Poem Saturday

Today I felt like posting a poem that I had written a few weeks ago. I was inspired by the rich life that I get to live which includes family with which we get to spend wonderful Sundays. I know little about poetry, but I do like having fun with words. I am merely having a little fun. Without further ado, here is a rich night poured into word form.

Week's End

The lazy lights before us blink, silently beaconing of us to that which is familiar. 

Our bed awaits with its known texture and melody of comfort. 

As the beat of the music pulses through my legs and hair straight to my heart, I cannot help but to willingly and gladly say yes to both requests. Yes to drinking deep of the rich waining of the day, and yes to welcoming the promise of the restful night that lies ahead. 

But the brother of the delicious Sunday I have enjoyed is Monday. His nessecary strong arm, placed between blissful enjoyment and my dutiful weeks beginning, is both biter and sweet. 

The time spent with those I love will soon be traded off for time spent to ensure that more days of love and wonder can exist. 

As I look on once more upon the night sky, I witness lightning punching through the sky to interlock fingers with the grass only for less than less than a second. It occurs to me how much the earth is stirring and aching for things to be put back to the way they should be. 

It is wonderful and frightening, the passion with which the world stirs and aches for the return of the artist to his artistry. The furious determination in which the sky erupts angrily is truly something to be beheld, sought out and fathomed.

My chest cries out for the hours to lengthen and linger. But as my eyes turn toward the horizon, I am taken over with a purposeful desire to press on, knowing that this end is but temporary. 

And when I have seen many temporary ends, and the days have grown slow again, 

I know I shall take in the sweet flashes of this existence no more. 

And then it will not be lights that beacon me, but those of old whom love me yet I know them not, as well as He of forever that loves me and that I know well.

Taping over the Switch

Right now, Teagan and I live in a duplex. As a byproduct of living in a house that is divided into half for two tenants to share, we have connected air vents. This was perfectly fine until one of the tenants next door decided that the bathroom on the connecting wall of the house would be a great place to smoke and then turn on the fan to suck it all up and out. Needless to say, the wonderfully stale smell of smoke began seeping into our bathroom and eventually into our whole house. Yay.

To combat this, Teagan and his dad, Gim, simply stuffed a bit of insulation into the vent in the bathroom. Because of this, we cannot use the heat fan switch, you know the one that makes a ton of noise? If we were to turn it on, the insulation would be heated and possibly catch on fire or worse. We had mistakenly flipped the wrong switch a time or two, so to take the option of flipping on the incorrect switch away entirely, we took a lovely piece of duck tape and placed it over the switch in question. It is quite ugly, but it does the job. We now have our smoke free house back!

I never thought too much about the entire escapade until I was recently at work and felt tempted to dive into a worry fest. As I felt the anxiety and worrisome thoughts beaconing much like the cravings past smokers for cigarets, I also felt God using our somewhat odd bathroom vent arrangements to help me not give in. "Candace, tape over the switch".

The thought paths that I know if I go down will only lead to anxiety and fear, God was instructing me to tape over. The opportunity to dive into the fruitless task of worrisome, anxious thinking is always there. There are and will forever be things in our life, whether in our control or out of it, that we could choose to dwell on and not trust God with. We must tape over those switches.

The mind is where battles are won or lost. That might come across as quite cliche, but that fact is entirely true and important. Anything that we do in life begins with a thought saying that we can in fact do it. Projects or jobs that we may have thrived at can be abandoned before they even start if we say in our thoughts, "I can't do that". The way that an entire day goes, well or poorly, can be decided by the infant thoughts floating through our mind while we are not yet fully awake. That is why the phrase "woke up on the wrong side of the bed" exists. There is no real "wrong side of the bed", we just let our thoughts and emotions determine how our day is going to play out before the day has even happened. If we wake up with a sour attitude, chances are, the whole day is doomed from the start.

But that was never God's design. There are hundreds of scriptures in the Bible counseling us on fear, and all of them say not to fear. God's plan was never for us to live as slaves to our thoughts and emotions. He designed us to be fearless, and have a sound mind. Why do you think that in the same sentence that Paul told Timothy not to fear, he also told him that God had given him a spirit of power, love and self control? Fear is not of God. A spirit of anxiety is not what he offers. But by grace through faith, we can walk in a spirit of self control which is outside of the spirit of fear.

If you are struggling like I and so many others do to keep your mind off of worrisome paths, learn to tape over whatever is turning on your fear and anxiety. Not all situations are exactly the same, and I am not saying that they are. But as someone who has made the transition from consumed by fear to rooted and courageous in God, I can say that doing this does make a difference. 

Firstly, recognize what thoughts cause you to dwell in a state of dread. Some examples that I can offer are when I have bought something and start to feel anxious about no longer having the money, feeling anxious about past mistakes I have made, or worrying about the future. Any one of those things could have a potentially negative outcome. If I am worrying about the bills, it is not without reason. But even though the outcome could be bad, dwelling on whether or not it will be offers no help to the situation. But all the logic in the world won't keep anyone from worrying. That't why there is a second step.

