THIS THING WE CALL LIFE

Life has been very busy and crazy recently. Many time’s I wonder how am I to explain what I’ve been going through. So many things to process through.

God’s been teaching me a lot as I’ve prayed for walls to break down in my life. Recently it has been about effective communication. How does one speak rightly when someone has hurt them? How does one love a stranger when they beat them up with words? How does one speak kindly to someone who thinks only their opinion matters? If the bible says to be kind, patient, loving, generous, joyful, peaceful, good and so on.(Galatians 5:22-23) How am I to change, to do better and to grow?

I realize that my tolerance for people who speak without thinking has become less. Satan has been attacking. People have spoken harsh, unkind, and sometimes untrue words to me. We all, who call ourselves human, know words can encourage or hurt. As the bible says, “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) So, if you think about it, we all need to work better at thinking before we speak. We speak to quickly in America.

I came home from work one day a few months ago and vented my frustration out to God.
~How could I be surrounded by people who tell me how they believe people should live and yet do the opposite? Doesn’t that make them a hypocrite? 
~How can someone tell me not to gossip as they themselves actually gossip? 
~How can someone create drama by accusing me of things that aren’t even true? 
~How can someone look at everyone else’s faults and see no need for change in their own.
I came home from work asking God these things. I asked God how I could be surrounded by such idiots. As I thought I realized I myself can be an idiot. We can all be blinded to the change within ourselves.

How, though, do I live among idiots? How are people supposed to live with my idiocy? How do I talk to them? How do I want people to talk to me? I really don’t want to show certain people love. People all around us say things in order to sway you to agree and do things their way. But what if they’re wrong. And what if the people speaking are people we should be respecting? How then do you submit to your authority when they themselves are so disrespectful?

These questions and concerns dear reader have been the pondering of my thoughts.  From things going on in the news to interactions here at home I see the need for effective good godly communication. 

Maybe you've experienced the same things that I have in the past few months. So lets all make a change. To honor God, do what's right, and to make a difference! Working with people is not always easy but maybe, just maybe, if we become different than those around us we can become a good change in the world. 

Recently I have been praying for patience and kindness to rule my life with the hardest of people I interact with. What about you? How have you thought to make a difference with those around you?

Listen well, be slow to speak, and slow to become angry. This will help us all in life!

God is good! Lets make a difference!

Much love to all who read!

CHANGE IS NOT ALWAYS BAD

Hello fellow blog readers,

If your reading this you are more than likely checking in with my life of goodness. This blog has really been a way for me to share with everyone what God is doing in my life. Recently, well it’s had a lot of change.

As we all know change isn’t always bad, but many times it isn’t easy. Sometimes though change can be the best thing for us.

So, what’s been going on in my life and what has God been doing?

At the beginning of this year I realized I had a lot of walls built up in my heart. Wall’s I put up thinking they would protect me from being hurt. Walls created from all my losses of change these past 5 years. But the more I sought truth I realized walls pulled me farther from God’s truth, grace, and love. So, I began to pray for God to break the walls of my heart. The more I prayed the more I saw God answering my prayer and softening my heart. As I began to heal I noticed people around me with walls of their own. So, I prayed for those around me; for God to humble them and break their own walls. God began to work and to break down walls I never knew I had. The prayer for healing in my heart and those around me became evident as God has been showing us walls we never knew we had. Walls created out of a lack of trust in God.

Through God’s goodness I have seen great change this year so far. But as change so happens it’s not always easy.

 I struggled in February and March as I started to feel really sick again. My stomach always hurt, migraines were worse, food became hard to eat and I started to feel discouraged. I was confused because I wanted God to break the walls of my heart but I did not want to get sick again. Gods ways are so different than our own. Finally, in the middle of March I went to the doctor feeling the sickest I’ve felt in a long time. They did many tests and found out my gallbladder had an infection and needed to be removed. I had surgery at the end of March. A few weeks after surgery I found I felt better than I had before I got sick 5 years ago. I praise God for healing me in such a way.  This does not mean I’m healed from sickness. I still have some health issues that are serious but I am doing much better! Praise God for He is good! As you can see, change isn’t always bad.

April was a sad month. My Grandma and Grandpa (on my mom’s side) both died a day apart from each other. My Grandma expectedly and my Grandpa unexpectedly. Our family had a hard time with loss this month. Saying goodbye to loved ones is never easy. These grandparents were some of my biggest cheerleaders in life. I remember the last time I saw my Grandma (in January of this year). Holding her hand and telling her of a blind date I had just been on and what a fun time it was. My Grandma was never one for many words and she simply held my hand tight as I talked and even when I got done she simply kept holding my hand. It’s as if she needed no words. She loved me and wanted the best for me. As for my Grandpa, he was always one for words of encouragement wanting the best for each one in his family. Grandpa had called me a few days after my gallbladder surgery wanting to know how “little Katie” (as he always called me) was doing. His words of encouragement and hope for me to be on the mend were filled with love and hope for a better future for me, his youngest grandchild. My Grandpa always felt so bad my life had dealt with so many losses but he never stopped cheering for me. I will miss my grandparents and am thankful God gave me them to be my personal cheer leaders. This month, change was hard.

