365 days

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

-Proverbs 3: 5

When I first decided to start my blog, I had no idea what I was doing! In fact, I had no idea how I had come up with the idea or why I would want to create a blog. I wasn’t in an awesome place in my relationship with God. I was just going with the flow and I had one foot in and one foot out in terms of my relationship with Him. I prayed to ask God if it was what He wanted for me. At the time, I didn’t know how to listen to Him and hear His voice so, as I mentioned in my first blog post, I asked my mum how I could tell if God wanted me to start the blog. Her answer made it clear to me that the idea of this blog was something that God himself had laid on my heart.

One year (and three days) later, here we are! As of the first of July, my blog has been in existence for one year! Happy Birthday By Grace Through Faith! That is so amazing to me! Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be the one sharing the Gospel on the internet with people in and out of my sphere of influence! This blog has been such a blessing to me. I thought that when I started this blog, I would be the “God Guru” who knew every Bible verse and had all the answers. Not surprisingly, I was the exact opposite of this. I was a clueless 18-year old who had no idea what it meant to truly have Christ at the center of her life. I had zero answers. Now I realize that God didn’t want me to start this blog because I knew everything; he wanted me to start it so that I could start to learn to pursue His heart.

Since then, my blog has changed so much! I now share my life experiences and lessons that God has taught me through those experiences. It has been hard for me to be vulnerable but God has given me so much strength. It’s not easy admitting your mistakes and sharing your whole life story. God is gracious and faithful. He watches over me when I’m writing these blog posts so that I am able to let my guard down and allow you all to see what He has done in my life. I am honored that this is my thing. This is how God wants me to share His love. My blog has reached over 2000 views. This may not seem like a lot but it is! Even if one person was reading my posts, I would still be writing because being able to impact even one person’s life is more than enough.

You’re not just reading my blog. You are watching God’s word come to life through my experiences and I know that His word is coming to life through you. As Proverbs 3:5 states, trust in God’s plan for your life. If he wants you to write Gospel music, do it! Whatever your thing is, do it. Do it with a passion and don’t stop doing it unless He tells you to. Don’t think that you know everything because you actually know very little. Surrender your life to Him and He will show you the way. He will direct your paths!

God truly loves you.

With love,

Mandile.