After you become more mindful of your thoughts, taking care to be very conscious of what you are thinking and why, the next step is to give it to God. As I said before, some of the things that we worry about do really have a bad outcome that might happen. When Jesus came to visit Mary and Martha, Martha was preoccupied with many things. Upon Martha's request that he tell Mary to help her, Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her". 

I am sure the things that Martha was fussing over were tasks that needed doing. But there will always be things that need to be done, things that we could worry over. We will leave this world with tasks undone. But we must choose to be like Mary, and realize where our trust should lie. We can either scurry about, living in worry and anxiousness, or we can sit in the peace of trusting the Lord to take care of us. 

Whenever I feel myself start dwelling on something that causes fear to rise in me, I ask God to help me with the situation, and then I trust him. You cannot do one without the other, mind you! If you pray for God to help you, and then neglect to place your trust in him, you will continue to trudge though your day full of fear. If I were to ask Teagan to do something, but think on the inside that he won't really do it, I will still feel the weight of the task on my shoulders as if I had never said anything to him at all. The same applies to asking our heavenly Father for help. If we don't let go of the situation and trust that he will in fact be our Provider, then we will live in fear rather than peace. 

I am not saying that it is easy. I have to be very aware of my thoughts, and not let myself say, "I trust you, God", and then immediately start thinking about the problem again. It might even take a few times of me mentally turning my eyes off of what is happening and all that I cannot do and back onto my Provider before I can actually let go of the situation and completely trust God. But when I am able to say, "I trust you", and sincerely believe that God has got the situation under control, the tight feeling in my chest leaves, and God's peace that passes all understanding washes over me.

As we become more aware of what we are thinking and the impact that it has on our emotions, not letting our thoughts and emotions run away with us will become easier. But if we let our thoughts run unbridled, we can very quickly find ourselves in a dark dark place. But in the same turn, if we find ourselves in any sort of darkness of the mind, God is faithful to help us whenever we call out his name! Cry out to him with deepest sincerity. He does not need you to clean up or cut out parts of you that you might not want others to see. Trust him with the thoughts you are most preoccupied with or most ashamed about, and turn your mental focus off of them and onto your loving Keeper.

Tape up what turns on your fear. Don't even give yourself the chance to flip the switch. God gives us a spirit of power, love and self control. We don't have to live as defeated slaves to our thoughts. As we dwell with the one who casts out all fears as Mary did, we will find that it really is the one thing that is necessary. No amount of human efforts or worrying will alleviate the various troubles that we face. But as we find our spot at the feet of Jesus, we will know a fullness of love and peace that only comes when we choose to take our gaze off of the various tasks and worries of the day and place it squarely on the Lover of our souls.

Jumping Up Mountains

Right now my husband and I have a lot of goals. We would like to move across the country. We would like to save up a sizeable amount of money before doing so. We would like to go back to school. We would like to eventually (Read: eventually.) have children. And I personally would like to be able to write (or do some sort of creative thing) for a living. But right now, we are in the middle of saving. Teagan and I are in the middle of jobs that simply bring in a paycheck, and we are not yet back in school. We still have a lot of steps to take. And I, for a while there, had been making a major mistake.

I say had, because God was faithful to get a hold of me. I work at a bank in town, and I am able to work full time. This means health and other insurance benefits. My job is a huge blessing! But for a few months, I had begun to start despising this great blessing from God. You see, I enjoy doing many things in my free time. Reading, writing, drawing, painting, photography, and even cleaning (yes cleaning)! But I had not had a full time job before the one that I am holding right now, only part time employment. So the new major occupation of my time came as somewhat of a shock to me. There were many other things that I wanted to be doing, but for most of the day I was stuck pushing numbers on a computer at work. I quickly became discouraged.

"This is not what God made me to do", I rationalized, "I should be at home honing my abilities so that I can follow through and be good enough to make some money on what God has made me to do!" So I eventually stopped looking at my job as an amazing opportunity for someone my age, and started blowing it off ever so slightly. I would not put much effort into my work, making mistakes here and there. I would waste absurd amounts of time, playing on my phone, or simply working on something else. I would get behind on things that no one was checking, procrastinating until there was no point in even going back to it. I was squandering the amazing gift that I had prayed so earnestly for! I can only imagine how it looked to God who blessed me with something that I had asked for, only to see me treat it with such disdain.

But that is not the end of my story. As I slowly became worse and worse of an employee at work, I could feel the tugging of the Spirit on my heart growing stronger and stronger each day. I had immensely less peace. My days never felt right, and on my drives home, I was constantly convicted of not giving my all (or much of anything) at work. God knew that I was aware of what I was doing. He also knew that I was fully conscious of what I should have been doing, so he let me enter into a period of unrest- a season without peace and full of dissatisfaction and disappointment.

