Day Five || Fueling that Fire

Welcome to day f i v e of the #blogtemberchallenge hosted by Bailey at Brave Love Blog. If you haven't gotten involved yet, you definitely should! Today we are writing about what we are passionate about, what fires us up.

Image found here

My biggest passion is writing. I included this in "Happiness" on day two, but I'll go more in-depth here. Poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction: I love it all. I first began writing little spin-offs of Harry Potter characters for fun. From there, I began to write poetry. It wasn't until freshman year of high school that I really became interested in writing fiction. My English teacher that year wanted us to write novellas. I fell in love with writing from then on out. Sophomore year, we were to write a continuation on five characters in The Lord of the Flies. Most students in the class wrote about a paragraph, whereas I wrote 33 pages. I hope to write works that people fall in love with. I've loved many a character and many a book, so I hope to be able to do the same thing. Entice them with a world all their own, write realistic characters to whom readers are able to relate.

Either way, I know that getting my thoughts on paper will be better than letting them sit in my head.

Another thing I'm passionate about is softball. I played softball for the majority of my life (somewhere around 15 years). I started in coach pitch and played second base. I was MVP of the League all but two years during my softball career. In high school, I was MVP of the team my sophomore through senior years. I was awarded all-district first team infield (a few times), all-area first team infield, and all-state player throughout my high school career. It was my dream to play in college. When I came to college, I was on the team. But, this leads me to my third, but definitely most important, passion: The Lord.

I was saved when I was 16. What that means is that I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior and believed that my sins are forgiven when I confess and repent from them. Hear me say this: I am not perfect. I have fallen many times and I have run away from the Lord many times. Praise God that He accepts us with open arms when we realize how pointless it is to run away from Him. How does this relate to softball? Well, the summer before my senior year of high school, I felt the Lord telling me to forget playing college softball. Softball was my life, the reason for my existence, or at least I'd put it on that high pedestal in my life. Softball was my god and the Lord was just there in the back of my mind. I had made an idol out of softball. As I went into senior year, that was my mind set. I would play that year with everything I had, leave it all on the field, and hang up my glove and put away my cleats.

But my pride got the best of me.

I continuously put softball before my relationship with God. All in all, I ended up quitting during the fall semester of my freshman year of college because I knew that I had been running from what I felt like God was telling me to do. I wanted my name known, instead of making His known. I still play co-ed and intramural slowpitch, but I make sure that the Lord gets more of my life than the field does. I like going to games and watching the Women's College World Series, as well.

So, I probably should have just done a list so I wouldn't get so carried away with writing. But, I felt like someone out there may need to hear that testimony of cutting an idol out of my life. If not, well, at least I took up some of your spare time. Hope you all are having a wonderful day. If there are any prayer needs, let me know! If you want to link-up, go to Brave Love Blog and check out the prompts! God bless!