Focusing on Being Thankful

When I wrote "On Becoming a New Mommy" post back in September, the birth of my child was still 10 weeks away. Honestly, 10 weeks kiiiinnnnda felt like an eternity then.

Today, I am 14 days away from my due date. That feels like insanity. I am still very much feeling a lot of the same feelings I had back in September. The same feelings I've had since Day 1 when I found out I was pregnant. I am one big juxtaposition of emotions. (Dear Lord, pleeeeeeease let me get a grip!!!)

With the holiday season quickly approaching, I'm trying to hard to be intentional about slowing down and taking things one day at a time. The holidays are tricky sometimes. I often find myself caught up in the "stress" of everything and just wishing the time would hurry up and be over. I hate that attitude. But especially now that I'm caught up in this anxiety with Cameron's due date lingering so close, I'm definitely just trying to hurry up and make things happen.

I started doing a She Reads Truth bible study this week. It's a 14 day study of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-16) from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. I know that when I spend my time praying or in thanks giving instead of stressing, worrying, or crying about things that I feel a million times better. I pray all the time and thank the Lord for his blessing of my sweet baby boy. But yet immediately after, I fall back into the pattern of being anxious and sometimes overwhelmed. Clearly, I'm not being intentional enough in my time with God. I'm not taking a deep breath and letting myself feel the comfort that ONLY HE CAN OFFER ME. Basically, I'm praying almost to check it off my list that hey, I prayed and thanked God for Cameron  today. CHECK, DONE... hmmm why don't I feel better? You know what I mean?

So Day 1 of this SRT study, helped me to slooooooow down, breathe deep, and just feel the word of God rush through me. There is literally nothing that can even come close to that feeling. Day 1 talked about how as Christians, we are the salt and light of the Earth. I'm 100% not being that lately because I am so bogged down with my feelings. It went on to say ---
"As we study this short but impactful passage at the beginning of Matthew 5, may our hearts assume a posture of gratitude toward the God who grants us His very Kingdom through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son. And as we give thanks for the blessings that are secured for us in Christ, may we be quick to scatter the knowledge of Jesus to those around us."

My job is to take this world that can often make me suffer, and make me feel inferior, and SHOW it that I will not fall for that crap. Nobody ever promised me this life would be easy - and it hasn't been easy for me. I have to remember the TRUTHs from God's word. I am not setting out to achieved blessedness from God. I AM ALREADY BLESSED through his sacrifice. Why do I so often forget that? Why am I struggling to keep that thought at the forefront of my mind?

Focusing on being thankful seems to be a struggle that I come back to constantly. I know I've talked about it on here many times, and I'm sure people in my life roll their eyes when I say I'm struggling with it again. Surrendering my SELF and allowing His grace to cover me proves to be a continual battle.

1 Chronicles 16:34 (NLT): "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever."

I should have that tattooed on my forehead, or the backs of my hands, or wherever it would take for me to see it 100 times a day.

I try to make things more complicated than they really are with my "what if's" and my over thinking. I had gotten so much better about this for a period in my life, then since I've been pregnant my worries have increased. It has to stop. Uncertainty does not come from the Lord.

I am blessed far beyond anything I deserve. My Savior lives, and He offers me redemption after redemption when I forget the real deal. He has fulfilled the desires of my heart in incredibly abundant ways in the past two years. I am about to become a mother, smack dab in the middle of this holiday season. That irony is not lost on me. God is calling me closer to him. I must surrender these anxious, fearful feelings and remember that He's got me covered. Remember that HE CHOSE ME to be Cameron's mommy, to be Lee's wife, to be Lily's stepmom, to be everything that I am right now and to be exactly where I'm supposed to be.

It's my job to try my best to live out God's word. I'm an ugly person when I focus on myself. My prayer is that this holiday season I can focus on 1 Chronicles 16:34 and be encouraged by the sweet sweet truth that is in those words. Simple as that!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your families! Within the next two weeks, I will have a precious bundle of baby boy love to share with you!!!! XOXO
 

 

Let's Talk Life

Almost four long months have gone by without even so much of a hint of a blog post...

That might be a new record for radio silence around here.

Have no fear, friends, I'm still alive and well! I have missed my blog and my bloggy friends, but I haven't really felt inspired to write about much lately. A million things have happened in my world that have caused me to draft a post, but the words just never seemed to come out right to match how I felt. I hate that too because blogging has always been such a positive outlet for me. I thought I would just try again today. I need a release!

