Category Archives: changes

My Blog Facelift and a Little Mission Clarification

Yeah I changed my name again. I started blogging about 8 years ago actually. If you read through my blog (which I wouldn’t recommend… much better reading material out there) you’d find this blog has gone through several name changes and paint jobs. The content has had a similar theme along the way with varying emphasis which if I plotted on a graph would directly correlate to the current state of my marriage.

I am a mom and wife of 23 years to a man who does not share my love and worship of Jesus.  We met as teenagers, married while I was still a teenager and new believer, and have endured many hard times together and apart.  We’ve been separated twice and nearly signed divorce papers both times.  But, for God’s reasons (which are worth a lifetime of a difficult marriage) we didn’t and so the saga continues and I continue to blog as a public display of my affection for Christ in this hard life.

I believe the truly Christian life is not wasted.  It’s invested.  In eternity in the lives of those around us.  We die daily but not in vain.  We die daily to ourselves because we’ve seen a glimpse of the glory of God in the Jesus we’ve never seen with the eyes of our hearts and we’re hooked!  We want his glory… at all costs.  We want him to be high and lifted up in all things, especially our lives!  And we want our lives to reflect the true nature of the God we were made to image.

And so I change my blog wallpaper here periodically and the title changes too because I’m being changed all the time.  I’m being developed and matured and conformed to the image of Christ and I want to encourage someone else and comfort someone else and grieve with someone else and rejoice with someone else even through a blog.

My heart for my home to be my primary field of mission for living out my life as a Christian, desiring my husband and children to join me in that life, has been the driving force behind this blog and the changing of titles usually reflects that heart.  Being a homemaker is not just being a mom and wife who doesn’t work outside the home.  Being a homemaker is what all mom’s and wives are specially designed and equipped to do.  It’s a big topic on which I could blog a lot, and have.  But the term homemaker, especially in the Christian circle, has taken on a meaning that can cut a lot of women out of the picture.  I don’t want to just be a blessing to stay-at-home-moms (although I want to bless them too!).  I want to encourage women of all circumstances to find their identity in Christ and to walk with him through this life.  Hence my return to A Woman Found.  As far as Sojourning Sheila goes, yeah, that describes me.  But I don’t want this blog to just be about me.   Nothing wrong with that, I just feel like I might encourage another woman out there more if I don’t just use this blog to write about me and my daily life stuff- I’ll do that too, but I want to share the comforts I have been comforted in by Christ, and the sorrows I share with fellow suffers, and the joys only those who walk with Jesus know.  Only women, and men, found by Christ will really get what I talk about here.  Cause it just doesn’t make sense without being found by Him.  And I want those who may read this blog, who don’t worship Christ, to scratch their heads and hopefully pique their interest.  Maybe they would want to be found by Him too.

Ok.  That’s all.

Refuge in the Unchangeable.

I haven’t written consistently over the past few years. In fact, I stopped blogging and journaling about 4 years ago when my husband and I separated. I felt like God shut my mouth (or hands). In part I couldn’t write publicly because I was afraid of what would come out and the further damage it may cause. But mostly I just didn’t have the overflow of thought to pen or keypad like I had before that major earthquake hit my life.  It wasn’t really until my pastor encouraged me to write more that I started doing so.  But, even since then, I’ve been very inconsistent.  Tonight, while reading his blog, I was immediately reminded that I need to “stir up the gift”.  I may have had a season of being quiet in my writing/blogging, but it’s time to start again, and if I don’t shake these cobwebs off, and keep writing I’m gonna be wasting something God gave me.  Not that each post will by any means be “inspired”, but I certainly could improve at being more disciplined in writing for the value of the exercise itself.

I watched the eighth graders at Wildflower (the school where I’ve been employed as a nurse for four years) commence into high school today.  These four years have gone by so fast.  So much has happened.  When a period of time is eventful it seems to go by more quickly.  When I started at Wildflower I was at a very low place in my life.  I didn’t want to be there.  I didn’t want my life to be the way it was.  But God put me there.  And I’m convinced, after these four years, there were at least some specific children I was put there for.  Not that I was the main instrument of ministering.  Those children were used of God in my life more than they’ll ever know!  I was never “Nurse Sheila” before.  And being called “Nurse Sheila” will feel like a hug to me henceforth.

Watching those kids walk in the commencement ceremony today, it hit me:  Connor is going into fifth grade this fall.  That’s exactly the age these kids were when I began caring for them at Wildflower.  This means my firstborn son is going to be graduating from 8th grade in a flash!  Oh dear.  I haven’t much time.

There are so many changes on the horizon, and, although I know and have great assurance that my good God is sovereign over them all, and has, in fact, ordained them to be, I am still a bit queasy for all that movement and change occurring right now.  I’m starting a new job in the hospital this month.  James  purchased a fixer-upper house which we will be moving into at the end of this month.  The house is on horse property and is in a county-island with a Surprise zip code.  The boys will either have to be driven daily to the school they went to this year (it’s a good school) or go to the school where our new house is.  I like the idea of them going to a school in their neighborhood.  I like to know my neighbors and have my kids involved with the kids in their neighborhood.  Going to the same school as your neighbors is a good way to do that.  But I also don’t like switching schools.  They both love the school they’re at now and so do I.  It’s a decision we have to make.

All of this is going down and the boys and I are taking off to Oregon and Northern Cal this weekend for our annual trip home.  We’ll be gone for two weeks and when we get back, all those changes will be upon us.

I say all the changes have made me queasy cause that’s literally how I feel.  Uneasy. Unstable.  It sure is good to know the Rock in times like this… to know where your anchor is.


So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. – Hebrews 6:18-19

 Quieted,
Sheila