Your First Love

What do you enjoy? What gets you excited? What puts a smile on your face every time you think about it? Your answers to these questions are a strong indication of things you love. Now, there are many definitions of love, but there is a particular definition I want to focus on for today. Today’s definition about love I want to focus on is about doing something with a strong enthusiasm. Being enthusiastic shows excitement. We usually get excited about something we love. What gets you excited may have started in your childhood or later in life as a teenager, young adult, or adult. Something I love to do is write 😀! My love for writing stories started when I was a child in my upper elementary/ middle school years. I was quiet in school and still am in ways, but once I get to know you, I do open up more. Teaching and speaking in front of people more has helped me build my confidence of public speaking. Writing was a great way to express myself (it still is!) and to encourage others. I did stop writing during my college years and some years after.  I wasn’t being as intentional about setting aside time to write, but my love for writing has always been there. Handwritten notes of encouragement have always excited me. Writing them and receiving them give me joy. Words of affirmation is in my top 3 of love languages 💗! I’m so thankful that I am more intentional about setting aside time to write now. I usually keep some cards on hand- birthday, sympathy, thinking of you. For a few months last year, I didn’t have my stash of cards. Then a few months later, God told me to get my cards ready again. At about the same time, one of the leaders in an outreach group I am a part of shared with me that God had laid on her that we start giving cards out to people again, which we hadn’t done for a while. It was definitely confirmation 👏! The cards have come in right on time and have been a great opportunity to let people know they are thought of and appreciated. Another thing I love to do is scrapbook! I love pictures for those who may not know 😀. I love taking them and I love being in them! I started scrapbooking a couple of years ago and that was inspired by my beautiful Mom 💜. We had lots of old, local newspapers around the house. My Mom liked to cut out pictures of people we knew and their accomplishments from the newspaper and started keeping a folder of all those pictures. I kept thinking there must be something we can do with these pictures. I already had cut outs and words and pictures from old magazines. Then one day, I got the idea- I can put these pictures in a scrapbook. At that point, I had never done a scrapbook! A scrapbook is similar to a photo album, but the blank pages are usually much bigger and can be used for pictures and added decorations like jewels and sayings. Some of the newspaper articles were on the bigger side and whole articles could be placed on the blank pages. I brought different color scrapbooks and sorted the pictures out by category (sports, baby news, church news, school, etc.) and created the scrapbooks. Several scrapbooks have been created and I love looking back at them. Many of you that I know reading this post are somewhere in the scrapbooks 😉😀. My brother and I continued to cut out pictures from our newspaper, but I did not work on the scrapbooks for a while. So here comes the year 2021. That was the year one of my cousins and I went to visit Massanutten, Virginia, which is so beautiful if ever get the chance to visit. Of course, while there I took lots of pictures. Then I printed all the pictures off. I had to put those beautiful pictures somewhere. Guess what I did?!! You guessed it!! I started a travel scrapbook and placed the pictures in there.  I went back to my love of scrapbooking 💗. My brother and I still cut pictures from the local newspaper. I still need to get back to doing the local newspaper clippings soon too! So, I have shared two things I love with you- writing and scrapbooking. What do you love to do? Is there something you once loved to do, but for some reason, you don't do it right now? What are you naturally talented at? What are your gifts? Make time for it. We all have different gifts and can use them everywhere we go (Romans 12:6-8). All are needed whether it is serving, singing, or leading. I encourage you today to go back to your first love. Go back to being intentional about setting aside time to use those gifts and do the things that excite and bring joy to you. Not only will they bring joy to you, but they will bring joy to others. Someone is waiting on us to use our gifts. Someone is watching us. Someone is encouraged by us. Keep going and let your love for God and your gift shine through for all to see 💛! God bless 🙏!