What is Back Forty Blog?

God is just really cool. Who He is, the things He has made and done, how He thinks, His understanding, how He works. He is too amazing to not share.

Back Forty Blog is something God has put on my heart, to share God, experiences, revelations. To discuss, encourage, strengthen.

The website is a great outlet. People can come to it and leave as they please. No one is keeping tabs, chastising for not coming to it enough, reading something that others may not agree with. They can read what they want to read, even—especially if—people around them may not agree with what is being said.

It is also great because I can put some time into a piece and then it doesn’t expire. It stays for people to see for years and years. It allows me to share resources that I have found helpful. Being the Internet, the information can reach massive amounts of people, not limited by my time and location.

Why Back Forty Blog?

Two ways to take this question. 1. Why does Back Forty Blog exist? 2. Why is it called Back Forty Blog.

The answer to #1 is: When I came back to Christ—after decades of thinking I could do things myself, trying to satisfy the emptiness inside with earthly things—I had doubts and questions. God, with His great love, gave me answers. I felt compelled to share those answers, to help others build their relationship with God.

The answer to #2 is a little more extensive. The name was suggested by my pastor, Lee, when I mentioned to him that I felt compelled to share with others what had been given to me by God and that a blog was going to be the ideal way to do it.

Back Forty Blog ended up being very appropriate. The back forty is an expression about 40 acres of land on a larger acreage. It is a place commonly used to put things that people want to ignore, not see; out of sight, out of mind.

It just so happened that around the time I mentioned the blog to Lee, I had just turned 40. I was not sad or upset about my age. Actually, I was amazed I’d lived that long—I wore “40 like a four year old wears a princess dress.” Ironic, too, was that for about 40 years I had put a lot of baggage and issues on the back forty of my mind.

God relieved me of that baggage, quite miraculously.

The Purpose of Back Forty Blog

The purpose of Back Forty Blog is to share revelations, insights,education, information, questions, understanding God has given me, to love on and encourage others, open thoughts and discussion, and strengthen God’s Kingdom.

Who is Back Forty Blog for?

Back Forth Blog is for anyone and everyone that God leads to it. It is for people who:

  • Need encouragement
  • Have questions
  • Are struggling
  • Have doubts
  • Want to strengthen their faith
  • Want to gain understanding
  • Want to explore God’s Word as more than just
    text on a page

Who is Randi?

Woman. Child of God, wife, mother. My love language is Words of Admiration, my motivational and spiritual gifts are teaching and administration. My testimony is HERE.

My childhood was spent being a construction brat. I lived all over the country, attending five different schools. I have literally traveled the country, only not setting foot into like 4 of the lower 48 states—I’ve never crossed the border into Canada or Mexico.  I need to put together a map.

My travels have allowed me various experiences in different cultures. I adjust and adapt easily to different settings: I can run with the really rough crowd, hang at the BBQ, or I know which fork to use in a more sophisticated situation. I can dress in jeans or an evening gown but prefer leggings with a baggy shirt—comfort is key.

I’m eclectic. The traveling and opportunities to do so many different things, be in so many different situations, be able to relate, empathize, and sympathize with a variety of different people and situations has also made me a pretty good conversationalist. I can carry on a conversation about most anything; and I have an (educated, logical) opinion on most everything.

Among my experiences are cattle; I have been involved in just about every part of the beef cattle industry. My husband, Jer, and I owned and operated a small operation in Western Colorado—I’m very knowledgeable and passionate about the beef we raised. I’ve worked at sale yards, packing plants, hauling cattle, and have sold meat directly to consumers (Farm to Fork before it was cool, 2007).

The more time I spend around God, talking to Him, reading His word, building a relationship with Him, the more I want to make everything about Him. He should get all the glory, every bit of it. All the credit.

While I may be the one that is doing this earthly typing and writing, I could never do it, and wouldn’t have anything worth sharing if it were not for His great love, grace, and mercy.

We are commanded to love God with everything we have. This blog will be used to love God and love those things he cares about—people.

What Back Forty Blog and Randi are Back Forty Blog is not:

  • Always correct
  • A one-sided argument
  • A way to force ads and marketing on people

I’m not wanting mean arguments, screaming and yelling, but arguing can be good. If we all believed the same, all liked the same things, life would be boring. I like to hear different perspectives, experiences, and stories. There will be opportunity for discussion.

Please notice the lack of ads on this website. It was a thought to have ads, so that hopefully some income would result from the site. But that is not what this site is about. Granted, I do have some affiliate links up for some products that I suggest…if you click on them, I may make a little income…but they are for products that I would link to and recommend even if I wouldn’t make income from linking to them. I also had Mom’s Real Life, a time management education company that I made custom planners for people. I was initially going to promote my planners on Back Forty Blog, but then God compelled me to give my system as a gift, for free, and people can use my planner layouts. Hopefully it will help others as it helped me.

The point and purpose is to help people build their relationship with God, answer some of their questions, help reduce their doubts, and doing that in a variety of different ways: education, hands on, helping in other parts of their lives so that they will have time and intention of building their relationship with God.

Comments, questions, discussion

I thought long and hard about allowing comments directly onto the blog, directly under articles. But there were a lot of problems—time consuming problems—with that. Moderating the comments and spam, I was not going to be able to allow commenting. That would leave Back Forty Blog as really one-sided. For the time being, I am going to allow commenting. Hopefully this subscription for CleanTalk will weed out the spammers. If it starts taking too much time to moderate, I will have to turn off comments.

I made a Facebook page. You can follow it HERE.

You are also welcome to email me at info@backfortyblog.com.