Are you ready for an eighteen-inch adventure of a lifetime? I’m humbled you’ll consider inching along with me . . . .

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Lee, otherwise known as “Inch-by-Inchworm”, is the Eighteen Inches’ blog author, a high school English teacher getting closer to having her own classroom, confessed bibliophile, aspiring writer, private tutor, ‘Aunt Lee’, and someone who considers herself at least eighteen-thousand inches from having “it” altogether & “it” all figured out (a.k.a. ‘perpetual student’).

In a teaching career spanning more than 20 years, her experience includes teaching at the elementary and secondary levels in Christian, public, and online (virtual) environments. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education with a minor in Biblical Studies from The King’s College (NY) . In addition, she has earned credits towards 1/4th of a MEd “degree” in Teaching and Learning, English cognate from Liberty University (VA, online graduate program). She remains hopeful she’ll earn the remaining 3/4ths sooner rather than later. Currently a preferred building substitute for a local Pennsylvania public school high school, Lee holds her dual Instructional II certificate in Pennsylvania (English 7-12 & Elementary K-6) and New Jersey State Certification (Elementary K-8).

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Eighteen inches. . .the distance between your brain and your heart. . . .The ever-widening gap between what I know and what I have experienced.

The name Eighteen Inches is symbolic of my story. The ‘Head’ represents knowledge, logic, thinking; “logos” – that which appeals to the mind and reasoning. That which I know and understand about God. It represents my knowledge of God and who I understand Him to be. On the other hand, the ‘Heart’ represents my experiences related to my understanding of God.  For me, my head and my heart are two separate entities. My head understands and can process, my heart often lags behind trying to wrap itself around the gaps experiences life and people have often conveyed to me.  More often than not, God has been misrepresented to my heart. My head – my knowledge and understanding – has a strong, solid theology. I grew up in Sunday school and a Christian home. I came to know Jesus as my Savior at the age of 9. I grew up knowing that God loved me. Yet, my heart understands those experiences related to God and who He is as abstract concepts. It was as if my head understood English but you were speaking Greek to my heart. Talk about processing delays.

Although much of the story recorded here is chronicled beginning in early 2013, the already-existing gap began to give way even further in late 2010.  Suddenly, the gap between what my head had always understood and the reality of my heart had always experienced became a chasm I couldn’t bridge. By the fall of 2012 I remember telling God “My head gets it, my heart just doesn’t understand. Help my heart understand.” I don’t know if the journey or parts of my story recorded here is an answer to that prayer. Perhaps to a certain extent it is.

It’s still a struggle for my heart to comprehend. There are major processing delays.  At times, I feel as if I’m swinging on a pendulum. There are times when I feel like all I’m doing is inching around yet another “Mt. Sinai”.  Yet, when the pendulum is moving at warp speed or Iife hasn’t progressed more than a millimeter, am I able to focus on the beauty of the One who holds me?

This blog, hopefully, is a story that shows God can and wants to take our pain, heal it, and redeem it.  He will redeem it, He will and does make all things new. By sharing my story, it is my hope you will be blessed and encouraged to gain a gravity-defying joy-filled “heart-ittude” as you read. I hope my story will inspire you to take up the challenge to discover one thousand ways God demonstrates His love towards you every day.

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