Newsletter
March 2023
Renewed Dreams purpose
I wrote a newsletter about a big decision I made. Where is it now? For now it will wait in my google docs with all my brewing stories and poems. Something has been brought to my attention that I think I should address. Let’s start with a story. Once upon a Sunday I sat talking with my sister on the phone. Updating her on some major changes in my life that I knew she should know about.
How this came up, I have no idea. My sister began to tell me about a person who reached out to her about me. Asking how I was doing. They had been reading my blog and thought it was dark. First, why does everyone ask others about me and never talk to me? Second, I don’t think they know the purpose of my blog. Renewed Dream’s slogan is “helping you feel less alone.” The purpose of this blog is to write long and hard about what hurts. Hoping you will see the redemptive work God has done in my life. I want those who are hurting to feel less alone because I have decided to let my heart bleed for them.
I wish I could write about sunflowers and butterflies, but I’m not the author of my life. God’s sovereign hand is still at work in every detail of every life. If I could write my own story it would be very different from the one that has been written. I would tell you of green meadows and still waters. The joy you would feel would be beyond your wildest dreams.
I don’t have the pen in my hand and neither do you. What joyous life we may have lived is stained by sin. Despite my pain I choose to smile. I choose to keep no record of the wrongs done to me. I choose to lift others up. I choose obedience to God. I struggle with depression so there will be times my newsletters and poems may be dark. I choose to tell that part of my life because I know many struggle with depression hidden in the shadows. I choose to expose it to the light so that others might find the light.
I’m not the author of my life, but I write so others might see God’s glory on display. I write in a similar way as the psalmist. Many of them tell of their doubts and sorrows. Closely followed by the phrase “But God is faithful”. If you pay close attention I start off writing from the view of sorrow. So that the reader may say “this is exactly how it feels.” Pay attention, there is almost always a “but” somewhere in there.
That was my last newsletter, I took you through one of the darkest moments in my life. One that very few people know about. The purpose was to show you what God had saved me from and continues to work through. Not even that darkness is out of the reach of the LORD we serve. He restores, not yourself, your family and not even the church. I ask when you read my blog that you search for the lines that say “but God”. I will say that is a line I said a lot this month. I don’t expect to say anything else for the rest of my life, since God fights my battles. There is darkness, but God…
-R.D. Jess
Desert Road
I don’t wanna write this song
by Casting crowns
I don’t want this pain to be my story
I don’t want this desert road
Are you sure this is the plan that You have for me?
Out here in the dust and clay
God, if there’s a bigger picture
It’s gettin’ hard to see today
But I know that You won’t leave me
I don’t know where this is goin’
But I know who holds my hand
It’s not the path I would’ve chosen
But I’ll follow You to the end
Lord, as long as I am breathin’
I will make Your glory known
Even if it means I’m walkin’
On this desert road…
Renewed Dream 