Sunday, March 30, 2014

Welcome and Introduction


Hello everyone!

Welcome to my blog! Or rather, the humble musings of an Orthodox Christian writer :)

You might have stopped by this page and are wondering...what exactly is the point of this blog??

Allow me to start with a small story...

On one of many long nights working the midnight shift at work, a coworker and I somehow managed to engage in a very long discussion about my faith and her faith, the Orthodox faith and the Church of God faith, respectively. As we sat there debating various subjects ranging from Theology to Patristics to Church History to Tradition, I realized something. Whether it was accurate or not, I noticed that my coworker spoke with a certain confidence about her faith, quoting various Bible verses (which may or may not have been taken out of context) and different sources. I, on the other hand, felt very ignorant regarding my faith and not at all confident of what I was saying.

Up to that moment in time, I had experienced several instances of ignorance and sheer shame that I am not as well-grounded in my faith as I should be...but never as strong as this. Being a person who was born in the Orthodox faith and who prides herself on doing her own research, I had not done enough research regarding some of the questions my coworker was asking me. While our conversation was interesting, it really made me think about what God was trying to teach me from this encounter. It was definitely a humbling experience but it was also meant to show me how to better use the talents God gave me.

I'm sure some of you can relate to this situation...which brings me back to the original question: what exactly is the point of this blog??

This blog will primarily focus on presenting reviews of Orthodox books and highlighting important information to be gained from those books. I will be organizing those book reviews by topic. My ultimate goal is to be able to build a mini-database filtered by topic so that an Orthodox person can go in and find multiple sources either supporting or refuting a certain topic...or simply to give more information on a particular topic (with valid and authoritative sources!!). While the primary focus will be books (and scholarly articles), I will periodically include a sermon by an Orthodox priest or a video, etc. I will try to post weekly (but some books are longer so please be patient)... :)

And this is where your help will come in :) this blog is meant to be a service...if you have a particular question or topic that you would like to see researched, please do not hesitate to email me at: GODlovesme1476@gmail.com.

The Orthodox faith is beautiful and offers such depth you will not and cannot find anywhere else! I pray that God will guide me and that He will bless this service! Your prayers would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance for reading this blog and for contributing to its content! I sincerely hope we all learn more about the Orthodox faith together :)

Until next time,

GODlovesme...AKA Youstina Guirguis