all of the things you need to know

Hello friends!  My name is Marilee.  I'm a South Dakotan farm girl by birth and a Washingtonian (the state, not the capital) by heart.  I have lived in Georgia since June of 2012: my job pulled me here, and somewhat against my will, as I was living in Washington at the time, which is unquestioningly the most beautiful place in all of the world.  I'm going to be using this blog to document my reflections on what I believe it means to follow Jesus and how that works out in my day-to-day life, but before I do that, some things you probably need to know (and some things you may not) from the get-go:

1) I have enough insecurities to derail a fully-loaded-and-otherwise-fully-functional freight train.  This often keeps me sitting on my hands rather than actually doing things.
2) I have a master's degree in history.  Although I am so glad I have the academic training I do, it doesn't come without its costs.  I tend to look at the world differently than others, and this can be alienating and confusing.
3) I love to laugh.  I have a cynical, ironic, and sometimes sarcastic sense of humor.  Some of the toughest times in my life have been accompanied by laughter, and that was a large part of what brought me through with my sanity intact.
4) I'm strategic in all things.  Everything's planned, everything's thought out.  I am sort of obsessive about finding the shortest geographical route between two locations.  And, yes, I play (and am fairly decent at) Risk and Settlers of Cataan.  You, too?  We should play sometime.  (I am always recruiting participants for my next game).
5) I am a musician.  I play piano and sing.  I also play trumpet, although that skill has not been used in several years now.  Although I am thankful for the gift of being able to express myself through song, I actually would label myself more of a writer than a musician.  Thus the ridiculous amount of blogging.
5) I am a follower of Jesus.  Although I have a lot of passions, all of it pales in comparison to my passion for following Jesus.  Despite this passion, I consistently fail to follow and instead spend the majority of my time thinking, talking, or entirely immobile.  My prayer is that my relationship with Christ would go far beyond attending church on (in my case) Saturday nights, far beyond Bible study, far beyond my personal prayer and devotional times; that my relationship with Christ would be proved by the way I love those around me, the way I reach out to love the broken and hurting.  For, as George MacDonald writes in The Hope of the Gospel, "...obedience is the soul of knowledge."

And so I embark on an adventure, one that I pray you will take with me.  I'll be posting here every so often about my journey as a disciple of Jesus.  I welcome questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, and all of the other words that begin with a hard "k" sound.  My prayer is that this blog would be more than an academic exercise - that it would take me (and you with me) out onto the street to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.