‘Hinge moments’

I’m writing this post on a flight home from Nashville after attending Blissdom 2012, a three-day blogging conference for women. If you recall, I had a bit of anxiety about going on this trip, considering I’m a toddler in the world of blogging and many of the women at this conference are, well, kind of a big deal.

Praise God, these wonderful ladies reached out to me and made me feel at home.

From left to right are Cindy from Walking in Grace and Beauty, Traci from Beneath My Heart, and Myra from My Blessed Life™.

I get a bit verklempt when I talk about these talented, gorgeous and gracious women. If you haven’t connected with them yet, you must! They feed my soul. They are my accessible, online Oprahs, so to speak.

I’ve been following Traci’s blog for a little more than a year. She is actually one of the inspirational voices that led me to start my own blog. As you can see by the look on my face, meeting her was like a little girl meeting her favorite princess at Disneyworld – pretty stinkin’ awesome.

I also got to meet my blog buddies Sarah (center) from Three Boys and Jaima from Ring Around the Rosies.

Sarah allowed me to guest post for her when I was just starting out. She is a furniture reupholstering genius; plus she has a great sense of humor.

I made some new bloggy friends as well.

This is Mandy (left) from House of Rose and Tonya from Love of Family and Home.

The Blissdom conference was held at the beautiful Gaylord Opryland Hotel. This was the view from my hotel room window.

Among other fantastic events, we had the opportunity to hear Joe Jonas and Rascal Flatts perform.

(Um, Is anyone else experiencing flashbacks to the NKOTB days?)

To sum up Blissdom, I learned a lot about blogging and social networking, made some great connections, got to take home some cool, free gifts, and left feeling energized and ready to take LROL to the next level.

But providing you with a recap of my time at this conference is not really what I’ve been called to post about today.

I want to talk to you about “hinge moments.” (Yes, I realize this is a little far afield from my typical home improvement/DIY/decorating stuff, but stick with me. Sometimes you’ve got to do a little heart improvement before you can do a little home improvement, you know what I’m sayin’?)

Speaker and fellow blogger Jon Acuff describes the term “hinge moments” as the moments in your life when, in order to fulfill your current purpose and passion, you must make the choice to go in a different direction. (Coming soon: review by me of Jon’s book “Quitter.”)

Deciding to enter the world of blogging was a bit of a hinge moment for me. Many of you who follow my blog know that I have a deep faith in Christ and a desire to see His work fulfilled in my life and the lives of my family. As I continue to seek His will for me, He has made it clear that, at least for now, He wants me to invest my time, talent and resources in encouraging, inspiring and motivating women through this blog. This “calling” has welled up in me a passion and energy that I can’t really even put into words.

The bottom line? You’re gonna see more posts, more projects and more soul-bearing coming from yours truly in the coming months. And you’re (hopefully) gonna receive more inspiration, motivation and encouragement as a result.

Along the way, I want to hear more from you, too. What are you passionate about? What do you believe your purpose is at this time in history? Have you recently experienced a hinge moment in your own life?

As we spend some time this week reflecting on these questions, I would encourage you to read the book of Esther. It illustrates the point that God has a unique calling for each one of us, a purpose and specific work that He wants us to accomplish while we’re still drawing breath. We have been created “… for such a time as this.”