So here it is!! My 50th blog post. Can hardly believe I have written so many but I am so thankful that God continues to provide me with inspiration for this and that you lovely people continues to read my crazy thoughts. So as a thank you, here is the story of how it all began........
I was sitting in the foyer of a very nice apartment block in central London, wondering why on earth God had brought me to this place. It was January 2014 and I was wearing heals (untold of for me) with my comfy walking shoes stashed in a carrier bag next to me. Butterflies were circling in my stomach and I was going over my presentation in my head for the millionth time. For those of you who are aware of this feeling and have been through it before, I was waiting to be interviewed.
Half an hour later I walked out of the apartment block feeling a lot less queasy and with a desire to get home and write. I had prayed before entering that it would be really clear whether the job was right or not, and in this case it wasn't. I love the job I am currently in and God put a desire in my heart to apply for this other job, but that didn't necessarily mean that the job was for me. Something really important happened inside that interview that made it all worth while.
For those who are interested (or just plain nosy - I am so will not judge you for it!), the charity that I was interviewing for was called Activate Your Life, and they are a great Christian charity who promote friendship evangelism among women. You can check out what they do by going to their website.
So back to the interview. I was faced with a panel of 8-10 ladies from the charity (very scary indeed!) and was being pummelled with questions of all varieties, when a question came out that is very common in interviews - what three words would you use to describe yourself. I stopped for a minute to consider my options. And the first word out of my mouth was "hospitable". Not you usual choice for a job interview - normally I would have gone with efficient, timely, productive or any of the corporate mumbo-jumbo that seems to satisfy most interview panels - but it came out of a discussion I had had with my husband a few weeks earlier. This was the discussion when we decided we wanted to feed 5000 people within our home over our lifetime.
So after saying the word "hospitable" I then had to explain this unusual choice to ten people all staring at me intrigued!!! So I told them about our ambition to feed 5000 people. And the response from the lady who asked the question was this:
"What an interesting idea, you could write that up as a blog post to go on our website"
It was one of those moments where a light bulb appeared above my head! I had never blogged before and to be honest I didn't really know what it was or why people liked it so much. On the way home on the train I drafted my first ever blog post, and then later that month I set up "Rachel Ridler: Mum on a mission" as my own blog (after much research on the subject!).
So that is my own little story as to why this blog exists. Sometimes you think you know why God has led you somewhere, but actually his reasons are completely different. God has shown me that I have some amazing things to share with the world, some quirky thoughts too, and that I needed to let those out rather than keeping them to myself. He knew that there would be people out there that need to read these blogs, so until God tells me stop I will be here writing even more posts!!
Along the way I have met with some of the women that read my blog, and it has always been really encouraging. So I hope and pray that I can continue to be engaging, interesting and encouraging to other mums and women as they journey on in their own personal missions. Please do share you own stories of why you read my blog below!