May was a good sort of change. I went on a blind date right before Christmas with a guy my parents’ friends set me up on. I was very unsure about it, but trusted God and our friends. So, I went on a blind date with this guy named Bradie. As it turned out Bradie loves the Lord, likes the outdoors and hunting, and is a very kind man. We hit it off and went on a few more dates at the beginning of the new year. Now let me just tell you Bradie is very patient. Before I even met Bradie I had prayed that if I was going to start dating again that the guy I dated would be patient, kind and understanding. Bradie was all of those things as well as handsome, enjoyed nature, and had a good heart for the Lord. Around the middle of May we talked about dating and became “official.” Dating Bradie has been a blessing in so many ways. I never thought I’d date again. I never thought I’d enjoy dating again. I never thought I’d meet a guy that'd be so understanding of my life. I enjoy dating, those giddy feelings of having someone like you and you like them back and I enjoy spending time with Bradie. This whole dating thing is really fun and I give God all the glory. 😊 The month of May was full of really good changes.

As you can see changes are not always bad but they can be hard. God has worked a lot in my life. Life if about loving God and loving his people. Changes are all a part of life. I still to this day would not change anything that God has done in my life. I am blessed and God is very good!

In your life of changes dear friend, I hope you find comfort in God’s goodness, blessings on the days that are hard, and joy throughout your life. Much love to you all!

p.s. I had planned on posting this in June but the summer time fun got the best of me.

THE BEGINNING TO ANOTHER YEAR

          Welcome to another January!

          A happy time for many of us to try new things in our year resolutions.

Another year to better ourselves.

I think most people look forward to the new year. It’s a time where people can start again, because usually the year before didn’t turn out how they wished. So, they try to make new goals for their life at the beginning of a new year. And honestly most of us suck at making new goals for our life. Why? Because we get dreamy eyed about the future that we stick unrealistic goals on paper to struggle through the year in hopes to accomplish our year goals.

I say all this for one reason. I get so frustrated at my own unrealistic goals that I wonder what’s the point. Now don’t get me wrong I think things such as lent, new year’s resolutions and so forth are good. It’s good to want to better ourselves. We must seek to work harder at realistic goals so that we do not say to ourselves, “the year 2016 was a terrible year, and I’m hoping that 2017 is better.” Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about almost 90% of Americans on social media saying that their year sucked in 2016.

I stopped creating new year’s resolutions for myself a while ago, because I simply never accomplished them. I would try which is good. But I became frustrated with setting up a goal that I never finished. Just recently I found a new way to help me create realistic goals and even if I failed this was still a sure-fire way to live my life for God in my new year’s resolution.

What happened?

I read a daily devotional by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. In the devotional Nancy created a realistic acronym for the word PRIORITIES. This acronym, if you followed through, would help you set realistic priorities for each and every year. So, with each resolution I would make I would make sure it was realistic and make sure it fit in my priorities of everyday life.

The Acronym goes…

"P – Pray-always (happy sad, or in need) Pray

R – Review Gods priorities for my life

I – Inventory how I’m using my time

O – Ordering my schedule according to God’s plan for my life

R – Resist seemingly urgent demands that threaten to derail me from what is truly important

I – seek Input from others to help determine God’s priorities for various seasons in my life

T – Take advantage of the time God gives you

I – Identify the “little foxes” that rob you of time, margin, and spiritual vitality

E – Experience each moment and season to its absolute fullest

S – Stay sensitive and fully surrendered to God”

Doing all of these steps I felt like I was able to create goals for my life and as long as they fit into the will of God they would and have become realistic goals.

Why share this with you all? Because maybe you’re in the same boat as me. Trying to set realistic goals in your life and follow through with those goals. You know what I mean right? Instead of creating something unrealistic for the year, you find yourself one month into the year not following through with the goals you created 30 days ago, Yeah, I think we’ve all been there.

All this to say, creating priorities that fit into our plan and Gods plan is important. If we leave God out of our weight loss plan for the year or our plan to try rock climbing this year, we already set ourselves up for failure.

So, here’s to a new year of making sure God is a part of all the PRIORITIES we might make for ourselves this year and every year.

Cheers and may Gods plan be even better than our own!

God is good my friends!