STORY SO FAR
Hello!
My name is Laura and I am so happy to welcome you to the Hope Hour site. In order to see where we are going, it is often helpful to see where we have come from...
The start of the Covid pandemic brought many challenges and difficult times for everyone. Alongside this, it was also a time for new perspectives and priorities. I went from a busy schedule to what seemed like endless time at home. God's provision to me during this time was so faithful. It was the first time that I had truly had to lean on Him for my "daily bread". It brought me to a deeper place of trust. I was able to spend more time in prayer and able to spend hours reading my Bible.
One day, I was doing just this and felt a nudge from God to start sharing my faith with my family and friends more. Before I knew it, I had filled a page with ideas of how to go about this and what to talk about. Over the course of the next year or so, I began inviting friends to come to meals with the pre-discussed intention of discussing my faith. I am so grateful to them for listening, sharing in turn, and giving me space to express myself in this way.
Since then, I have been reflecting on these experiences and what I learnt from them. One of the main lessons was that my faith was most relatable when I shared the story of how I felt God was working in my life at that point in time.
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So now, I am launching this site with the aim of telling one story a week about how God is connecting with people in 2024. I hope that this will show the love and kindness of God as experienced by all kinds of people in all kinds of places.
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On Faith Sharing...
My hope is that as the year goes on I will start to share more tips I learnt from sharing in this way. I want to stress that it begins with consideration for the other person first. I've written out the Hope Hour Intentions and Heart for the core principles that underlie faith sharing in this way.
A little about me... I grew up attending church but only truly met Jesus in my early 20s (although I would have called myself Christian before this). I am currently studying "Theology and Pioneering" with Church Mission Society* and seeing where the Hope Hour journey takes me. I am a proud film/TV nerd and I enjoy shamelessly belting out songs from Musicals. I also love dogs, though I have never owned one, and generally being out in nature. Nothing quite beats the peaceful serenity of being near water though (seas, lakes, even fountains - I'll take it in any form).
Thank you for joining me for the ride.
*Please visit the Church Mission Society page on Pioneering if you'd like to learn a little more on what this is all about. Their training has been instrumental in developing a posture of "listening first". You can also read an interview with me on Faith and Friendship.