I thought the answer was to be rewarded with more time with which to do what I wanted, what God wanted me to be doing. If I could only quit my job, and devote all of my time to what I really love, then I would be at peace! I had it fixed in my mind that the end of this season was up to God. I would see the light when he would show me a way out of my job. But that was not what God had in mind. Because, while God did gift me with more than the ability to fill out forms and tasks around the office, he never meant for me to use that as an excuse to neglect the step in my life that was before me. I might in fact be able to quit my day job and spend my time on something more creative, but now was not that time. God gave me a job that most twenty-one year old, married women would love. He was waiting for me to be faithful to him right now, instead of waiting for the full realization of my purpose.

When January rolled around, I finally felt entirely fed up. I was tired of how I had been acting, and I was tired of looking at my life and not expecting God to change me. God gave me one simple task as an answer to a prayer asking to change my ways at work. In response to my self-imposed desperation, God gave me a way out. "Don't bring your cellphone into the office".

"Really God? I'm not that out of control. That's embarrassing! I'm not one of those people!", the solution seemed so extreme to me!

"Flee from temptation. Leave your phone in your car." God knew my heart of hearts. Even when I wouldn't admit it to myself, God still knew that I was absurdly distracted by my phone. He stuck with me, waited patiently for me to admit that I was making a mess of my work life, and kindly offered the solution. All it took for me to see a complete 360 turnaround of my work life was faith that God would bring me out of the mess I had created, and a step of obedience through that faith.

I immediately started to see a change. I began working on the projects I had neglected. I became faithful and reliable. And you might think that after getting use to wasting so much time, I would be bored from working without any breaks to pass the day by, but I was more invigorated and preoccupied than ever before. My days at work became far more rewarding and interesting. I have not been bored one day since choosing to be faithful to God in my work. God's abundant grace is not just for a ticket into heaven. By grace through faith we can walk in a life that honors God. I had been trapped by fear and laziness. Now, because of God, I am free.

And I'll tell you another thing. The list of things that I like to do? The writing, art, and photography? I have time for all of it now. After allowing God to reveal what I didn't want to admit, and submitting to what he truly desired for me, the time just opened up! It opened up because I had been lazy at work, and in reality, home was no different. I wanted to believe that if I quit my jobbed and devoted my time to what I wanted to do, that I would be able to thrive and get things done. But that would not have happened. God could see that I was not ready to manage my own day yet. I'm incredibly glad that I honored God instead of trying to follow my foolish psudo-understanding.

The steps on the path to what we feel that God has called us to do can feel useless and dry. I was under the impression that really coming alive for God in this season in my of life was unimportant. There seemed to be no need for me to go at life with vigor, because it was not what I felt that God had for me in the long run. And that is probably true. I plan on going back to school, and I don't intend to pursue banking. But that doesn't make this step in my life any less important, and less worthy of my entire being and obedience than the steps that I will take further along the path. No one jumps up a mountain. They climb foot by foot, inch by inch. By placing the mountain peek higher up in importance than the steps at the foundation, I had been dooming my ascent from the beginning.

One last thought. I had prayed, earnestly prayed for a full time job with a kind boss and good hours. I got so much more than that. God gave me what I had asked for and more, but I forgot why I had asked for it-where I had been before, and I became lax and mistreated that which God had given me. I honestly wonder sometimes if I had not stopped being so useless, how long it would have been until they fired me. I did work, don't get me wrong, but I had to be told several times by my boss not to camp out on my phone. Each time, she was very kind, and not at all demeaning. But she had to tell me none the less.

We mustn't forget what God has done to get us to the place we are now. Before my current job at the bank, I had been honestly hating my job. I did not appreciate the attitudes of my superiors, and I had thought many days after work about quitting. I was constantly undermined, walked over, and treated unfairly. In the midst of my comfort at my new job, I had forgotten where I had been, and why I left. God will bring us out of some nasty, unfair, uncomfortable situations. When he does, we should not feel the need to earn anything. We can never earn grace, it is freely given. But we should through faith walk as good stewards.

A steward is someone who who manages something. We are given our lives, and are stewards over them because we have free will. That means we can choose to burry our talents in the ground for fear of our Master, or we can be active, and make choices that will multiply what we were given rather than stifle the good we were blessed with. Ever part of our lives, even the most seemingly unimportant seasons deserve wholehearted devotion. Let us no longer snub the the time we are given, but instead go at it with a vigor and joy that can only be fully explained by our relationship with the Lord.

The Oreo

Lately, Teagan and I have been on the paleo diet. That is referring to the paleolithic time period, back when we didn't have the readily available processed foods. The theory behind the diet is to get back to our homosapien roots; back to the kind of foods our body really needs and can more easily process. That being said, the diet definitely does not allow for oreos. It definitely does not allow for birthday cake flavored ones either.

At work, the women that I work with will sometimes bring snacks for everyone to share. They will bring anything from trail mix to twizzlers, and it all goes on a shelf for us all snack on periodically throughout our day (working at a bank has it's perks!). This week, one of the women that I closely work with brought birthday cake oreos. I had eyed the decadent cookies a few times in passing, but I wanted to remain faithful to the diet that Teagan and I were on. "No oreos", I thought upon seeing them.

So I didn't eat them. But then as I went to sit down, my coworker informs me of the oreos.
"I put some oreos out there if you want them!" She continues, "I got them for my family, but we though they tasted to different from the normal oreos. They're birthday cake. Try one and let me know what you think!"