Life always hit me the hardest around the holidays. The past three holidays seasons have been especially hard for me. I've been in a place of trying to heal a broken heart for a while now. And while I do feel like I'm finally healed up from that breakup 3 Novembers ago, the holiday season just always triggers this major anxiety within my heart. I should be excited because it will be my first holiday season with my boyfriend. We have been dating for 7 months now (CRAZY, right??) and there's so much to celebrate there, but sadly I think we are not going to end up together for Thanksgiving and it's really bothering me. I'm feeling Debbie Downer-ish. There are so many reasons why. My family is messy - both sides of it. I don't really feel like I belong within my biological family, for the most part. That's really hard to say - even harder to feel, but it's true. I have always searched for a "family" to adopt me outside of the people who are blood related to me. I have always imagined marrying a guy whose family just takes me in and never makes me feel like an outsider. I desire that so much!

This will be my family's first holiday season without my mom. Some days that makes me feel sad, some days it makes me feel numb, but most days it just makes me feel anxious about how it will be. Last Thanksgiving, I struggled internally with whether or not to even participate in my family's Thanksgiving get together. I ended up going for maybe an hour and it was a complete disaster. My mom had just finished a round of chemo and she was so skinny and sickly. But she was also hurting and not dealing with everything well so she was drinking heavily to mask her pain. She was hammered drunk when I got there and things just went downhill from there. It was a painful time. The holidays are typically a time reserved for celebrating time spent with your family, and it's honestly just a harsh reminder for me that I don't have that. The negatives are weighing me down.

I looked back to my post last year for Thanksgiving, and now I'm sitting here crying as I read these words again this year:

(PS - this is a great one too, Giving Thanks In Sorrow). "When you think you’ll never again be able to sing a song of thanksgiving, try it anyway. Our hearts may not be comfortable praising tragedy, loss, or bad days, but our hearts were created to praise the Hope of Glory."

I am reminded that hope is never in vain. Even when it feels useless, it's not. Even if you have to tell yourself that every second of the day just to make it through. Hope in Jesus is always the only way to survive anything. I might be struggling with the heaviness in my heart right now, but hope is the only way to overcome. I truly believe that! When I focus on the family situation I currently have, the family I want, or the shortcomings with either - I am completely heartbroken. I become overwhelmed when I focus on the things that weigh me down, but I am lifted when I fix my eyes on Jesus and his promises. I cannot even tell you how reassuring of a thought that is to me today.

I went back to SheReadsTruth today for a little inspiration and wanted to share with you what I found. "His promises hold fast, even when your world is crumbling. In everything, He is good. In everything give thanks." Sweeter words have never been spoken. When I feel like I don't have anyone to count on, I have the Lord. When I feel let down by everyone's conditional love and empty promises, I have Jesus who will never leave me and never stop showing me how faithful He is.

Source

I stole this from SRT too because I thought it was a good exercise in thanksgiving. Maybe someone else needs this reminder today just as much as I did.

Let’s actively thank our good God today.

I will give thanks in…

1. this joyful thing:
2. this suffering:
3. this certainty:
4. this stress:
5. this injustice:
6. this sorrow:
7. this plenty:
8. this want:
9. this wandering:
10. this waiting:

Wishing you all a truly Happy Thanksgiving, filled with warm hearts and full bellies! XOXO

Lent Update

Here we are, almost a month into the season of Lent - so about halfway through. I just wanted to share an update of what has transpired since I wrote my "Enter the Season of Lent" post on February 19th. I said in that post that Lent has taken on a new meaning for me this year. I'm learning more about what the history of what it means to me as a follower of Christ, and the miracle that we celebrate during this time. There is incredible power in this season!

 

These were my exact words about what I wanted to give up this Lent  (from the previous Lent post): "So this year for Lent, I want to give up serving myself and all the fears and doubts that go along with that. Lent is ALL ABOUT recognizing our sins and turning away from them, in order to kneel down at the cross. It's about intentional prayer, intentional steps to avoid distractions and just revel in the beauty that is our walk with God. That means diving into my "messy" and revealing the parts of me that cry out to be healed. It's much harder than giving up Diet Coke or social media, but I know it's something that I must do. I want to slow my pace, obey the Lord and I will wait expectantly for him to rekindle that fire in the my soul."

