{"id":814,"date":"2014-09-17T11:51:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T16:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=814"},"modified":"2014-09-17T11:51:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T16:51:29","slug":"receiving-grace-friendship-that-points-to-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2014\/09\/17\/receiving-grace-friendship-that-points-to-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Receiving Grace: Friendship that Points to Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things have been a little quieter around here, in\u00a0large\u00a0part because I’m back to teaching. But they’re also quieter because I’ve intentionally pulled back a bit. I’ve realized, over the last month, that my heart\u00a0simply needs more time away from the screen, and even from the words that I love so much. More time to rest, more time to think, more time to journal, more time to pray. I need more time with my husband, I need more time with my little girl, I need more time with the women who hold up my arms as a new mom and are in these beautiful and difficult trenches with me.<\/p>\n

\"Ann<\/a><\/p>\n

I have been feeling soul-tired<\/a> lately, and when that happens its time to get back to the basics: Jesus, family, friends, sleep. As a chronic over-achiever, I would like to think that I can push through anything, but that’s not the case.<\/p>\n

And, so, I am slowing in the ways that I can. And I am opening up these soul-tired places in me to my friends. I am sharing my life with them so that they can speak truth, offer encouragement, and\u00a0point me to Jesus. These are the things we have been doing for each other for years; lately,\u00a0though, I find I am more on the receiving end than usual. And that’s ok. We all have seasons where we need others to offer their strength to us. I’m grateful.<\/p>\n

My real-life friends are\u00a0central in this journey I am living. But next week, I am also thankful that I get to\u00a0go and make some new friends–and turn online friends into real-life friends. I’m headed to the Influence Conference<\/a>, which focuses on keeping Jesus at the center of our online lives–something so beautiful and so necessary.<\/p>\n

For those women who I will meet there, we are sharing a link-up. So here’s a bit about me:\u00a0I’m a wife, mom, pastor’s wife, and college instructor. I was\u00a0in school for most of my life as a student, and now I’m still in school–but on the other side of the classroom. I teach creative writing and creative nonfiction courses to college students, and I love it. I also write for multiple publications <\/a>and love speaking<\/a> to groups of women. My husband is my best friend and February will mark 10 years of dating (we’ve been married for 8+ of those years). I hope we have a good 60+ years left together! Our\u00a0daughter, Ella, was born on our seventh anniversary<\/a> and she is a delight!<\/p>\n

I’m very much looking forward to the Strategy classes, and you’ll rarely find me without a cardigan (I get cold easily…and I’m a teacher. Ha!).<\/p>\n

I’d love to meet you online as we prepare for #influenceconf, and\u00a0I’m so looking forward to giving you a hug in person next week! Here’s to making much of Jesus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things have been a little quieter around here, in\u00a0large\u00a0part because I’m back to teaching. But they’re also quieter because I’ve intentionally pulled back a bit. I’ve realized, over the last month, that my heart\u00a0simply needs more time away from the screen, and even from the words that I love so much. More time to rest, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4,154],"tags":[91,61,34,184,185,45,176,66,183,153,28,593],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about","category-god","category-teaching","tag-anniversary","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-influence-conference","tag-influence-network","tag-marriage-2","tag-mom","tag-motherhood","tag-my-soul-is-tired","tag-soul-tired","tag-writer","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Ann-Swindell-%2B-Life-with-a-Toddler.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}