In that moment, my mind thought about the diet. Teagan already knew that I had still been having burritos on my lunch because of the convenience, even though the tortillas are not paleo. He was fine with it and had never expected me to fully follow the strict diet with him. None the less, I still wanted to abstain where he was abstaining in order to give him the best chance of succeeding. My initial thought told me to say, "no".

But then, my mind thought of the fact that I wanted to have better relationships with people. My mind went to the possible affect that sounding pompous, throwing a word like "paleo" around, and saying no to one stinking cookie could have. Was I willing to come across as possibly rude and stuck up? Was I willing to sacrifice possibly becoming friends with someone that might need a person who knows Jesus in their life for encouragement and possible salvation?

Okay, so maybe that's a but much. My mind likes to run away on tangents sometimes, that much is clear. But what could be the real "oreos" in our lives? We all work with and interact with people that God has placed into our lives so that we might be a bright light to them. We could be the absolutely one and only chance that they have to see the light of Jesus. But are we turning a nose up to even the smallest gestures that might not line exactly up with our "paleo diets"?

I am in no way suggesting that we should compromise and do something that we believe to be immoral. But when interacting with someone that you believe God has placed in your life, we must be sure that we don't cross the line from Jesus fanatic (yay Jesus!) to 10 commandments' snob (boo other people). Jesus himself ate with sinners and was criticized heavily for it by the pharisees. But we know that he also never sinned.

We should not necessarily seek out company that is negative with the plans of making them close friends. Jesus had twelve close friends, and they followed him, learning from his teachings daily. But he also did not act snobby like the religious leaders of that day and reject the offers from known "sinners" (as if the pharisees did not sin) to come and dine with them.

One of the best ways that we can spread the gospel is not through the retelling of Jesus story through words, but through our actions. That is not to say that there is not power in the retelling of the gospel, but our relationship with others can deeply affect weather or not they are receptive to coming to Christ when the right time comes. If we are sincere about caring for others, it will reflect in our actions. Those around us will feel welcomed in your presence rather than condemned. They will feel your compassion rather than your religion.

I would never condone sinning to keep an acquaintance or friend. That is not what I wish to convey. But there is a way to treat someone that will make them feel less like a spiritual roadblock or a spiritual checkbox, and more like an actual person worthy of mutual respect. And let's face it, into every diet some oreos must fall.

Advice for Single Me

Tis the season for love! Valentines day is upon us! Have you bought your special someone something overpriced yet? How much you love them is directly proportionate to exactly how much you were ripped off on whatever pink February the 14th themed present you bought them. It's a fact. You read it just now on the internet. It must be true.

Okay, so not really. (That's just what they want you to believe.) And I hope you treat you significant other as if they were special all the other 364 days of the year. In reality, you should hold "the spirit of  Valentines" year round and try to be extra nice even without the obligation of a holiday. (That one's for free, folks!) But if you are like I was all throughout high school, you may be rolling your eyes at the entire red and pink whirlwind going on around you, because like I was, you are single.

Yep you read that right. Not a single real date or relationship all while growing up. Not by choice- oh no no. I pined after many tall, gangly guys while in high school, but nothing came of any of it. Present day, I am married to my best friend and the only guy I have ever been on a date with. Things are wonderful, and this part of my life is without a doubt one-hundred percent a gift from God. But if I could go back a few Valentines days and talk to my tenth, eleventh, or even twelfth grade self, I would. And this is what I would say:

1. Stop Taking it so Personally

When I was going through school dateless, viewing numerous girls around me going on dates and being taken to dances, I took it very personally. What's wrong with me? Why do they refuse to take me out at all? Why do they all like the other girls so much more than me? I would drive myself nuts trying to figure out why it seemed to be the goal of the guys in my grade to keep me nice and single. In fact, I would even get angry about it. I took my singleness as a reflection of what other people thought of me, and what they thought of me (what I assumed they thought of me) was just not fair. But that wasn't the case. No one was out to get me. It just wasn't my time yet.

2. Don't Change to Gain Acceptance

Often while seeing other girls frequent the dating scene, I observed that the girls who openly flirted with the guys would get asked out by those who they had crushes on. That was not my style. I was never a flirtatious, laugh stupidly, touch often, wrestle inappropriately type of girl. So it drove me nuts seeing that those who acted the opposite of me got the opposite of being single. But I was never willing to change who I was in order to get what they had. I don't know if it was fear, stubbornness or wisdom, but I just never wanted to morph into the "ideal girlfriend". I wanted to be asked out on my own terms for the exact person that I was.

If you're toying with the idea of reshaping the parts of you that make you uniquely yourself, don't. People can be quite shallow in their tastes for the opposite sex. If you don't fall into the specifications for someone who often gets asked for their number, don't worry about changing yourself. The person who God wants to notice you will notice you for who he made you to be. The others that miss out on you probably were a bullet dodged anyway.

