Hello, Good-Bye.

It's with a disappointed heart that I share the following: this blog is going on hiatus until further notice.

I've been writing.  I have.  It's not that I have neglected my art.  Most of what I have been writing has wound up in the mouths of my teenage actors.  I've been writing new plays for them every 6 to 8 weeks or so, and I also feel that the time has come for me to resurrect some of my older skits and plays and give them new life.

In addition, I feel that God is calling me to do a new thing in my life, something that will require me to stretch my faith, embrace my gifts, and trust him in an area of my life that I've always considered a hobby, rather than a professions.  I am not ready to share this new goal just yet, but it will - God willing - involve me reaching out to others like myself to cultivate the link between the dramatic arts and the church.

I want to thank those of you who have read, commented, encouraged and supported me from my first social media posts (yep - myspace) until now.  You have helped carry me through times when I doubted my talent, doubted that I had anything worthwhile to say.  After many years, I believe I am finding my voice, and I know what I want to share.

I still have novels and skits and poems in my head that may never come out, but it's time I sat down at the computer and let them have a real fighting chance to do just that.  

I'm not ready to seal up this chapter of my life just yet, so I'm keeping my "good-bye" open-ended.  It's entirely possible that my path will bring me back here with a lot more to say.  But, for now, I need to step back and give my increasingly limited free time to the words that have been locked in my head for too long.

May God's love sustain you, may you never run out of coffee, and may every cat you encounter remind you of me.

Signing off for now,
Rebecca L. Godlove

Hello. It's Me. Again.

Maybe you're relieved to see this post.  Maybe you're irritated.  Excited?  Well, I'm back, in a way.

I needed time away from social media.  All in all, and initially as part of my church's annual January fast, I stepped away from all my personal social media accounts (I still maintained the church's sites).  In mid-February, I returned to Instagram.  About a week ago, I began commenting and liking n Facebook again, but I still haven't posted.  I haven't returned to Twitter or tumblr at all yet, save for posting from my Instagram account.

I have to say that I was shocked to learn that I didn't miss Facebook much at all.  Although my feed has come to be less about catching up with friends than it is about mudslinging, religious fervor, and cat pictures, it's still very addictive.  A great time-killer.  Likewise, though, it's a great way to avoid responsibility and face-to-face interaction with other human beings.  I realized that was not a healthy way to live, and found myself pointedly ignoring my phone for long stretches, or checking only e-mail or text messages.  

In some ways, I've emerged happier.  I don't get sucked into the abyss that is the comments section at the bottom of every Buzzfeed post. I don't mentally correct grammar or wonder what type of horrible education/recreational drug the comments were influenced by.  I don't waste time on finding out which celebrity my cat's personality most resembles (although, for the record, I think Freyja might be Adele).  

I've also been writing.  A lot.  I was entrusted with the huge honor of writing a program for my church's Good Friday service, which is something we haven't done in many, many years.  I wrote it, cast it, and we are currently in rehearsals for both the Good Friday service and the Easter Sunday service.  I'm incredibly proud of my actors, and more than a little shocked that my father agreed to play Caiaphas, the High Priest!

I've also, against my wishes, had to return to work full-time.  I do like my job - don't get me wrong, I really do - but leaving Ronen is not getting easier; it's getting harder.  Since January, he has been struggling - we all have - with separation anxiety and sadly, I get the worst of it.  He's displaying an over preference for Daddy lately, and I get ignored when I pick him up from my parents' house.  Daddy gets squeals of excitement, and I barely elicit a casual "Mum."  I know it's normal for his age (almost two, can you believe it?) but it's very difficult.

But the point of this post isn't really to tell you where I've been.  It's to tell you where I will be.  I'll be here, a bit.  I'll also be posting material on an online writing portfolio in the hopes of landing some freelance work (more information to follow).  I'm working on editing a collection of my church-friendly skits in the hopes of finding a publisher.  And I'm really hoping to work with some of the teenage girls in my church to put together a conference for tweens and teens about what it means to be a godly woman (hint: it's probably not what you think it is).

So I won't be online much.  I'll creep on Facebook here and there, and I'll still be blowing up IG with cat pictures and baby videos, but that's about it.  I'm not ready to slip out of the grip of social media altogether, but I've decided that I'm in charge.  Not my Facebook feed.  Not the links to those soul-sucking political articles.  I'll be using my accounts to my advantage - not the other way around.