Relaunch and Refocus

Great new things are happening at http://www.annesanders.net/. You probably have noticed that my website Helping Hearts has been changing.  For a month now, I haven’t been able to update the Today’s Ways to Serve feature on a regular basis, because I’ve had a designer working on the page.  I haven’t been sending out my monthly newsletter because I have a new header that I’ve been tweaking.  For those who have checked out what the site looks like so far, you can see that it’s easier to navigate and looks a lot better, too.

The official relaunch of the website is set for next Friday, March 6.  I will be giving away a Sevenly T-shirt that says “Awaken Your Hearts to End Hunger” in honor of the relaunch. The cost of the t-shirt provided 35 meals for people in Darfur.  Anyone who signs up for my newsletter in the month of March gets a chance at the shirt and I’ll announce the winner in early April.

The website has a philosophical change to it as well.  I’ve decided to share my Christian beliefs and faith in God as part of the site.  You see, I never really wanted to be a blogger, have a website, even to make writing my fulltime job.  I feel like God has called me to do these things despite my efforts to be a regular Joe. 

In 2009, I looked for a job for over a year and wasn’t able to find anything.  Then I did find a job and I prayed about whether I should take it.  I felt like God was saying that I should write and not take the job.  So I did what I felt I should. Then more circumstances led me to start writing a book, one who’s main character is a Christian.  The even stranger part is that I’ve always written nonfiction so doing a Christian fiction book was brand new for me.

Being a writer has benefits, such as being able to take time to volunteer two days a week, like I do at the American Cancer Society. But you don’t get paid to blog in the traditional sense.  It’s not like having a regular nine to five paycheck.

I know that I wouldn’t be doing what I am now if it weren’t for God.  He has made it possible and given me the desire to write about philanthropy and volunteering. He has pushed me in this direction even when I wanted to take the safer path.  He has been there for me when I wasn’t sure what to do.

I hope my website and blog can be a testament to His love.  One of the changes I’ve done to the site is change the motto I quote under my logo.  I’ve taken a quotation from Proverb 4:23 about how important the heart is.  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

As I said in my very first blog for Helping Hearts, it is easy for our hearts to become hard when we hear stories of how charities misuse their funds or people pose as homeless in order to get money. But how we deal with that is very important. 

We should deal with it as we do when we find a Christian who isn’t acting like one.  Look to our ultimate leader Jesus.  As humans, we all mess up, some more than others.  But when you find someone messing up royally, realize that he’s not the model of what Christ wants us to be.   But that shouldn’t stop you from doing what’s right.  Each of us is responsible for our own lives, not for the mistakes of others.  That includes helping others and making a difference, not just for others but also for Christ.