 

We can all agree that it's pretty awesome how God works, right? Literally leaves me in awe. Maybe you don't know God and so you cannot right now recognize all the ways that He is working around you, in you, through you, but friends TRUST me when I say that it's a mind blowing concept! I say that because I begged God to turn me inside out and reveal to me the areas where my sin was overwhelming my good intentions. And I have found that when I beg the Lord for things that He can use to draw my heart closer to His, He surely does it.

 

Being a Christian does not exclude you from sad times or bad days. When I wrote that first post a month ago, my heart felt heavy heavy heavy. Initially giving up serving myself sounded hard. The actual act of readjusting my thoughts and actions to try and do so has been even harder! It's embarrassing how easy and natural it is for me to act selfishly. But I have become much more aware of these actions and have definitely been wrestling the convictions that come along with that - which is progress. Turning away from serving yourself and into serving the Lord with all your heart is really a process. It doesn't happen over night and it requires massive amounts of patience. Remember, Lent is a messy season because we are messy people. It's about dealing with our messes.

Over the past month, none of my life circumstances have changed. I'm still single, my job still feels stressful, I'm still paying the same old bills with the same amount of paycheck, my family is still certifiably insane, same old things - but I am being shown that God will always be bigger than any of my life circumstances. Always.

The struggle with true repentance can be difficult. Truths revealed to you about yourself can be heartbreaking to accept. Shameful, even. But that feeling of shame is not what God wants for us. He offers us grace. A powerful, overwhelming, all encompassing, freedom from sin and shame. He knew all along that we would struggle - because we are human. Yet when we do he does not aim to condemn us, but picks us right back up and reassures us that nothing can separate us from his love.

My point here is not to lead you to She Reads Truth or to preach to you. My point is I literally cannot help but sing the Lord's praises after all that he has done for me and all the ways that he continues to change my heart. I read my old posts on here from a 3 years ago when my life was in a totally different place, my heart was far from God, and I can see the HUGE ways he has changed my life. I'm living proof of the redeeming power of the gospel. And if my life can be changed, then I promise yours can too. None of us are ever too far gone for grace. You don't have to clean yourself up for God. You don't have to do anything but have faith.

Here are some truths that I feel the Holy Spirit has been speaking to me this Lent season. We have been singing this song at church lately called "Unstoppable Love" by Jesus Culture and it is EVERYTHING. Listen to the words. Makes me tear up every time.


From Day 22 of the SRT Lent Study:
"The consequences of my sin are devastating, but more devastating still is my lack of repentance. Lack of repentance breeds shame, and shame whispers lies in my ear. Shame tells me I can’t be forgiven. Shame tells me I’m not worth forgiving. But the Cross tells a different story—the true story."

These verses have comforted me a lot in the past week, and they come from the She Reads Truth Lent Study (Day 23):
 

 Psalm 32:8-11 NLT

8 The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.

I will advise you and watch over you.

9 Do not be like a senseless horse or mule

that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

10 Many sorrows come to the wicked,

but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the Lord.

11 So rejoice in the Lord and be glad, all you who obey him!

Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!

 

The more I begin to fully come to recognize God for who he truly is, and not just who I have thought him to be, the more I fall in love with him. The more I feel the depth of his love for me, the harder it becomes for me to keep my mouth shut about him.

Anybody else experiencing God's love this Lent season?? TELL ME ABOUT IT!!

Enter the Season of Lent

I am a sinner. Every single day of my life, I am a sinner. Some days I actually physically feel the weight of my sins more than others. Do you know what I mean? Some days my bad choices, my selfish actions and my hateful words can really haunt me. These are the days when I should really offer myself grace. I'm an imperfect person in an imperfect world so of course I fall short. We all do. I tell myself that we all have these days. (These are also the days when that grace can feel pretty far from reach, if I'm being honest.)

 

I was supposed to have an amazingly romantic Valentine's Day last week with the most perfect boyfriend. Instead I spent that day alone, watching Bridesmaids and feeling like I never should have broken up with him two weeks before VDay. I was supposed to be traveling on my way to a Bethel Worship Night yesterday in Birmingham, but due to the snow and icy weather conditions here we had to make the decision not to go. I am pissed off about it. I felt like I needed that trip, the community with the people I was going with, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the pick-me-up - all of it. Tension in my family is at an all time high right now. The consequences of my mom & stepbrothers' actions have been really affecting me and I'm just fed up with it.

