A Different Story

Not so long ago I received an email from a nice gentleman I’ve never met. He stumbled onto A Different Story looking for some resources on diagramming sentences.

(Yeah, we’ve done that here.)

Not seeing an About page, his inquiry was simple: Who are you?

I live with myself all day long, so I figured it was an easy enough answer. I punched up Reply and set about drafting an answer.

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About two hours later, I was still staring at a blank screen.

Turned out it was a hard question.

Really hard.

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Feeling like a complete dork, I finally scraped together a lame response and then turned it back as quickly as I could to ask the same of him (i.e., get the focus off me). I was more impressed with his answer than mine. Not so much because of who he was, but because he seemed to at least have a clue about it.

Lest I receive another similar email and have to spend another half day cobbling together an explanation like that again, I’ve concluded an About page might not be such a bad idea.

Try this on for size. It’s only slightly less lame than the email I sent to Ronald.

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I am the wife of a teacher and coach, and mother to a seventh grader and freshman who I follow to courts, fields and diamonds all year long.  I do much of my thinking in the bleachers and my writing in the living room with balls whizzing past my head and ESPN on in the background.

I’m a city kid at heart, content to have now spent over half my life in rural northeastern South Dakota.

By day I handle casualty claims. Yes, one of those people. And I sleep just fine, thanks.

About every five years or so, God reroutes my career path. (This happens to be one of those years.) In my previous incarnations I worked in fundraising and PR for a social service agency, served as a church youth director, did retail sales and custom framing, posed as a web designer also doing tech support and training, and owned a family business selling trophies and awards.

Parents, warn your college age children. This is what happens to people who leave the university with a degree in political science.

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But the most important thing I can tell you about myself is that I am loved by the King.

He purchased me at an unthinkable price.

And I am His.

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I write because I write; I always have. But writing helps to make God’s truth real to me. He used the loss of a friend and coworker to nudge me into blogging. I wrote about that here. I’ll let you read that on your own.

I don’t pretend that this is scholarly work, nor that of a professional writer. I have no formal theological training, nor am I schooled in writing beyond the great benefit of a good liberal arts education.

It’s just that I love the Word.

And I love words.

I think the combination is blast.

I stay as far as I can from telling you what to do (except when the dorks get the best of me). What I write is what I must learn, so I’m the last person to act like the boss of you.

That’s God’s job.

And He’s way better at it.

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So listen, grab yourself a chair, put your feet up, and bring your favorite hot or cold beverage.

If you bring cookies and a little something from Starbucks or Caribou for me, you can stay a while.

Conversation is always welcome. Feel free to drop a comment, or email me here.

That’s how I know you’re here, and it helps keep me from talking too much.

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(One of my longer term goals is to get my statement of faith posted, in the not so remote possibility that I don’t manage to clearly articulate my core faith in my posts. In the meantime, the Statement of Beliefs of the North American Baptist Conference is a good representation.)