Welcome to The Unbound Word!

     Welcome friends! You have found this little blog of mine! I'm so happy you're here with me, and I can't wait to get into God's word with you. Let me start off by telling you a little bit about myself. My name is Heather, and I am a born-again, Bible-believing Christian. I got saved when I was 8 years old at a vacation bible school at a church in the town where I grew up. I started Christian school in 5th grade and graduated from the same school. I went to church my whole life and knew all about the bible. You would think I would be a model Christian, right? Not even close. I knew the stories. I knew that I believed that it all was true, but I never really surrendered my life and heart to Jesus. That didn't happen until much later in life. I grew up wanting one thing...to be the singer on a stage in front of thousands of people. God blessed me with a voice and I sang everywhere. I did competitions, I sang karaoke any chance I got, and I even got to sing the national anthem at a few minor league baseball games. Everyone told me I should go and try to make it, but I was married with kids and thought it just wasn't for me. I also got the biggest nerves leading up to any competition I ever did. I was always worried someone would be better than me. Someone would beat me. Me. It was all about ME. 

     My mom and dad had several bands as I was growing up. They would travel all around the state and play at different venues. Music flowed in my veins. So for me the fact that I sang felt right and natural. The other element to my childhood was that my dad was always studying his bible. He always wanted to talk about it. He was always learning new things and wanting to share it with people. I didn't understand or maybe want to understand what he had to say. I was too busy trying to kiss boys and smoke cigarettes behind my parent's backs (trust me they knew). As I got older, the church was always something I knew I wanted in my life but never made a huge commitment to. It was a Sunday thing. Then my church did something crazy...they started a worship team! My dad, being the amazing guitarist he was, was of course one of the first to join. My mom sang, so naturally they did it together. Others joined and eventually I found myself up there as well some Sundays, singing harmony and eventually leading some songs. Fast forward a few years and my dad passed away. It wasn't some horrible tragedy or anything. He had high blood pressure and one kidney. He had a brain bleed and never recovered. He lived an amazing life and I knew he was with Jesus, right where he wanted to be. Maybe that was one of the turning points of my faith. I still remember the peace God gave me when he took his last breath. I smiled. 

     After my dad passed, my mom grieved...for a few months. Then she remarried about a year later and my world was changed. They didn't want to go to my church anymore. They started going to a church my gram had gone to for years. It hurt. But my church was still MY CHURCH, and I loved it there, when I went. Going to church had become a rollercoaster of excitement and boredom. Go, sing, try not to fall asleep, what are we doing for lunch? Smile. Repeat. In 2018 my husband got an offer for a job a few hours away and we decided to make the biggest change we'd ever made and move to a different county where we knew no one. It was great, until it wasn't. We had a big house, lots of money and a great area and school for our youngest daughter. My husband made a great friend and my daughter had made some as well. I knew a church was something we should find, but I hated trying new churches. They weren't MY church. They were someone else's. We did find one that seemed very similar to ours, but I just couldn't do it. We went a few times and then stopped. Our daughter started to get bullied at school, I missed my family and friends back "home", and things just started to fall apart. Then my husband lost his job. It didn't take much convincing to decide to move back to our hometown. 

     Soon after we moved back, something changed in me. I suppose it may have been the realization that God had us move away to show us what we had all along. We moved back to a much smaller home (only half a home really), but God pulled me back to church. I WANTED to be there. It felt good. Problem was, it was now March of 2020. I had just started singing quite a bit with the church's worship team and falling in love with it. We were set to have a big community worship night and BOOM! Lockdown. No one goes anywhere. Fear. Uncertainty. Anger. Sadness. I will never forget the week before lockdown happened our pastor stood on the stage and said "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of a sound mind". I will hold that phrase so dear forever now. My pastor is a great man with a team of amazing people behind him and they knew they couldn't just stop having church, so they started posting recorded services! People loved being able to hop onto facebook and watch the service...but it just wasn't the same. I believe it was sometime in May when he finally decided that was enough. We're having CHURCH again! Our church congregation piled into their cars and packed a local parking lot, rolled their windows down and listened to worship and God's word. NO FEAR! We did this for most of summer of 2020. In September, we began doing a live stream of our service and we went back to in person services and our pastor said he would never shut our doors again. Covid changed so many people. For me, it showed me what it meant to spread God's word through any circumstance. 

     Life got back to "normal" pretty much after that. I was singing almost every week with the worship team. I had started really listening to the messages and loving all that I was learning. I never recall the exact moment that my walk with God changed. I think for me it was very slowly, then all at once. Like it seemed slow looking at the progression, but all at once when I think of how I changed after covid. I realized that singing on this stage was different. I wasn't nervous. I wasn't "competing" with anyone. I was doing this for God! THIS is what I was made for. When I look out while I'm singing and see hands raised, it all makes sense. God didn't give me my gift so I could use it. He gave me this gift so HE could use it! I also I had another gift along the way as well...writing. Along with that, God has, in the last few months, given me a passion for studying and writing about the bible. That is what this blog is for. I want to share my perspective and thoughts on what God has written in His word with you! I hope that this little blog can help you to see God and understand His word for you. Let's have some fun on this journey together!