'So tell us a bit about yourself.' Argh!!

There's a section on a facebook page and blog site that I dread being faced with. I find it the hardest

thing to write. I could write a hundred versions and not be satisfied with it. It's the 'about' blurb. Tell your readers about yourself, what are you about, what's your deal?

Ugh, it's akin to that introductory job interview line, " So tell us a bit about yourself." Is this supposed to be the easy one to help you relax into it? I mean, there are all sorts of pitfalls here! Share too little, you sound dull, unmotivated, vague and uninspired, share too much and you sound over enthusiastic at best and extrovert without boundaries at worst.

I've yet to come up with the perfect blurb, does such a thing even exist, but this is what I was eventually able to wring out of myself recently, as I attempted to fill in the blank space at the side of the facebook page.

Welcome to New Pebbles blog page! Love that you're here and joining me on the journey in words and faith. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved words. I loved reading books. I loved how other people used words to create stories. I also had an obesession with notebooks and I would mostly write down other people's words in them, but as I got older, I began to write down my own words. I journaled reflectively, having a long and private conversation with God, until one day he said, 'I'd like you to write things for other people now and share the encouragement I've been giving you through words.' 

Thus Thessalonians 5:11 is my remit. 

'So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you'll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind.' (MSG) 

I hope you find words here that will encourage you because we all need encouragement, we all need hope and all need to journey together in faith.

On finishing that little job, I watched a gardening programme - don't judge, it's relaxing! Needed after  the mind melt that is reducing your online raison d'être to less than two hundred words.

In fact, it was rather helpful in thinking about my 'about'. 

The gardeners made a plan, elaborating their ideas on paper using pens, pencils and paints. The designs themselves were works of art, before the actual garden plot had even been touched. Then came the digger, the wheelbarrows, the hammers and spades, the measuring tape and the skip out front for waste. It all got very messy before the space started to take shape according to the design.

Strategic design and purposeful planting resulted in a beautiful and beneficial garden, intended for use not just by the owners but to be extended hospitably to others.

God makes each of us with great care and precision. The fact that I liked reading and collecting notebooks as a little girl is still working itself out as part of his original design. I love how there is a continuous thread. They're my trellis, part of the hard landscape. What grows on the trellis springs from the seeds planted in the sanctified soil of imagination and creativity.

God the artist and gardener does the design work, the planting and the ongoing maintenance in each of us. How he designed us in the beginning is still being tended to by his wise and loving, crucifix scarred hands. Hands that aren't afraid to get covered in grime and dirt as they dig deep into the land of our heart and soul.

So do the good creative things that are part of who you are. Trellis comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes to support all kinds of growth. Make music, craft, sketch, paint or write, manage people, organise, teach, train, do all the maths, figure out the science, God's designs are infinite, no two gardens are exactly the same but soil belonging to him is holy and anointed.

In that soil will grow the things that will make up your 'blurb', your 'about'.

The lattice of creativity, beauty and purpose will glorify God because he put it all there to flower and flourish as testimony to his design genius.