Goodbye, 2013

I'm a totally different person at the end of 2013 than I was at the beginning. I have been through some crazy and heartbreaking things that I would not wish on anybody, and until just recently I thought that 2013 had been a pretty sucky year and that I would be glad to see it go. While it is indeed time for 2013 to retire, looking back, I have to say that it's been a good year. God has brought me through the trials, and used them to show me who he is. There are a crap ton of things that I have learned this year that I would not have learned without going through what I did and am.

2013 has been a year of surrender, a year of really seeking to find out who God is, a year of drastic life changes that have lead me to a more amazing relationship with God than I ever anticipated. And while I've learned so much and my relationship with God has blossomed (at the start of the year, until just a few weeks ago, I wasn't even sure I liked God, but I loved Jesus), I have so much further to go. I'm not one of these Christians that has a daily "quiet time" with God. It's not that I don't read the Bible and don't pray, but for me, the whole read a chapter of the Bible and a three minute devotional and then pray doesn't work for me. I used to feel guilty about this, as if not having that daily "quiet time" made me a terrible Christian whose relationship with God would always suck. But I have learned that it isn't about having a "quiet time", it's about having a relationship with God. Some days, God and I talk a lot, and other days, just a little. That's how relationships go.

Despite a set "quiet time" not working for me, I do dig in and study the Bible, and I do have open and honest communication with God. It's just that some days I pray as I do things all throughout the day, and do open up and read my Bible at night. Sometimes I am in the Bible all day long, some days I sing worship songs really loud as I drive down the I-59. I talk with friends about the deep things of God, I go to counseling, I read good encouraging books, I'm always learning something. I try to live out my faith day to day, try to demonstrate God to my children. I'm not saying the "quiet time" idea is a bad one or that it doesn't work, it definitely works for a lot of people, but for my relationship with God and the way I do faith, it's not the best fit.

That's what it's about, it's about God, my relationship with him, and loving him with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. I've learned so many things about relationships this year, about my relationship with God and also my relationships with others. The one relationship that I had vowed "till death do us part" didn't quite work out that way for me, and my relationships with others have taken a beating but ultimately come out the better for it. I'm still learning a lot about relationships, because obviously for my marriage to break down I'm not that great at doing relationships. This year I have learned the value of love, peace, grace and forgiveness in relationships, having to forgive others but even more, needing forgiveness from others. I'll be writing a lot about all of that in the new year, because it's been life-changing.

I've learned that part of loving God with my mind is using the intellectual ability he gave me for his glory, which is a big part of why I re-branded the blog. Loving God with my mind means being thankful for and using the academic knowledge that I have been blessed to be able to obtain, but also knowing that faith goes beyond intellect. It means using my skills in writing, communications and sociology as gifts to him and as something that will edify the body of Christ as well as unbelievers. It means furthering my education so that I will have more knowledge and more skills to share, it means trusting God even when things don't make sense.

This overview cannot contain all the amazing things that I have learned this year, which means that while this year has been hard and I wouldn't want to go through these things again, I have learned that God does what he promises when he says that all things work together for good for those who love him. I have learned the importance of peace and unity in the body of Christ, I have learned that God is amazing. Here's to another year of relationship with God, of worshiping in community and doing life and faith with the body of Christ, of learning new things, of being committed to God. In the end I'm thankful to have been through 2013 even though I wouldn't have chosen it if I had known beforehand. And I'm looking forward to 2014.

Re-Branded

I have been blogging since the time when blogging was still a fairly new phenomena. When I started blogging I was a fundamentalist "Christian" (although I did not have a relationship with God) living in Australia and I blogged a lot about rules and regulations that I subjected myself to to make myself acceptable in God's sight (thankfully, it doesn't work that way). Fast forward to now and I'm a somewhat progressive (but not completely) Christian who does have a relationship with God who doesn't claim any particular denomination, I go to my church because it is amazing. All this to say that blogging has been a major part of my adult life and it has been a great journey.

This blog is the next part in my journey. About a year ago, I re-branded my blog to my name, "Katy-Anne Wilson" wanting to make a name for myself in the world of Christian blogging and publishing. It was what I thought all the other successful Christian bloggers were doing, and I wanted to be successful more than anything. It's taken me all this time to realize that it isn't about to me, it's much bigger than me. I shouldn't be trying to promote myself, I should be trying to promote Christ. I think of John the Baptist whose purpose was to make a name for Jesus rather than make a name for himself. I'd still like people to enjoy my blog and my other work and pass it along, but I'd like them to do it because it edified them rather than because it was something that I wrote.

I chose to re-brand under the name "Edify" because as someone who writes and tries to professionally communicate, God has been revealing to me that the whole entire point of writing and communication is that for the words to be a gift for others, the words will build them other, not tear them down. I would still like to make a career out of what I believe God has called me to do, but it is my secondary purpose. My primary purpose is to provide edifying content for and to the body of Christ. I also want to provide edifying content for seekers of Jesus and to portray who Jesus is to the best of my ability.

Some of the topics I write about are going to be controversial, just because of the nature of the topic. However, my goal is to edify, not to create controversy. So I will no longer provide content just for it's controversial factor, trying to get people interested in my work through my opinions on controversial matters. If the content doesn't edify, it doesn't belong here. For example, I will write about pacifism and how it has lead me on an amazing spiritual journey, but I shall leave the arguments about Duck Dynasty and Chick-Fil-A etc, to other writers. Rather than point fingers at those who I might believe to be wrong, I'm going to focus on providing content that will unite rather than divide.

I hope and pray that the content on this site will edify you, that it will challenge you, that it will unite you with other believers.