I've found myself complaining a lot. I've spent about a week solid being pissed off, only with each passing day my anger is growing. I'm mad about how things have gone down with my now ex-boyfriend. I'm pissed off that I still want to be with him and I'm mad at myself for all the back and forth that I have put him through. I broke up with him, why am I so torn up about this? I hate that us not talking makes me feel like he could care less. I'm not in control of this situation. I'm disgusted with my mom. And how in her typical fashion, she finds a way to end up mad at me over the consequences of her actions. I'm not in control of her actions. I'm heartbroken that I feel like I needed this trip for a worship night so badly and it gets cancelled. I'm not in control of the weather. I feel like I'm nearing the end of my rope. Discontent is weighing down my heart.

Enter the season of Lent.
I'm not sure your experience with Lent; my own personal experience has actually been pretty shallow. Until the maybe 3 years ago, I had heard of Lent, but never had a personal connection with it. Heck, I really didn't even know what all it signified in Christian culture. I've never even participated in giving up anything for the season. Last year I did the 40 day Overcome the Lie prayer challenge, which did include giving up something we felt had a hold on us for that time period. It wasn't exactly aligned with Lent though (it started on Feb 1) so I'm still going with the fact that I haven't actively participated.

Yesterday I found this article. Divine timing indeed.

"But this is a messy season. It’s much like our lives. Over time, our hearts and souls, when left unattended, get messy. Lent invites us to deal with the mess. This is not about quickly cleaning things up and pretending they were never there, nor is it about ignoring the mess. Lent invites to roll up our sleeves and sort through the debris of our lives.

We are confronted with our mess, and so on our foreheads we rub a little dirt reminding ourselves that just as Eden has gone to ashes, so, one day, we will too.

This is what Lent does. It allows us to see the parts of ourselves we’d rather leave covered up. It asks us to drag our full self into the light of day no matter how dark it may be. As we near the end of Lent, we encounter Good Friday. For centuries, the people of God mark this day by participating in the Stations of the Cross remembering the trial and crucifixion of Jesus."

Like a slap in the face, I tell ya. A much needed, slap in the face at that. My life feels flat out messy right now. The most comforting truth, for me, is that I am the daughter of a Savior who wants my whole entire heart. The ugly parts, the hurting parts, the doubtful parts, even the prideful parts and especially the parts that are begging for his grace. 

I'm also doing the She Reads Truth Lent Study (started yesterday so you have plenty of time to jump in on this one).  

Joel 2:12-13 (ESV)
Return to the Lord

¹² “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
¹³     and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and he relents over disaster.

 "Much to my dismay, the call to return to God is not written alongside a long list of to-do’s, an attainable checklist so I can feel sure I’m returning correctly. No, there is just one qualification—to return with all my heart. Evidently the cleaned up, feel-good part of my heart is not all God is looking for. He doesn’t want only the parts of my heart I’m willing to let others see—He wants the whole messy, confused, narcissistic, achy thing. 

So, to recap: You and I and our whole unholy selves are called to turn fully, openly, and sans-covering to the holy, almighty God of all the universe.

[Insert deep breath here.]

It’s no wonder we try to come to Him with layers of lies and pride and every other self-preservation instinct intact. It makes sense, right? Except it doesn’t… because Jesus."

Today's message was clearly written for me, don't you think? I wrote this blog post yesterday afternoon in tears of frustration, not knowing how to clean up my own heart. This morning I am offered these words of hope. I cannot fix my heart. The Lord will heal and restore me. "YET EVEN NOW..." Even after I've served my self first and allowed discontent to settle in,  EVEN NOW God pursues ALL of my heart with steadfast love.

 

 

Man, I am beyond words thankful for people who keep it real!! For people who pour out their hearts and confess their fears and inadequacies. Because honestly, we all have them. We all battle with similar demons. I adore the tender moments when I allow myself to feel fully known and surrender my own struggles. There's healing in this process. The Lord continually draws me near to Him and there is no place I would rather be.

So this year for Lent, I want to give up serving myself and all the fears and doubts that go along with that. Lent is ALL ABOUT recognizing our sins and turning away from them, in order to kneel down at the cross. It's about intentional prayer, intentional steps to avoid distractions and just revel in the beauty that is our walk with God. That means diving into my "messy" and revealing the parts of me that cry out to be healed. It's much harder than giving up Diet Coke or social media, but I know it's something that I must do. I want to slow my pace, obey the Lord and I will wait expectantly for him to rekindle that fire in the my soul.

