Hello all! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Shannon Stedman, a Jesus-loving wife and mother of five. Ever since I was a young girl, I loved to write. I have felt God calling me to begin a writing ministry for a few years now. Several years ago, I began a blog, but after a period of time God called me in a different direction. Feel free to check out my past blog The Celebratory Single Mom. I am now in a new season of life and am so grateful to have the opportunity to write again.
I have so much excitement to launch this blog and share life with all of you. However, I do have to be completely honest and tell you that a lot of fear and anxiety has come along with this step of faith and obedience. It has been almost a year of behind the scenes prayer and preparation leading up to the launch of this blog. Below is my first journal entry about this blog:
August 27, 2017
I am incredibly scared and intimidated to even write this and I don’t even know if anyone is ever going to see this! Just writing this is an act of obedience in moving forward with creating a blog and being open to what comes of it.
Over the past week, God has really been speaking to my heart about moving forward in ministry through a blog. The kids have been gone and I have had a lot of time to be quiet, think, pray and meditate. Over the past two days God has spoken clearly to me telling me to take action. I have prayed about it long enough. God is leading me to take this step, so now I just have to do it. The thing is that I’m scared. I’m just plain old scared and I have made up excuses that have kept me stuck in the mud going around the same mountain over and over. In retrospect I see that when I have taken baby steps, I have experienced fear so then I stopped in my tracks. It’s amazing how I can use legitimate and valuable Christian practices as a way to manipulate situations into fueling my selfishness that keep me in bondage. For a while now I have been “praying” more about the blog. Yes I have been praying and yes I needed to be doing that to discern more of God’s will for me. However, I also used that explanation as an excuse to stay stuck; to stay stuck in fear and self. For me, fear is usually accompanied with procrastination; yet another tactic the enemy uses to keep me in his grip. I have been following God for long enough to know all of these things in my head and yet it’s crazy to see how I fall for them again and again.
Just this morning I sent a text to a dear friend saying that I needed to talk about something that God has really been speaking to me about this week. I wrote, “God has really been calling me out onto the water this week”. Just as God would have it, the last song played at church this morning was……. Yep, you guessed it, Oceans by Hillsong United.
“You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail”
For the past few months, my church has been journeying through a series titled Church Inside Out. We have been talking about what it means to be The Church within our 4 walls and out in the community. We have explored everything from roles of a leader, spiritual gifts, The Great Commission, and being on mission always. As I flipped through my notes from the sermons from the past few months at church this morning it was as if a big puzzle came together all at once. God has been traveling us as a church down this path but He has also used it to really get my attention and bring me to a place of true readiness to take the next steps forward. So here I am.
My prayer for this blog is that it’s an encouragement to women anywhere. I will be sharing my journey with you; the joys, the sorrows, the beauty and the mess. I hope and pray that through my sharing, you will hear God’s story of love and transformation in my life. My goal is to create a safe community where women can share their struggles and triumphs and support one another. So please get involved, leave a comment, contact me and share posts and the blog with others. I look forward to hearing from you!
I plan to post once a week on Wednesdays. I will share authentically and with a great deal of vulnerability, giving you a window into my heart. Even though that feels pretty scary at times, that is the direction God is calling me to and I told Him that I’m along for the ride. My writing will include a variety of topics relating to my personal experiences and faith journey. Some things that you can expect to read about here include marriage, parenting, blended families, mental health, addiction and eating disorders, brokenness, and recovery.
Come back next Wednesday to hear my podcast explaining why the site is titled “Holes to Whole”. Better yet, navigate to the right side of the site and subscribe by email to receive a message straight to your inbox every time a new post is available so you don’t miss a thing.
Thank you for joining me on this rich journey of life. Together we can do what we could never do alone!