3. Being Single is Underrated

My go to feelings while I was singe were despair and self pity. Life was not fair, and that was the soul reason that I was not getting asked out. But honestly, the singleness that I experienced while in high school, while unwanted, was a blessing. Instead of worrying about my status with a guy who I would probably break up with and never see again, I had more time to become grounded in my relationship with God. I had more time to appreciate myself and develop into who I was suppose to be rather than who a guy influenced me to be. My time to be with someone  would come, and sooner than I expected! But in the meantime, God knew that it would be good for me to learn who I was in him. Without that time of singleness before hand, things might have gone completely different. I probably wouldn't be in the relationship-the marriage that I am in now.

Singleness is not to be looked at as a negative. The world loves to tell us, as it told me while growing up, that the key to happiness is to have someone else to call your own. But that's simply not the case. Completeness comes in a relationship with God. Period. If you are feeling like less than the person you want to be, a woman or man in your life will not help that. God is "the one". Our spouse should be second.

And seasons of being single allow us to do things that might no longer be an option if we were to be in a committed relationship. Not dating has the potential to open up time, money and emotional energy that could allow us to pursue careers, develop skills, get through school, and most of all grow deeper and stronger with God. If you are finding yourself in a period of what seems like perpetual singleness, ask God what his next step in your life is. He may be preserving this environment of singleness for the purpose of allowing you to conquer things that would be problematic at best while pursuing someone. Singleness is not a boring state of sadness, it is a huge opportunity for growth.

4. You have No Idea What is Yet to Come

If I were to have gone back in time to high school me and told her that at 19 I would marry my best friend and an awesome man, I'm not quite sure if I would have laughed in my face or gone running. But I know for sure that I would have at least taken it as a comfort that someday I would be accepted and loved by someone worthy to be called my husband. In fact, whether or not I would have fully believed myself, the chance that it might be true would be enough to help me not care a whole lot about the present. But when you're in the season of dryness and waiting, that seems to be all that exists. The hope of a new day can be quite comforting to someone who can see nothing but the present.

Remember that things change. Styles, attitudes, friends, scenery, and eventually seasons in life will all give way to the next thing. If you find yourself despairing about your current situation, take heart that you have no idea what might come. Don't constantly remark that you're going to grow old and turn into a cat lady. For one, people tend to believe that if you say it too many times. And secondly, that completely cuts out the nature of God which is to make things new. Your situation may feel tired and worn out right now, but God still has plans for your life. Don't waste the time he has given you now by hating it because you are single. Find ways to delight in the every day and remember that your time is coming.

5. Stop Living Petrified

The main reason that I didn't date in high school was that I was scared out of my mind to put myself out there in the name of love. I was absolutely paralyzed because of fear. It could be that if I had not wallowed in self pity and fear that I might have actually had enough gumption to be myself and let others know who that was. Because I will tell you a secret, if it is obvious that you are uncomfortable around others, than others will be uncomfortable around you. I was the living breathing definition of awkward. If a witch had cast a spell on the phrase "socially awkward" and made it into a person, it would have been me.

So don't take it as an insult when I tell you all of this. Sometimes, I think the worst thing that we do as women is assure each other that it is never our fault. Let's take life by the horns, ladies! We have no need to live as shrinking violets. The direction of our lives is in God's hands, not the hands of potential dates.

Perfect love cast's out all fear. Perfect love being God. I might have once been the living version of awkwardness, but now I am the living testimony to the goodness of God. How did that happen? God transformed and changed me. Through spending time with God and rooting myself in the word, I was transformed from fearful and of this world to courageous and full of God.

If you deeply desire relationship, but are too afraid of putting yourself out there, ask God to help you boot the fear out of your heart and your life. God desires us to walk boldly as a light for him. And seeing as fear is usually a deterrent when it comes to relationships, maybe your season of singleness needs to become a season of transformation. This all gets back to God completing us, and not another person. The first step in a "relationship with Jesus in the center" is to actually have a relationship with Christ. Take a step back and make sure that God is the center of your life. Once we submit ourselves to God, he will transform us into people ready to submit ourselves to whomever he has for us.

6. There is More to Life than Being in a Relationship

I may have not said it out loud when I was younger, but I definitely was under the impression that the greatest achievement in life was to find the person that I was suppose to be with and marry them. I am a romantic at heart, so it made sense to me that the most romantic thing that I could think of would be the most important thing to look forward to. But that's just not the case. There is so much more to life than that. And while God may have marriage in the cards for us, he also has so much more planned for our lives!

The tendency around Valentines Day is to have two sides, the single people, and those in relationships. But I propose a third side. Why don't we boast not of our special someones or of our ability to save money in the month of February, but of the relationship that has changed our lives forever?

Many of our relationships with friends, boyfriends, or girlfriends will fall apart and be left in the past. But God will never leave us. He is in it for the ups and the downs, the flaws and the celebrations. He does not need a honeymoon feeling to make sure he doesn't feel like bailing. God is the author of love. Naturally, as a fallen world, we have any examples of love going wrong. And even in the best examples of love that the world has to offer, our love for each other pails in comparison to that of our Father Creator. Whether or not you have someone to call your own, remember that we are truly complete and loved and accepted by God. We never have to be alone as believers in Christ.

