The summer after my senior year of high school I got to meet Elisabeth Elliot thanks to a kind friend who offered to introduce me to one of my favorite authors. I was so thrilled! And nervous. So nervous that when I met her I lost my balance and threw my arms around an end table that was holding a rather large plant. Well, it didn't hold me up and all of that fell with me into the fireplace that was there behind it. 

It was only witnessed by a room packed full of people who were looking on as they waited for their turn to meet her too.  

I so wanted to let Elisabeth Elliot know how much her writing had meant to me! And I fell into a fireplace.

One thing I believe through nine years of journeying through study, conversation and story about doubts and longings is that our most unsure places as people seem to be so connected with some of the most well-meaning parts of us. Parts of us that really just want to offer love in our life work and relationships. 

An unsure feeling, whether it shows itself outwardly, or only inside the heart, is almost always connected somehow, someway, with a sense of love that we are trying to find. Or maybe trying to give.       

Maybe there is a reason the two things are connected. Maybe we don't have a need to sweep our unsure feelings out of the way as much as we have a need let them move us into who Love is. 

When I began this blog in 2014, I named it Once Shy because that is my testimony. 

Once upon a time, I was just a shy girl. It felt like such a weakness. But, I am found in Jesus. And in the upside down story of Jesus, weakness becomes the place where His power is made perfect. It's my favorite verse. 2 Corinthians 12:9.

For years before I started this blog, I had always tried to make my shy feelings go away and it only made me feel defeated. But maybe insecure feelings keep showing up because they have a need to be given a purpose. Maybe that purpose is Love.

Love can be a terrifying thing, especially when we've seen so many distorted versions of it. After all, we don't want to be misunderstood for something that's not really like Love at all.  

But maybe this actually gives us all the more reason to press into Love, even if we have to do it shy. Because Love is the most beautiful thing in the world. And Love is a Person who is bigger than us. He is the One who is able to use us, even in the weakest love we give. 

Maybe in God's kingdom every unsure place inside us can be directed into beautiful passionate purpose in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe every unsure feeling is all about Love. (See my little book about the messy art of Love.)   

So welcome from a shy girl writing to you from a hundred year old farmhouse in small-town country, Texas. I'm over here with my husband Luiz (who I affectionately refer to as Nano), and my three dear babies - Amayah, Liesel and Gideon. 

I've put together a little prayer ebook of some simple ways to freshly lean our colorful hearts into prayer. It's a free gift I offer to my subscribers that is available at the bottom of this page and I pray you find it's truths and rhythms as helpful as I have!

Let's be email friends? Because if we both have unsure places somewhere inside us then I'd love to keep in touch. I'll send you monthly reflections with some stories of my own journey with Jesus through the unsure places and I would be giddy to hear yours if you'd be as kind as to message me back.    

Consider yourself family here. May this be a place where we learn Love in the shy stuff of life and know that He can use it. 

Loving shy, 

Maggie