I’m Melodye. Yep, with an E. Most just call me Mel.

Before moving to Florida with my person last year, I lived for 12 years in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. The last decade of my life has included some significant changes in our world, in our family and in our ministry. For years, I was a pastor’s wife & a stay-at-home mama (to our 4 kids). We served churches in Mississippi and Alabama, also planting a church in Washington. Since then, we have added 4 by marriage and have seen a plethora of foster kids come and go. Now I’m a grandma to 8 wonderful grandkids spread from Indonesia to Idaho (with our newest addition residing in Kansas City)! As a long-time bible study facilitator and writer, my hope is that this blog would be place for encouragement, challenge and for hope. These pages are a little taste of my varied (sometimes rambling, but very real) day-to-day ponderings. To get some insight into who I am and how I became “me”, a series of posts I wrote several years ago when I was turning 50 may shed some light on it. 50 Shades of Grace

Simply put: I owed a debt I could not ever pay. 
When I was a child, I realized I was responsible to God for my sin load. The heavy debt had come with being human. I learned from reading the bible, and the teaching of my parents, that a long time ago humans took advantage of God’s grace and sinned against Him, incurring a great debt. As our Creator, God had provided us with a wondrously good world. His only expectation and demand was our love and obedience. But we blew it, thinking we needed more. As a just Judge, God could not go against His own character, and the sin against Him created a debt that no human could ever pay. In fact, the price was my very life.
Thankfully, by grace I came to understand that God Himself – through His Son Jesus – paid my debt. Yes, Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay. Now I have a glad life song that reflects the paradox of the all-encompassing grace that was shown me: ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, AND grace my fears relieved. The music of mercy is such a sweet song, calling for the loudest praises! Daily I recognize the grace to which I’m a great debtor.
Even now, every good thing I have and any good thing I do is because of the grace given to me by God who loved me and gave Himself for me. AND one day, “that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face. Clothed then in blood-washed linen, how I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace!”