Something New

As you can see I have updated the look of my blog in order to reflect more clearly the path of life that I am on right now.  The history of my blog is this:  I started writing on it (sporadically) in 2007, although I was mainly on Livejournal at that time.  I called this blog "My New Life" because during those months I began my current job and eventually moved out of my parents on my own.  For someone who had grown up in a rather sheltered environment (devout Christian and home-schooled , that time was a big deal for me and writing about it helped me cope with everything.

Eventually I changed my blog AGAIN to "A Changed Life", because I was no longer having a new life but I was living something completely different than I had ever anticipated.  I moved away from attending church three times a week and became close friends with co-workers and people from other walks of life.  I also started drinking, which isn't a big deal to me now but had once been something that I had placed on my black list of evils along with premarital sex...which soon followed the drinking as these things often go.  

I made mistakes, errors in judgement, trusted people who I shouldn't have, suffered a bit and finally now have come to a realization:  I am constantly being renewed and changed.  There isn't a point in our lives when we should allow ourselves to become stagnant and still, so with that I feel that there should be growing and learning always happening, a never ending cycle.

So why did I rename this blog "Grains of Sand"?  It came as an inspiration and an acceptance of what I believe.  For the longest time I pushed faith and belief away from me, having this idea that if I wasn't a perfect person who didn't live the life my parents equated with Christianity, I couldn't believe in God.  It has been over two years of struggling with these ideas, but I think I'm finally on the road to healing and...God.

I know it sounds trite to talk about spiritual things on Blogspot;  certainly it is a little cliched. However,  this is an important part of who I am.  When I take pictures of nature, I see the hand of God, orchestrating the beautiful change of autumn colours.  Faith is inherent to my nature for many reasons and I have to accept that, instead of spending my entire life fighting the compulsion to pray or believe in God.

Here is the truth--I want to be cool and still post fun pictures, book reviews, etc.  I'm not morphing into some denim-wearing, knitting socks, baking house wife.  I still have odd thoughts and concepts which I will extrapolate about within this blog.   I hope anyone who frequently read this blog (if anyone does) won't stop now because I promise I am still the same person and writer as always.   I may write heavier posts with a little less levity at times, but I'm still Marcia!

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you. ~Ps. 139:17,18

Thank you for reading this and following me along my journey.  More to come!

Enjoy the pictures of autumn below.  The last one is from a War of 1812 re-enactment that we went to this past weekend.  Lots of fun and interesting things to be seen and done in Southern Ontario.