Paint Brushes

I consider myself a very creative person. I love to write and take pictures. My mind is often running new scinarios for potential projects. One of those areas is art. I love to draw, and paint. I don't claim to be to good at it, I realize that I have much to learn. But the feeling that I get when I am able to make the picture in my head appear on paper is like none other.

Early in my relationship with Teagan, I think it was my birthday or Christmas, Teagan bought me an art set. It has oil paints, water color paints, pastel chalk, and colored pencils. It was an incredible statement early on in our relationship of how much Teagan believes in me and wants to see me thrive!  But, to be honest, I did not end up doing a whole lot of painting or coloring with it after I got it. Not because I didn't love it. I was just completely unsure of myself.

I had seen many fellow students while in high school who were absolutely incredible. It was great to watch them do their thing, but instead of taking it as inspirations or a future goal to reach, I let the ability of others cause me to shut down and stop doing what I loved. My fear of never getting better, and the fact that so many others were better than me set my mind spinning. Soon there were thoughts running through my head of, "you could never achieve that", or "why even try if you are so behind where they are?", and "you should just give up!" So I did for a short period of time.

After Teagan and I had been married for a little bit, I decided to start back up again. I had been working a part-time job, and had a lot of time (oh how I wish I had that time back!). So I thought, why not give that art thing a go again! I bought some canvases, and this time, I was going to try oil painting! If you know anything about painting with oil paints, you'll know that it can be quite impressive and beautiful, but if you don't have the correct cleaning solution, getting the paint off of your brushes can be an almost impossible task.

I loaded up my brushes with the oil paint, and fired away, all engines at their top speeds! By the time I was finished, I had a few canvases ridiculously full of paint, and paintbrushes that would not be useable until I cleaned them. With no brush cleaner to speak of, I turned to the internet. Surely there would be a solution! I found a few videos recommending soaking your brushes in laundry detergent. Okay. I'll try it. This was the result:

I had soaked them in the detergent, but felt so discouraged about the whole thing that I just never got back to rinsing it all out properly. Finally, after leaving all of my brushes in horrible condition, I grew sick of my not touching the cool art set that my wonderful husband bought me! I finally went and bought cleaner for my brushes, and the rest of the primary colors in acrylic paint (I had neglected to get blue). I was now ready for action!

A few months pass, and I still haven't even broken the seal on the paintbrush cleaner. I really don't know why I didn't use it right away, but finally, this last month, I saw it and decided that I was done. I was done being afraid of failure. I was done doubting my every move, and I was done having a coffee can full of disgusting brushes!

It may not sound like much, my story may seem kind of silly, but to me those dirty brushes were more than just brushes with paint and laundry detergent clogging their bristles. I had spent most of my life doubting that I could ever do the things that God had placed in my heart. I was a very fearful person. I had and still do have big dreams. But I was letting Satan lie to me constantly and get me to back down from ever trying! Who knows where my abilities could have been if I had not gotten scared, but simply continued on, not caring where I was in comparison to other people!

Gradually, God has lead me to a more fearless path. I now pursue the dreams that God placed in me all along instead of halfway trying and then letting myself talk me out of everything. As of 2015, I set many goals to reflect this newfound confidence. I saw those brushes every time that I opened my closet. Without fail, they were there to greet me. When I cleaned them, it was as if I was stepping into a new time in my life. No longer was I going to sit defeated and consider the dirty brushes of my life a reality that I was required to live with. All I had to do was take the first step, and wash the brushes.

The feeling that I get when my environment is clean is that of peace and tranquility. When my environment, my place of being, is cluttered and has longtime grime trapped in it, my mood is automatically dampened, and there is a certain turmoil that is constantly on the back burner in my mind. What are the dirty brushes in your life? What is stealing your peace? Most likely, you don't also have detergent laden brushes lying in your closet,  but I think we all sometimes get use to and learn to accept things in our life that just aren't okay. I wonder sometimes what kind of treatment and state of being we put up with just because that is how it has always been!

But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to live in a state of constant underlying fear. You don't need to put up with toxic behavior from people in your lives, and if something needs to be cleaned, it is only a matter of time and elbow grease! Take a step outside of your normal routine and thinking paths, and look long and hard at the things in your life that are stealing your peace. They don't have to stay. Sometimes, it is as simple as saying a prayer, booting someone out of your life, or cleaning some dirty brushes.

The Church

There seems to be a Ninety-Five Theses-esque outcry floating around Facebook and Twitter about the church. Bloggers and past-preachers alike are throwing in their six cents about what exactly is wrong with the church. It seems that nothing and no one is safe from criticism. Some criticisms are valid, and others possess less meaning. But I would like to take a practical lets-do-something type of approach to the subject. Yes, we as the church may be making a mess of some things, but if the only thing that we do is up our egos by assuming a stance of judgement, then we are also what is "wrong with the church". So here is my hopefully helpful and completely honest breakdown of what is worth noting about the church.

