Welcome to my blog!
If you're wondering about the domain name, this is how I'd like to send you all "Love from Rome" while I'm over there.
For those of you who don't know, I'm going to be spending the next two years in this gorgeous, ancient city working in an art gallery, teaching English and helping with a church plant. I am astounded at God's providence and leadership and His goodness in that He has been uniquely crafting my passions and talents all my life to lead me to serve Him in such a way and in such a place. As a Fine Arts major, I have studied and fallen in love with Italy for the past four years of college! I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to create and discuss art while loving people in this exciting city!
If you're wondering about the blog title, I chose it because we are told to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15)...it is the reason we go...the reason we serve...the reason we love...
Because He first loved us.
Take a look at 1 John 4:7-21:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
This is our calling. Our divine privilege and purpose. To love others as ourselves.
We, as followers of Christ, are called to do this anywhere and everywhere. For the next two years, I'll be doing it thousands of miles and several time zones away from home.
Why am I doing it?
Because He first loved me.
Thank you for choosing to keep up with me this way! Even though I don't head overseas until fall, I wanted to get this blog underway. I hope whatever I have to say will be worth reading. And I don't want this to be about my life so much as what my Father is doing in, through and with it. I can't WAIT to see just what He's going to do!
So, until I leave...
Love from Home,
Elizabeth
