The First Edition

Welcome to anyone whose eyes are gracing this page today. I’m so glad you’re here.

For this very first edition of the weekly pages, I had the hardest time deciding on subject matter. This blog venture has been one that I’ve been waiting to start for a few years now. One may ask what took me so long, and the easy answer is that I was just too busy. But the real answer is that I’m my own worst critic and no one doubts me more than myself.

But in the past year, I’ve done the kind of self and spiritual observation that can only mean that my frontal lobe must be fully developed, and that I finally gained the good sense to truly give my life to Christ once and for all. Some people ‘get it’ and know who they are undoubtedly really early on in life, and depending on your viewpoint on the age twenty-four, I could be considered one of those people. The jury is still out. 

I feel that I’ve come to the ‘I get it’ moment so early in life because I went through my season of rebellion even earlier; the middle of my senior year of high school through a year or two thereafter. The kind of crazy that I was operating at is between God and me alone, but during that time I didn’t exactly regard His opinion as much as I should have. 

Like so many others, I was living so deep within my sin that I didn’t realize that there was any depth to it at all. I had lost sight of so many important things, especially Him. But even so, those years were truly so foundational and reformative for me. I’m sure you’ve heard Christians and people all over the place say this before, but I’m a firm believer that sometimes you just can’t look up until you’ve hit rock bottom. 

Even after I got out of that season of my life, got married, and moved into new seasons, I still kept shying away from fully giving my life to God. I had firmly been a believer since I was in middle school, but as I grew older I fell for the mindset that being a lukewarm Christian is still being one, and there couldn’t be that much trouble in it. 

But since last June, that idea has repulsed me to the point that my entire life has turned around because of it. It’s crazy what happens when you really let God take the reins and stop fighting against Him for full control. If you would have told me even a year ago that I’d be the kind of person that unabashedly aims to bring up Jesus in conversation with people I hardly know I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

When I truly gained faithfulness, and began to walk the way that was divinely intended for me (even though I falter quite often), I also gained so much peace and prosperity in ways that I’d never considered. Not long after, the self-doubt started to fade. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a work in progress, but progress is key. 

I started writing so much more. I wrote little private pieces here and there as I worked to finish up my Bachelor’s degree in Professional Writing, along with everything that I had to write for my courses. I started to see so much improvement in my personal writing style, and finally felt proud of the work I was producing. A piece of poetry that I wrote for my father was included as an Editor’s Pick and published within a university literary magazine: The Fall Line Review (Middle Georgia State University). While the publication was definitely not a front-page slot within the New York Times, it was a publication nonetheless, and it gave me great hope.

With that hope eventually came great conviction – a growing pull to write more, to share my ideas more, and most importantly to exalt God through those ideas and experiences that I share. It felt like a calling, and one that I intend to answer to the best of my ability.

In the coming weeks of the weekly pages, I plan to expand on many of the ideas that I’ve mentioned this week and explore others by pulling on scripture, and connecting us all through testimonial storytelling. If there’s anything that you’d like to hear about, want to share, or have questions about, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page. I’d love to hear from you!

For me, this page is the very first stepping stone of what will eventually become an anthology of the work I release into the world, if I have His blessing in my endeavors. We all have to start somewhere, and I figure that there is truly no better time than the present.

So here I am and here I will stay, pouring my heart and hopes into these pages, all for the chance that my words may find their way into the lives of someone who needs to hear them. Whether that need is for reassurance in tough times, comfort, joy, or even to be pointed back to God when your faith wavers. I hope that my words will always lift your eyes back to God above. If He can turn my life around, silencing my fears and doubts – He can silence whatever ails you, too. 

PSALM 23: 1-3

[1] The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

[2] He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

[3] He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for his name’s sake. (ESV)

All in all, I just wanted to start this all off genuinely, and be so forthcoming about the road and the obstacles that eventually led me here today. I look forward to further exploring all of this and so much more with you in the coming editions. 

Until next week,

— E. Byers, author of The Grassy Laine