We are the Church

It strikes me as quite interesting what is considered "the church" among most. These post that aim to highlight the churches blunders include quite bit about Sunday morning, the messages being preached, the worship team, etc. There is some merit to these complaints, don't get me wrong. Things can go very awry in these areas. But I think that there is a large portion of church that is not being addressed at all. The church-as in the Body of Christ. Because you see, the way the Bible puts it, as Christians, we are the church.

The church is not the traditions that we hold. The church is not the way that we hold services. The church is not our denominations or the lack thereof (which kind of has become it's own denomination, by the way). So the church should not to be referred to as something we do once or twice a week. The church is us.

You see the problem with misdiagnosing the building, or the Sunday morning rituals as the church is that for the most part, changing or targeting these things will bring the smallest possible outcome of change. Yes, more youth might come on Wednesday nights if we let that hipster guy with the newfangled ideas come in and do the teaching, but it's the heart of why he isn't accepted that is the issue, not the fact that he isn't allowed. We are looking at the what and skipping the why.

The why of anything that we might claim needs to change is the people behind it. And since the Body of Christ is made up of people, that would mean you and I. We participate and should participate in being the church-the Body of Christ every day of the week. No, there is no sign on us come Monday morning saying "First Baptist". There is no itinerary and no announcements to the people around us. No worship will be held, and there are no elders to moderate what comes and goes, but simply put, we are the living and breathing Body of Christ. We are the version of Christ that the world around us has even a smidgeon of a chance to see, and they don't do their viewing on Sundays at eight o'clock.

That means that the important part of who the church is and what she stands for can be found in our daily lives. It's not the one and a half to two hours on Sunday's for which we should be nailing letters to the church doors. Rather it is every hour of the week that we are out in the world that we should be conscious of. And therein lies the real battle-the real struggle that deserves to be written about. Because while being in a church in Sunday morning settings is probably one of the best indicators that you are at lest trying to appear to be a Christian, it is what happens when people don't see you inside a building designated as a church that matters. It is what we are doing and portraying amongst our friends at work and strangers at the movies that could be the difference in someone's life.

We are the representation of Christ that the world gets to see. If we want to effect change in Christianity, we must direct our eyes inward. We are the Body. Not the "institution" or any programs that bring us together once to twice a week. When we tick out open letters to the church, we must realize that they will also be popping up in our own inboxes. The Church is people, not an establishment of man.

There is No Perfect Church

A "perfect church" just can't happen here in an imperfect fallen world. And it's good to have that in the back of your mind when you are on the subject of just what it is in the church that is ticking you off. Because the church is made of people, the church herself by nature can be nothing but imperfect. There are many fallen leaders, liars, and hypocrites. So when we act as if the church should be perfect, we are holding real people to a standard that is unrealistic. Writing about what you dislike in the church can very quickly become an outlet for judgement, and that is judgement of people, not really a faceless organization.

And while I would like to be able to announce the location and phone number of the perfect church that will never offend you, I am sorry to say that it simply doesn't exist. That is not to say that it is not necessary to sometimes part ways with certain congregations at times in our lives. Not every stop in the road needs to be a permanent one. But when you do happen to find the place that God has called you to be, you might be surprised the moment that someone says something you don't one hundred percent agree with. Gasp! This must not be the one! It can't be with as many heathens I have encountered this month! But that is why we worship Christ and not the church. Jesus is our perfection and righteousness. If you're dissatisfied with the church, then we aught to just remember that all have fallen short. The church is righteous, but only through the cross, not on her own efforts.

The Church Cannot Fulfill God Needs

Going to church is wonderful. We get to receive a message from a teacher, listen and sing with great uplifting music, and hopefully connect with other Christians on a personal level. We might even be filled up personally, or enjoy personal communion with God during worship. But if we are trying to go to church and expecting the pastor, our friends, or an event to fill a spot that is essentially God's, then we will eventually become bitter and stop going.

Only God can heal inside wounds. Only God can be the father that we never had. Yes, you pastor can probably deliver a fine message, and God does change lives through Sunday mornings. If you are going to church expecting the pastor to your exact specific purpose in one of his messages, though, you're probably going to soon experience a level of disappointment that only God can put right. Nothing can replace a day to day fellowship and relationship with God- not even the most well preached sermon.

Healing can come during a church service, but God is the true healer. Community can be found in church, but the true Lover of our hearts is the Lord. Fulfillment, counseling, and true joy are not things that are rooted in finding the perfect church. God is the Holy one that provides what man simply cannot. The sooner we get ahold of what church cannot be for us, the easier it will be to stop expecting the church to be responsible for burdens that She was simply never fit to bear. Jesus bore it all on the cross. Let us not try and pluck certain things down from the tree and try to nail them to the churches back.

Church Should be a Place of Community

If we truly believe that the church, all of us as a whole, the Body of Christ, is in need of change, then we need action rather than a plain statement of our depravity. The worlds best arguments will fall flat if they offer no solution. So if a change in the church-the real church is what we desire, then we need a call to arms, and it needs to be directed to all in the church, not just those on the stage.