Something extra - I know I said this yesterday, but this song is REALLY speaking to me lately. Take a listen to the words.

  

Thanksgiving, as an Action vs. a Holiday

Here I am, again, in this place where I have SO MUCH to say but can't find the right words. More accurately, I'm scared to speak the truth of the words that I'm feeling. I'm afraid of judgment, afraid that saying things out loud makes them real, and anxiously awaiting something amazing to happen so that I can fill my posts with that instead.

 

I feel myself sliding into a valley. Not a spiritual valley necessarily (thank the Lord), more like a life valley. One of those times when things are just "ehhhh" and that's honestly about the best way to describe them. Life feels a little bit messy right now. Work, family, relationships - all of it, presents me with more complicated days than easy ones.

 

My go-to girl Hannah Brencher apparently feels my vibe and wrote this post JUST FOR ME. I mean, come on! You know how much I love her, and her words always seem to speak truth into my given situation. Spot on. Thank you Jesus for HB and her connection to my soul!

 

If I'm being honest, my current valley probably has so much to do with my breakup. The boyfriend and I broke up two weeks ago. I'm not sure I can adequately describe to you the journey our relationship traveled since last March when we went on our first date. Roller coaster would be pretty close to a perfect term to use. I want so badly to believe that it was just a timing issue. I feel like we are such a great pairing on paper, but something was holding me back from riding it out to see how the story ended. I prayed...and prayed...and prayed some more but I never received that crystal clear answer that I wanted from God. Just that consistent feeling of hesitancy. I know that not all relationships are made to last, but I wanted this one to. I just don't know how much more back and forth either one of us could have handled. I have no choice but to put all my hope in the fact that if God wants to bring us back together, then He will control the path that leads us there. So there's that.

 

The holidays, in the past couple of years especially, have been a time of struggle for me. I can't tell you how incredibly overwhelmed I was at the thought of having to spend the holidays with my boyfriend's family. I could cry just thinking about it even still. Can we say ISSUES?? Something about all the family time and celebrations makes me feel like an outsider. I can't survive a family get together of my own without crying, resorting to drinking or daydreaming of stabbing someone (usually my mother). Loneliness is constantly lurking in the back of my mind telling me to compare my situation to everyone else's. I'm sure that's at least part of why I want my own family so urgently - to have that comfort of being an actual part of something. God has rescued me from these feelings of self pity so many times, and yet here I am entertaining the idea of them again. It's ridiculous.

 

I want to live a lifestyle of thanksgiving and praise God greatly for all that He has given me. I'm doing this awesome She Reads Truth bible study right now that's all about thanksgiving (the action of it, not the holiday). The other day Give Thanks in Suffering hit the nail on the head for me. I beg you to read this if you are going through any kind of suffering right now. Because I promise you, there's no way you can read these biblical truths and not feel beyond thankful to a Savior that offers HOPE. It offered me a much needed reminder that: This isn't all that there is. Our story goes on. Life gets better. God has BIGGER & BETTER things planned for you and I!

"Sisters, it’s okay to be sad. But we know Jesus who died for us in love and rose again in love, so that all that is broken can be redeemed, so that in the midst of terrible pain we can know this isn’t all there is.

 

Our hope is never in vain when it’s in Jesus. Our thanksgiving in times of suffering is a testament to how temporary the pain is in light of our great eternal joy and our everlasting hope."

 

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”- Romans 5:5

 

 

This Thanksgiving (as in the actual holiday this time), I will be surrounded by amazing friends who love me unconditionally. I might be single again, but I am not alone. I will have a full belly, a warm house, and money to go Black Friday shopping. I am thankful for this valley, and all that it will bring. I cannot imagine a better place to be than here, where God draws me close to Him and covers me with his love. What more do I need?? My heart will overflow with praise for the Lord for all the blessings I do not deserve. I will wait expectantly and hope for a season of life that comes with a view from a mountaintop instead of a valley.

(PS - this is a great one too, Giving Thanks In Sorrow). "When you think you’ll never again be able to sing a song of thanksgiving, try it anyway. Our hearts may not be comfortable praising tragedy, loss, or bad days, but our hearts were created to praise the Hope of Glory."
 

Happy Thanksgiving friends! I'm thankful for the friendships I still have from blogging, and for all the support you give me when I whine :) XOXO