We’re one!  

Bold, Strong, & Free, or affectionately nicknamed BSF, is officially one year old. I remember the day that our first post went live. It was the day that my nephew was born. Now, I am not going to tell you the exact date because of privacy purposes. But it makes for a fun milestone marker. If BSF was a child, BSF would be learning how to stand up and walk, smiling and babbling at everything its see. If BSF was a child, we would probably have a birthday party. Perhaps with a theme and invite our closest friends and you, BSF would be dressed cute and cameras flashing as BSF smashes into the cake.  

I know, it’s weird to personify a blog. But it is easy to do, right? How many of us name our cars or plants? I know, I do. I have an airplane plant that I received for my birthday (that is still alive!) and I named it Amelia Plant-art.  

Just like how a baby’s first birthday is a big milestone marker, so is this blog’s birthday. For one whole year, Abbi, Katelyn, and I would meet up, plan, hang out, and chat. We grew closer with each other. We learned about each other’s likes and dislikes. We learned of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We grew a blog together for one year and that’s an achievement.  

You were a part of this too. Even if you just discovered today or a week ago or you were with us since the very beginning, you are a part of us.  

I mean, that is part of our mission statement, friends. To empower and encourage women to live bold, strong, and free for Christ. Our mission does not say to teach or to lead, but to empower and encourage. We aim to help you become the woman you are meant to be and to live in Christ that exudes boldness, strength, and freedom. When I think of empowerment, I think of being invested in one’s life. I think of people I go to in times of celebration and in times of sorrow. People I know who will celebrate with me but also cry with me too.  

I hope that this first year was a year that we truly did that in BSF and that we did with you too. 

So, I’ll end it with more news. I began this post with celebratory news. BSF’s birthday matches with my nephew’s, but the birthday also matches with the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death. It is sad news. I share it, because if you were to go back to the beginning. You could read about my grandmother and how she demonstrated what living bold, strong, and free meant. But what was not mentioned was that I edited the post right before I published it. On my way down to her house, on the day she died, I thought about her, and it hit me how she lived. She was an amazing woman, who probably would not call herself bold.  

There’s a sense of beauty to begin this journey with my grandmother and end the first year with her too. She was bold in the way she took risks. She was not a thrill seeker, but she was not afraid to say yes. She fostered kids in the 1960s and when I asked her one day, how she had the idea. She simply said, “God.” She did not know anyone else who fostered kids in her community, but she had the urge to foster and said yes. My grandmother was strong in the way that she was a stay-at-home mom with four daughters and foster children, her husband (my grandpa) owned a store and thus worked out of the home. She went through breast cancer (I think, twice). She walked into a church holding the hands of two little girls (one of those little girls being my mother) and taught Sunday school for fifty years. She was free in the way she opened her home to others. Two years before she died, shortly after Grandpa died, I was visiting her and told Grandmother how her house was a respite to me. It never felt like I was on vacation or a guest in her house, it felt like I was home. I could walk through her front door, greet her with a big smile, and know what was going to happen. We would get a HEB lunch then talk about genealogy and craft projects. I might do house projects for her.  

But most importantly, Grandmother would be invested in my life and through that, would teach me how to be bold, strong, and free for Christ. Plus, her name (Carolyn) means free woman. How amazing is that? 

I truly miss her.  

I hope you have a Carolyn in your life.  

Thank you for being with us for this first year and I pray that the second year will be blessed. 

Elizabeth