Just like that we are walking right into a new year! Happy New Year and happy 2024 to you all! Thank you for sticking with me for all of 2023. My goal since I’ve started this blog has been to keep pushing forward, no matter what! This blog isn’t going anywhere because it’s dear to me. It’s my ministry and I love writing as a means to share what the Lord has downloaded in my heart to share with other women who are looking to grow in their relationships with God.
So this year my goal is similar to last year’s but this time, the reason behind it is much different. I believe this blog is an act of obedience to God, I truly do. I used to think that my blog would turn into this great business venture and I’d be taken by surprise from it all but I believe that this blog is for much more than that. I believe it will one day touch the hearts of many women that long to know God more intimately. That women will read it and not only know and accept that Jesus Christ is their Savior but will also desire to make him their Lord.
The heart behind The Vine & Branch Co. Blog has always been growing in intimacy with our Heavenly Father but something more was missing, and that something was gratitude. Now what now?! What does gratitude have to do with anything? Quite a bit actually. Getting to know God for who he truly is may just be one of the most beautiful experiences one has in their life time, in my opinion. But having gratitude for who he is and living our lives as women in reverence to him for saving our souls from eternal damnation….my goodness, simply knowing him just isn’t enough.
You may acknowledge Jesus as your Savior but is he also your Lord? Meaning do you just understand and accept that he died to save you from your sins, yet live your life in ways that fit your own desires and are ungodly? Or are you understanding and accepting of the fact the he is your Savior, and you do your best to die to yourself daily, living your life as a sacrifice for all that God has done for you? In either case, the goal of this blog is to ensure that we as women are always rooted in Christ, showing gratitude for all he has done by living lives that honor who he is. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing If anyone does not abide in Me, he is case out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”
John 15:5-11
Being candid…it took all of 2023 and the last ten years of my life for me to truly understand the depths of how God wanted me to use this platform to share who He is and I still believe there is more to uncover. The discipline, the trials, the pruning and the growth… it wasn’t fun…but I so badly needed it. I prayed for revelation last year and this seed of a blog that has been rooted in my heart for so long (over a decade) began to grow. The name of this blog was given to me by God in 2018. All I knew at the time was that it was going to be the name of my blog, not even understanding how it would all fit together. I am honestly still waiting in hopeful expectation of all that God will continue to reveal through this blog. Most importantly, because obedience is sometimes the very thing that keeps us from experiencing God’s best for us, I am as excited as a child to show up each week in obedience to God, sharing who He is so that you may desire to truly know him and live a life that is pleasing to him, for yourself.
So Happy New Year ya’ll!! Happy 2024! Thank you Lord for bringing us here!!
With Love & Gratitude,
Stacia
