It's late, and not time at all for a blog post, but I've missed so much the interplay of words that I must dabble with some this night. It was about 70 here today, and I hear that my beloved Montana is predicting -16 this coming week. Sweet injections of joy have been surging my soul, and while little introspection has been had, my mind fills with the wondrous ebb and flow of this life.

I boarded a train for Montana seven years ago, and had I known of the blessings to follow, I would have never dreamed a life to be my own. Unfortunately, it takes a looking back and savoring to assess this, but nevertheless, I've been heaped with earthly joys I never expected to receive. I landed in Shelby, MT and bumped along the long dirt roads with insane anticipation and insurmountable felicity. My first home scene was a bluegrass showdown, and in typical Nellie fashion, I was so overwhelmed with sensory overload that afterward I took to the field for lone cartwheels and deep praise of God. I remember being blasted down in awe seeing Steamboat and Twin Buttes for the first time, and I continually lost myself in the Lord in that dear place. The year blew by, and one became five, as I endeavored to part with that place so dear to my soul.


I sit here in Columbia, South Carolina with a heart full of praise to the Giver, and open hands to Providence's amassing grand favor. Our God is good, and it is only in Him to bless His children, whether we see His blessing, or behold the passing fringes of His robe. He loves you, reader, and desires you deeply to know this, and Him.

For the past three years I have been endowed with the task of tracing the dew marks beneath the fog. Many prayers have been uttered out, and into unaccounted obscurity, and with a hand breadth of hope I shot them up to Him. Spurgeon speaks of these long uttered prayers, and says: the mist will part, the way will clear, and as Isaiah 30:20 says, "Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you; "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left." Knowing not how, He will make the way for us. Ambiguity births clarity, and those frozen hopes begin to thaw and droop with richer clusters and fuller, more luxuriant boughs.

Our God is a God of hope, and as His faithfulness enters my mind, I am enlivened to think of my future. That unknown abyss need not be so bleak, and is rather an immeasurably deep pool of future grace, through which I will indefinitely pass. My grandma wrote these words to me, "I don't tell you enough how much I care and wish you the most of God's will for you. So often what is said the least, is wished the most. What a great gift God gave for a granddaughter." My dear grandma has only recently acquired this heavenly tenderness, and her words come to my heart as from God. If only we knew how affectionately He tends us, and how faithfully He watches over us. I am determined to stake out His faithful biddings, and I draw you, dear reader to this very thing, on this very day.