My Journey
Mathew 22:37-38 Jesus replied. ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and the greatest commandment.”
Hello. My name is Janelle Carson-Anderson. I am 27 years old. I graduated from Howard University. I am the Owner and Photographer of IMAGE’n Me Photography. But the most important thing I can tell you about myself is that I love God. He is the most important being in my life.
But it hasn’t always been that way. I grew up in the church. My mom is a minister. She raised us to believe that you must have a relationship with God. So I always believed in God. But honestly I never understood what it meant to love, have a relationship with, or to be lead by God until very recently. Let me explain.
I grew up with an extremely blessed comfortable suburban life. Despite my parents being divorced, I really never had much of a struggle. So I believed in God but I never developed a real dependency on him when I was younger because I never really needed for anything. We had problems but nothing that was big enough for me to ever really depend on God the way I should have. Unfortunately for some of us, myself included, it takes God knocking us down off of our spoiled, self sufficient, self-reliant high horse to allow us to see our true strength and success comes from God. I was the type of Christian who expected blessings no matter what I did or did not do for God. And I also thought the blessings that God gave me were what I was entitled to because of who my mom was, the fact that I showed up at church every week and because of how I performed in school or at work. But that is not the case.
It was only by Gods GRACE that despite my behavior I have always been extremely blessed. Grace is kindness from God we don't deserve. I now realize that everything good in my life is a blessing from God. The fact that I am still alive despite many, many stupid mistakes that should have taken my life is by the Grace of God God. I do not deserve the Grace or blessings that God gives me. As many mistakes as I have made in my time on this earth (which I will expand on those a little later) God still loves me. And he still blesses me. Despite the fact that I sin daily. Despite the fact that I always fall short of what he wants me to do. Despite of me, he still does amazing things in my life. Gods blessings and grace are not given to us because we deserve it. It is because God loves us. He loves us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, down to earth to die on the cross to save us from ourselves. That was the ultimate act of
Grace because we did not deserve to be saved but God loved us enough to do it anyway.
This blog is to share my experiences in life and how God has time and time again shown me that he is all that I need. I want to inspire someone who is going through hard times or struggling to understand how to develop a relationship with God. If you feel lost in this world, God is your navigation. If you are in a storm, God is the way out. If you put your trust in God then no problem, person, loss, or failure will take you out. God has a plan and the sooner you surrender your life to him the sooner you will finally start to live a more blessed and purposeful life.
Psalm 28: The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
