I'm the blogger again.

My daughter Kelly is a 22-year-old young woman who has a rare syndrome called Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. She is intellectually challenged, but has a delightful way of putting things in simple statements that accurately communicate what she is thinking or feeling. When I leave on a trip, she mentally steps into my shoes as the woman in charge of the home; she says "Mommy, I'm your substitute!" Upon my return, she has a saying that she uses to step down from that responsibility: I'm the daughter again.

I've just logged on to this blog after over three years away from it so I'd like to now say: I'm the blogger again!

I've been feeling called to write more and returning to my Jenny's Noise blog seemed the best way to begin. I started this blog back in 2007 by sharing a testimony of Kelly's healing that took place while I was on a Sharing Our Faith (SOF) evangelistic outreach in Gainesville, FL. I then wrote primarily about the other SOF conferences that we did around the country. Now, I feel called to not only begin blogging again, but also to return to my original topic - that of Kelly and the profound impact that she has had on our family and the lives of many others.

I don't use the word called lightly. I've been thinking about writing again for a while now - thinking about it, but not doing it! Can anyone relate to that? I've shrugged off that feeling that this is something that God wants me to do with all kinds of excuses:

• I'm too busy with my ministry work.
• I don't have any real training for writing.
• There are so many other books, blogs and devotionals already written, why does the world need another one?
• I can't get up earlier or stay up later than I'm doing already in order to write.
• Fill in your excuse here, and I've probably used that one too.

Yesterday, I prayed that if the Lord wanted me to start blogging again that He would wake me up earlier than usual with enough energy to actually get up and do it. This morning, He did. I woke up and actually spent some quiet time watching the sun rise.

I read the entry from October 25 in one of my favorite devotionals Oswald Chambers' book My Utmost for His Highest and it ended with this paragraph:

Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you “turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . .” (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.

It hit me between the eyes as things often do when the Lord says, basically, "I'm not kidding!" There is something that God wants to accomplish through my writing that I need to accept as a calling that God has placed on my life. As my former pastor, Tom Herrick, says: Only do what only you can do." Writing what God has done and is doing in the life of my family is something that only I can do, and I need to let God have His way.