THE NEW ME
Today's reading: Deuteronomy 7-9

"The Lord did not chosse you and lavish his love on you because you were larger or greater than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! It was simply because the Lord loves you..." Deuteronomy 7:7 NLT

Hello, my name is Malinda Edgell.

No, not the Malinda you used to know and love.

Not the same gal whose e-mails you have seen littering your Inbox, or the one who provides you with enough information about herself that you cannot honestly believe someone is that, well, you fill in the blank.

I am not the same person.

Look the same? Yes.

I have been exposed, infected, influenced and changed by an experience this weekend that leaves me a new person!

I can't tell you really what happened--I'm still processing all of that. I can't really tell you the program that brought about the changes--how in the world would I explain it all. I can't really pinpoint a specific occurence, prayer, session or experience that pushed me off the cliff of myself and into His arms of love--but I fell, and I fell hard! But in a 72-hour experience I lived out the words of this verse and that has left me saying 'goodbye' to my old ways, my old self, my old plans for me.

I am loved, lavished in love, by the Creator of the universe (and His people). One cannot stick one's big toe into the immensity of that knowledge and not come back drenched from head to foot in its warmth.

So in turn? In turn, you will be 'seeing' the new me. You, and this is my earnest prayer, will begin to notice that my priorities have changed. That my intent is more saturated in godliness. That my influence is, shall we say--turned up a notch.

Yes, my name is Malinda--the new, and greatly improved, Malinda--courtesy, God.