So what is our call to arms? As we look to scripture, we can see that we already have one from Jesus. Jesus in John 1: 20-23 prays that we who believe in him would be one, "so that the world may believe that you have sent me." So the plan of action is to be unified. And as wonderful it sounds to be in a church that is a community unified through Christ, it is not only to our benefit. We are to be unified so that the world may believe. And when we really examine our place in the world today as the church, it is clear how much our disfunction is spurning the rest of the world away from Christ.

The more that we walk outside the doors of our churches and choose to walk outside of love-outside of what God desires for us, then the more we assume a paralytic stance. That paralysis is stopping us as the Body of Christ, and the consequences of this unintentional, dead way of  living is souls. What we as the church need is not newer songs, and softer chairs. We don't even need to polish up our church services to the best case scenarios that we find described in many of these blog posts. We need to be unified, and learn to let the world know us by our love.

One of the best ways that we could come alive as the church, is if we were to grab hold of the concept and action of befreinding. Let me reiterate, the problem in the church is not the types of songs being sung, not the "irrelevant", "unhip" ways that a large number of churches do things. We must take our eyes off of Sunday morning service and learn to focus in on us as the Body, because God can move in a quiet Church of Christ just as much as he can move in an nondenominational church. God is not respecter of typography laden anouncements over doilies and fake flowers. The problem is that we as the Body are not moving.

We show up at least ten minutes early, and sit happily in our pews without saying anything meaningful to anyone else. We do not go deep, we are not vulnerable, or we do not care to be a receiver of vulnerability As a result, needs are not being met on Sunday mornings or any other day of the weak. Simply put, "church" relationships are shallow. We have found ourselves in a spot in time in which we come to church to have our needs met, but do not do what is necessary to have them met. We are a church frustrated with herself, and also unwilling to work with herself. We want to rattle off a list of problems in the church, but don't spend enough time and compassion on each other to even know what those problems really are.

We have morphed our weakly act of Christian devotion into a show, and it's fruits are small. We come because there is an obligation. To not go would be a stark indicator of our obvious depraity to the onlookers around us. "Oh, I didn't see Mr. and Mrs. Soandso this morning. Something must be going on". We go and tick off another holy box. The obligation is met, but we leave just as hollow and in need of some saving grace as before we came in. Church has become a social expectation, complete with rigid rules as to what counts as church and what does not. We are hungry for salvation and revival, but are starving because Sunday mornings are essentially toast that expected to feed us for a whole week.

We must come together as the church. Ask how people are doing. Meet with them outside of church. Text or call and see how they are really doing. Help them in their walk and let them carry part of your burden too. As we intertwine our lives and start to let Jesus open up our heart for those around us, we as the church will blossom into a community that acts and moves for the glory of God. The sooner we toss aside our masks of feigned holiness and let ourselves be stripped down enough to form a real breathing community, the sooner we can wake up as the Body of Christ and let his work be done through our willing hands.

The church was never meant to be just a way to start your week. The word "church" was never meant to define a building or a sermon or a pastor residing over a group of people. The ability to walk with other believers is one of the greatest gifts that we have been given. Let us not disdain the treasure of communing with each other by neglecting it entirely. The best reform that the church could hope for is to learn how to be on fire for God together again. We must learn to desire to know those sitting in the rows with us, and have our hearts turned to those who feel like outsiders.

God Has Got Us

God has always been in the habit of working with broken and fallen people. The fact that we notice that there are things wrong with his bride only speaks to how much God uses those of us who are weak. We must not look at our broken state in the church and forget that Jesus is our Savior. Our strength comes from God, not from being a church that has all of her ducks in a row. Yes, we run this race in order to win it, and maybe we need to do a little more of that. But we will be completely perfected in heaven. We must not expect that as a church we will ever be perfect enough to stand tall and on our own. God is the one who we should put our trust in, not a congregation of believers. In the end, he prevails over all. No state of personal brokenness or the faults of those around us will ever change that fact.



I hope that this honest look at the church has been helpful and invigorating. God has huge plans for your life, and God has huge plans for the church. He desires for each one of us be to soft clay willing to be formed into vessels to hold his all-surpassing power. But we don't have to do it alone. We have a community of believers that we can call on. If you're in need of friends, try out a small group, put yourself out there. It might be frightening at first, but God will provide people to walk with you. Have faith, and take the necessary steps. Live intentionally. If you already are part of a group, befriend others. Let God soften your hearts for those who are left out and rejected. You will find that there are many around you who are just waiting for a dependable person to listen to what no one else cares about.

As we stay connected to God, he will show us his fiery love that never quits. Day by day we will become more like him, and become more willing to sacrificially give of our time to others with caring and sincere hearts. God will allow our paths to cross with those who are deeply in need of love. All we need to do is listen, and extend a loving hand as the Body of Christ.

January 2015

Last month, I set a number of goals for my year. January is no longer with us, so here I am to give you an update, and I have to be honest, it is not the most commendable one. So without further ado, here are my goals that I had placed, and a short overview of how I have done one them.

1. