The road to Faith Squared, from idea to launch, has been a ten-month journey.  As with any creative endeavor, there have been plenty of fits and starts, wrong turns, dead ends and “what were we thinking’s?!”  It’s been a steep learning curve at times, but learn we have…despite some good old-fashioned resistance. (To that end, we’ve delegated the responsibilities as follows: Liz is in charge of kicking and Michele is in charge of screaming).

Are we ready to launch this week?  No way.  We don’t yet know exactly how our site works (turns out our wish list made it a little more complex than your average blog, even for our designers); we still haven’t figured out how to use tags and categories (despite the many hours we’ve spent discussing them); and mention the letters S, E, and O to us and you’ll see our eyes glaze over (all we can tell you is that they stand for “search” and “engine” and “optimization” and, for now, we’re good with that).

Yes, there’s still a lot to learn, but life has taught us that conditions are never perfect for taking a risk.  And that works out nicely, because we’re not here to be perfect.  In fact, as you’ll see on these pages, we’re here to celebrate being perfectly imperfect.

For those of you who don’t know, April 23 is Take A Chance Day (and no, we did not make that up, even though that’s totally something we might do).  And Faith Squared is the chance we’re taking.  In all honesty, we don’t even know exactly what’s going to happen here, but we have been divinely guided and supported each step of the way so far, and now is the time to start implementing the ideas God continues to inspire in us, and find out what this site wants to become.  We’re as curious as the rest of you!

Yet within all this uncertainty, on the outside of all these questions, here’s what we do know:

We are best friends. If we had known each other in grade school, we would have definitely walked to school holding hands, probably shared hair ribbons and eventually built some kind of secret fort where we could spend hours “imaginating,” pinky-swearing, eating chocolate and contemplating magic. Although, honestly, with our shared aversion to roughing it, it most likely would have been a fort made out of quilts draped over the dining room table, with easy access to the kitchen, bathroom, and sock drawer. (More on socks later.) And we would have gotten in trouble, a lot, for talking. And giggling. A LOT.

Source: google.nl via Faith Squared on Pinterest

We are writers. On any given day, we don’t always get to exercise that essential muscle as much as we’d like, what with the reality of home, clients, kids, critters, and just-what-exactly-can-I-cram-into-twenty-four-hours-anyway?? But we both see the world in a constant stream of sentences that insist upon eventual written recognition—long, dizzying, color-soaked portraitures, paralyzing one-liners worthy of bumper-stickers and T-shirts (yes, there is a virtual F2 storefront in the works), and always, deliciously pretentious WORDS... courtesy of both Webster and our own irreverent, shared-brain dialect.

God is at the heart of everything, and He always has been.  Our friendship is undeniable proof of that. Within it we have each found someone to bear witness to the real life miracles and struggles of a God-driven life…a kindred spirit who’s hiking the same trail, so to speak. We’ve discovered the magical way that faith grows exponentially when it’s recognized and shared by a sympathetic soul.

We wanted more than anything to give others a chance to have that same recognition and support on their journey. And since building a monastery is still a few years out :-), we figured there’s no better use for modern technology and our shared creative passions than creating a showplace for God.

Faith shared is Faith Squared. And this website is a unique place for sharing stories about God.

Blog posts, photographs, interviews, videos, music, anecdotes, resources, comics, ways to connect with and engage in the divine… a kind of cyber sanctuary, where you can stop, take a break from the everyday wackiness of life, come back to the heart, and find hope and inspiration and humor to take out with you into the world again.

There will be a flurry of activity on the site this week as, one by one, we open the doors to all the rooms in this cyber monastery. In general, though, we’ll be adding one new blog post per week (two if you’re signed up for the EHQ).  So if you’re considering subscribing to our newsletter or RSS feed, rest assured that we will not take up a lot of space in your in-box.  See the Contact Us page for more information, and tomorrow’s blog post for all the details on the EHQ.

Welcome to Faith Squared.  Thank you for being here to celebrate Take A Chance Day with us. We’d love to hear about the chances you’re taking today.  Or, if you’re looking to celebrate in a way that’s less risky and perhaps a bit more tasty, you should know that it also happens to be National Zucchini Bread Day. No, we did not make that one up, either. Pinky swear.