I grew up in a Christian home.

For the rest of my life and beyond, I will be grateful for my God-honoring parents who laid the foundations of faith in my heart. My childhood was steeped in the church: some of my earliest and fondest memories are of Sunday school, where I learned songs and heard stories that still echo in my mind today. Some of the friends I have to this very day are from those Sunday school days – our spouses and children are now fast friends. The church was (and still is) a part of the very fabric of my life.

But although growing up in a Christian home had merits, it had downsides too. I want to preface this by saying that this doesn’t happen to everyone who grows up in a Christian home, but it certainly was the case for me: I grew up on ‘borrowed faith.’

My faith was never really my own. I gathered with the church every Sunday because …. well, because my parents did. It never crossed my mind to be anywhere else. I knew about God and Jesus in the way I had been taught, through the traditions and doctrines of my upbringing. He was my parents’ God, and so He was mine by default.

I grew up in a fairly orthodox tradition, one that was steeped in structure and a strong sense of right and wrong. We saw the world in black and white, with little tolerance for grey areas. We had a saying: "We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent." And while that intention and practice is noble, it left a lot of questions unanswered. The Bible was silent on so many things! So I did what I thought was the safest thing to do — I followed the rules to a T. I became what I now call a ‘Girl Scout Christian.’ I believed that if I checked all the right boxes, earned enough badges, and did all the right things, I would secure my place in heaven. After all, that’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? To leave this broken world behind and fly away to a distant place with mansions of gold where everything would finally be good?

There was one problem, though: the ‘Girl Scout Christian’ is doomed to failure. As Mark 10 says, no one is good — except God alone. And I certainly was not good.

As with many who grow up in strict environments, I rebelled the moment I left home. I had been so focused on doing everything ‘right’ that I never really knew God. My impression of God was of a strict Father who had so many rules of what to do and even more of what not to do! I felt caged and boxed in by this God I did not understand. So when the opportunity arose, I dove headfirst into what I thought was freedom. I headed overseas for work, left church behind, and for years, I lived life on my own terms. I still believed in God: I don’t think I ever not believed in Him, but it didn’t feel like a great loss to keep Him at arm’s length because He had never felt particularly personal to me. I was determined to carve my own path ….

…. Until the year 2020, when everything changed.

That was the year my apocalypse — the end of the world as I knew it — took place.

I won’t go into all the details here (you can read more about it in my book Finding Me), but let’s just say that nothing puts life into perspective like looking death in the face. I’m so grateful for God’s patience, mercy and Him using all things for good. It was only when I was stripped of everything comfortable — health, certainty, control — that I finally had a personal encounter with Jesus. He called me by name, Amy …. which means BELOVED.

For the first time in my life, I heard Him speak!

Since that time, I have come to know the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a way I did not know before. I want to especially mention the Spirit, whom I now rely on daily (a complete 180 as I had largely ignored Him because I never really knew what to do with this mysterious being!). These days, my faith is no longer a set of rules or a distant, impersonal belief system. It’s a real, personal, breathing, living relationship.

I still have a long way to go. To be honest, I still feel like my life is all over the place. I’m one of those people who still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up …. even though I’m the ‘grown up’ my kids and their friends look to when they need something! 😅Yet when I look back in hindsight on the years that I have lived so far, I see evidence of God at work in my life. He had a hand in every single part of it, gently weaving my life into His plans, which are far greater than anything I can imagine.

These days, I’m on a continual journey of growing into myself and my identity. I want to be the person that God created me to be as well as the person that God knows I have the potential to be (read: Jesus in me!). I am embracing the challenge of living in the now and the not yet, and I am invested in creating heaven on earth whenever and wherever I can. This journey does not come without its challenges: I get frustrated, impatient, and very angry at times …. but I am slowly learning that the journey itself is the end. Ultimately, it’s the process, not the end result that will mold and shape me. It’s the process that will bring me closer to my final goal: Jesus Himself.

As a result of my continual journey, two things have become the reason for my venture into the coaching world:

1. Stewardship: I have learned that everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that I have belongs to God. As a manager, I want to learn how to steward my LIFE (labor, influence, finances, expertise) well.

2. Discipleship: There is often a focus on mission and conversion but not the intimate work of walking alongside people in faith. I want to help followers of Christ develop a rich and deep relationship with Him.

This entry and all the entries on this blog therefore serve a two-fold purpose. Firstly, it is a platform which I am using to steward my LIFE. Secondly, it is an invitation — for you, for me, for all of us — to embark on this exciting journey that God has in store for us.

I encourage you to come walk alongside me as you read the entries.

May the good Lord be with you always!

Amy x