

2. Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you (Done!)

3. Give a brief story about how you started blogging (Coming next…)

4. Give 2 pieces of advice for new bloggers (Gladly :))

5. Nominate 15 deserving bloggers (Piece of cake!)

So for my brief story… I already shared this in my recent celebration post, marking FOUR years as a Blogger, and in another recent piece called GIVE GOD AN INCH.  But, for the sake of this post, I’ll try to reiterate.

I found out about WordPress blogs from two friends of mine who had started blogging about their charity work, while I had a website for mine that had been set up by someone else, not on WordPress (it’s now re-built on WordPress by me!).  I thought I would like to start a personal blog too, because I loved writing, and my talent was going to waste with my private journal, where I used to write my poems (that no one got to read).

Writing was therapeutic for me back then, and my longest pieces were probably letters to myself (not many though), or letters to an ex (one or two that never got sent) or letters to God (when I was struggling with prayer – it’s a great idea by the way!).  I also had a friend that I used to talk to everything about, and mostly, we discussed our Faith, but the relationship was severed, and I still needed an outlet to “preach to myself”, to edify myself, to “discuss out loud” what God was teaching me and to hold myself to the lessons learnt.  So the blog became my sounding board, the writing on the wall…my accountability partner and my therapist!

God has made it so much more, and I give Him all the glory for what it is today.  I’m excited about where this road is leading, but I don’t want to race ahead with pride and end up where God didn’t lead me…  I dedicated the blog to Him from the beginning, and I am learning to continually let Him speak through me, ministering to myself and others.

So are you a new blogger?  Thinking of starting a blog?  It will be the best thing you ever did!  Believe me.  It’s the cheapest therapy 🙂  And you get to meet some amazing people, learn from others, and help others too.  The blogging community is great!

You don’t need to be a great writer or a wordsmith to have a blog.  There are blogs that are built of pictures, recipes, fashion and make-up tips.  Some share devotionals with their brief lessons, and these can inspire conversations.  If you are Christian, I think blogging will not only help you share your faith, it will also help you live more authentically as a Christian.  There’s nothing like telling people they shouldn’t lie or sin to make you hold your tongue the next time you’re about to!

So my two pieces of advice to new bloggers is to be sincere and be faithful!  You have to be true to who you are, and the purpose of the blog to get anything from it.  And you have to stick it out, even when it seems you are just shouting out in space and no one is reading your works (read OASIS FOR THE LORD).  Believe me, someone is, and soon, you will begin to be encouraged by followers who not only read, but ‘like’ and comment and share!  That’s when it gets amazing 🙂

Okay, to close this long post (sorry, bad habit!), I would like to appreciate all these amazing bloggers who have encouraged and inspired me with their comments and their insightful pieces.  I invite you to visit and follow them, if you’re not doing so already.

1. Itunu

2. Karina Lam

3. Robert Hansen

4. The Ancients

5. M. R. Charles

6. Deanna Reynolds

7. Beholding Him Ministries

8. Kim

9. Ava

10. April

11. Elihu

12. Wally

13. James 

14. Damiloves

15. Patrick Hawthorne

Oh, but there are so many more 😦  I would just like to encourage everyone who made my Top 15 to keep on keeping on shining for Jesus!

I think I’m all done!  Thanks for reading and following my blog.  Thanks again for the award (no longer nomination, as it is accepted!), Josey xoxo.

God bless you all!

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