• Faith

    If you’re ever wondering if God can accept all of you, read this

    February 25, 2016

    You guys I am so excited to tell you that I wrote my first guest post this month. It was on my February goals and I’m so happy that I actually accomplished it. It went live today over at Wendy van Eyck’s site ilovedevotionals.com.

    Wendy is writing this whole year about how to live “well” and what that means. I feel that this is the first step for me to ever getting it right – realizing that God accepts me the way that I am right now, flaws and all. If I don’t I realize that then there’s no room for growth.

    If this is something you might be interested in reading more about, click here to read my post. I’d love to know what your thoughts are or if you have any tips for me in this area.

    Read More
  • Faith

    Why all of these _ steps to a better __ lists are so dangerous

    February 5, 2016

    Have you ever felt just overwhelmed by the many lists out there that promise a good or happy life? The ones like 10 steps a happier marriage. 15 steps to a closer relationship with God. They sound really great and the list sounds doable initially but when you get to the bottom, do you ever feel an overwhelming feeling of dread? Because I know I do. Those lists are perfect examples to me of lists of things that I just don’t measure up to. Reasons why I’m not good enough. I know they are meant to help and honestly sometimes they even do but more often than not they’re just a reminder of my shortcomings.

    These are especially dangerous when they involve God. There isn’t a way to check off steps on a list to be closer to God. That’s not how it works. How do I so easily forget this? God is after my heart and honestly that’s the hardest thing to give him. If I don’t have a passion to know him better, reading my bible isn’t going to bring me closer to him. So what do we do when we are lacking in our desire for God? Or when we notice he is slipping down our priority list?

    PRAY

    Plead with God to restore in you a heart for him. It may not happen instantaneously but I can promise that it is something God will answer. You may even need to continue praying everyday until it does happen but when it does it will be beautiful.

    The truth is these lists are dangerous and I don’t think we really realize what they’re doing to us. They’re either making us more self-righteous because we have amazing self-discipline and are able to meet (almost) all of the things on the list and we are then thinking that we are closer to God because of it. Or they are making us despair because we are realizing our shortcoming now more than ever. We might even fall into the trap of thinking if we aren’t doing these things then we can’t ever be closer to God. And I’m not saying don’t ever read the lists because they can give us great ideas on how to respond to God but be aware that they aren’t steps to getting closer to God.

    We need to start with God first and go from there.

     

    Read More
  • Faith,  Life

    Overcome the fear of failure when goal setting

    January 26, 2016

    Hi friends- I was just thinking a lot about where my life is going to go from here once I am no longer employed at Hudson City/M&T. I looked up a bunch of jobs to apply to and just have been thinking about how much is going to change over the next few months. I’m excited but nervous as well.

    Tommy and I started premarital counseling last night and it was equally scary as it was exciting. I’m super shy and have a huge fear of putting myself out there so I was insanely nervous before the meeting because well the whole purpose of this meeting was for our counselor to get to know us aka us putting ourselves out there. All in all though I’m really glad we did it. We got to share with him our personal testimonies (which I’m actually planning on sharing on here sometime soon) and how we met.

    I was thinking today about how I always have such big hopes and dreams but never seem to really fulfill any of them (depressing thought I know). But in all honesty I didn’t think of it in a sad way – just a realistic one. I want this place to grow and I want to show up here more consistently but the weight of failing to do that keeps me from showing up really at all.

    And then I got to thinking, I do this more often than I realize. I have such big dreams but am so afraid of them failing that I rationalize myself to not try at all. I really want to break the habit of this and start to put myself out there. I want to grow into the person that Jesus made me to be. I want to stop being so afraid of failure and really start to live.

    I decided I’m going to take my first step to doing this by heading down the street during lunch to the CVS and seeing if I can find myself a planner where I can start keeping track of goals that I want to keep. I think this will help because I can plan out steps to making these goals come true and it will help keep me accountable.

    How about you? Does anyone else struggle with this same thing? If so, do you have any tips to help? I’d love to hear from you!

    Read More
  • Faith,  Life

    God’s Still At It (Part 3)

    January 13, 2016

    This is apparently becoming a little series that I think God wants me to document here and it’s becoming quite exciting to say the least. This is a continuation of sorts of basically my life lol but really what God is doing in my life.

    I first wrote about what God was doing here (part 1) when I wrote about how God showed up in a huge way and started leading Tommy down the path of working with his dad, learning to weld. Then I wrote again in September on this subject here (part 2) and shared about when Tommy actually ended up working at the quarry with his dad at night! And now I’m back to share some more news on the subject because God is just too good and I need to make sure I never forget how He answered our prayers.

    All that to say that Tommy’s dad let Tommy know yesterday that he should be able to start at the quarry at the end of the month! The waiting and praying is almost over and Tommy will finally be able to work full time with his dad (instead of just sometimes at night).

    This is super exciting because now Tommy will be able to do something he really enjoys while also allowing us to save more money for the wedding. I can’t believe the first time we really talked about this was all the way back in July and it’s now finally coming to fruition. I’ve been praying for open doors since then and I’m so happy to see how God really cares and answers our prayers.

    I’m so excited for Tommy to start on this new journey at the end of the month. If you wouldn’t mind, please pray for him to do well and to glorify God in the midst of the circumstances. We’re incredibly grateful for what He is doing in our lives.

