In the beginning...

My fingers hover over the keys.  I begin to type.  Four letters in, and I stop and sigh.  Delete, delete, delete, delete. 

The advice of English teachers everywhere beats a clear rhythm in my head: 

Just write.  Just write.  Just write. 

But taunting questions weave their way through those two simple, yet formidable, words.  They strut down the rocky path to a modest cottage where the writer in me lives.  Ignoring the Do Not Disturb sign, they pound on her front door and shout, "Why are you starting a blog?  What do you have to say?  And who's really gonna care???"

I look up.  "Okay, God.  This was Your BIG IDEA.  A little help here."  I close my eyes, and I see Jesus.  Thanks be to God, a Savior!  Or at least I think it's Him.  He's in a robe and sandals.  He even has a staff.  But other than that, He is my 7th grade English teacher, circa 1987 - a young, wiry man, dark as a moonless night, with long fingers and teeth that remind me of Chiclets gum when he smiles.  He looks at me from behind my eyelids, pulls a sheet of notebook paper from his robe, and waves it in my face, saying, "Begin at The Beginning!"  I wonder if Moses ever got writer's block.

(insert booming God-voice)

In. The. Beginning... 

Just kidding.  I'll spare you the slideshow.

All you really need to know is that I spent thirty-six years running.  Running from myself.  Running from the Truth.  Running from God.  Give me credit for putting on a good show.  I had it all.  Lights.  Costumes.  Fancy make-up.  The stage was all set for the one-woman show I'd created called The Faithful Christian.  Turns out I'm a pretty good actress.  But I suck at running.  One day, God finally got fed up with me and decided to put His foot down.  My world rocked.  It shook so violently that pieces of my life were upended, bits of it were shattered, and I was crushed, almost beyond recognition. 

But God so loved me that He gave His only Son to pick up the salvageable pieces and begin to heal me.  We started to talk.  Really talk.  Not the "Now I lay me down to sleep" mumbo-jumbo that soothed the Faithful Christian's guilty conscience.  But real conversations.  It was like we were two friends, yukking it up over coffee and a bagel.  Okay, so He was yukking and I was whining.  But either way, we were talking.  I couldn't figure it out at first.  Was I really hearing His Voice?  Or was it my eVil subConcious, the mE who was still halfway trapped under God's boot heel, making one final plea?

A Voice told me I needed answers from something tangible.  But the VoIceS were getting so garbled that I couldn't tell if it was me, God, or (Lord help us all) my mother.  I asked Him to lead me to An Answer.  And then I did something I never do.  I listened.  It didn't take long. 

"John," He answered.

"What chapter?" I whispered. 

"Fifteen." 

I grabbed my Bible and flipped through the flimsy pages.  My hands were shaking with excitement and...fear?  What was He about to reveal to me?  I began reading, my eyes skimming anxiously over the words for The Answer.  When I read verse 5, I knew I'd found it. 

Huh.  Hmm.  Really?  Really, God???  What kind of answer is that?  Where's the clear-cut explanation of why this is all happening to me?  Where do I have to go to find that?  I couldn't help but think how nice it would be if the Bible included The Book of Courtney.  The answers would lie somewhere around chapter 36, verse 1,352,908.  I fantasized on that until I realized how ugly it would be to see my sins according to God, in black and white, without the gray of my excuses and interpretations. 

So...  John, Chapter 15, huh? 

It's taken me a while to figure out why God led me in that direction.  A long while.  I had to stop searching for answers in the same old grimy places.  When I did that, all I ever found were leftovers from someone else's circumstances that I would pick up, put in my pocket, and call my own.  God was calling me to search beyond the wreckage of life's dumpsters where the answers reek of death.  He was calling me to find Real Answers in the security of living life holding on to Christ's scarred hands. 

So, here we are...at the end of the beginning, and I believe I finally have an answer.  I started this blog to be a voice from the Vine, to share the Good News through my own Experience, Strength, and Hope.  That sounds pretty bold coming from a girl who, in one way or another, has broken every one of God's Top Ten.   

But maybe He's cool with that.