    PS. I thought I posted this yesterday but just found it in my drafts haha so enjoy 🙂

    Read More
  • Faith,  Life

    Overwhelmed

    December 30, 2015

    Do you guys ever feel like you have one of those days where literally everything is wrong? Either there is something causing major stress in your life or a combination of bunch of small things that all feel so overwhelming? Well yesterday I had a combination of both of those things and to say I had a bit of a meltdown would be of an understatement.

    I am currently going through some family issues regarding my brother that is a major source of stress, along with the stress of planning a wedding, and having to find a new job come March of next year. All of these things got to me at the same time and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed to say the least. I admittedly took some of that stress out on my poor fiance – although he’s a saint and handled the situation amazingly, showing me how much he does love and care about me in the midst of my weaknesses. He’s honestly such a blessing to me, I can’t get over it.

    Honestly, even though I couldn’t help my feelings – I felt guilty for feeling all of the stress too. I felt that since God has blessed me so abundantly by allowing one of my biggest dreams of starting my own family to come true that  I shouldn’t be feeling stressed about anything and just should feel thankful. I feel like this is a common thing, I’ve heard other bloggers admit the same thing and I want to reassure anyone who may have felt the same way too that God is not mad at us when we feel that way.

    I’ve come up with a few things that I want to do to accept these feelings and also reduce them.

    • Accept the Feelings: I really believe that God does not desire for us to beat ourselves up when we do the wrong thing or choose the wrong attitude. Sometimes we are going to feel things that are messy and that we don’t think we should be feeling but God already knows who we are and He just desires us to go to Him with these feelings rather than keep them from Him and beat ourselves up over them.
    • Cast Your Cares: Which brings me to casting our cares on God. He sees us and cares about us more than we realize. He is near to the brokenhearted and desires to take those pains away from us –  but He can’t unless we allow Him too. What I realized today was that I was going to God with my feelings but I wasn’t trusting Him with them. I have no problem turning to God in my mess, it often is my first response but what I forget in that moment is that He cares. When I go to God and lay my worries at His feet, I need to leave them there. Not just turn right back around to pick them up and continue worrying about them. We can trust Him with our worries guys – He is good.
    • Live in the Now: I realize this is much much easier said than done but I want to be more diligent about living in the now. Not worrying about tomorrow or next week or next month. I think it’s helpful to plan for those things but when they become sources of stress for us this was never what God wanted. One way I want to reduce the stress of this is by recognizing the blessings in my life – to realize that God has given me things to be enjoyed now and realize I don’t need whatever it is I’m stressing about to be happy. I also want to get better at planning so that there isn’t much to stress about in the future.

    I know a lot of these are way easier said than done but I want to be more diligent about them to try to reduce the amount of breakdowns I have haha who’s with me? Does anyone else have a solution to those moments when everything just seems so overwhelming? I’d love to hear from you.

    Read More
  • Faith,  Life

    Thankful

    November 27, 2015

    With Thanksgiving over now, I thought it would be fitting to write a post about being thankful. Makes sense right? The things that God has done and is doing in my life over the couple of years is amazing. And not just me- my family as well. I’m so thankful that we have a God that is willing to come down and meet us where we are and not only meets us there but lifts us up out of the darkness that we so often create for ourselves.

    I have to admit though, as far along as God has brought us, sometimes I can’t help but worry about what will happen next. The path that God leads us down isn’t always easy. There have been some really hard times over the past couple of years to get us to where we are today. There were a few times where I didn’t know what was going to happen next- times where I was so scared. But what I’ve learned through those times is that God is still there and he brings us through them even when we feel like we can’t go any further.

    The other thing I’m learning about myself is that I tend to thrive in the unknown as weird as that sounds. When things are scary I tend to cling to Jesus and walk super close with him because I know that He knows what to do and I trust Him to lead me. The times I struggle is when life is going really well. I tend to forget how much I need Jesus and His direction.

    When things are going well, I tend to worry about what will happen next. What will be the next bad thing to go wrong and that’s not how Jesus wants me to live. I want to live thankful for the good days and trust in Him to hold all things together and know that He will carry me through whatever bad things to happen to come. I want to be more thankful for the easy times and less anxious.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about thankfulness lately and one thing I realized about thankfulness is just there isn’t a lack of things to be thankful for- it’s just that we forget to be thankful. Period. That’s all.

    I realized that when we go on vacations- that joy that we get usually comes from being thankful. We tend to think that it’s from just being away from our daily schedule and relaxing, and that is definitely part of it but what I realized is that when we go somewhere new or somewhere we don’t go to often we look at the area differently. We purposely look for the good. We notice the blue, sunny skies, the beautiful features in our hotel room, the delicious food that was made for us. I believe our joy on vacation is deeply rooted in that- us dwelling on the good.

    When we come back home we forget to dwell on the (mundane) good things in our lives. What about that beautiful new countertop that you put in just last year? Or your wives delicious dinners that she prepares for you? It’s so easy to focus on the bad in our daily lives because we’re so used to a certain level of goodness but I wonder what would happen if we stopped to really dwell on each good thing in our days. Because really- each good thing is a gift from God. We might just be a people known for our joy.

    Join me over the next few weeks as I try to focus only on the good in my life. Let’s give thanks to the God who blesses us so abundantly.

    Read More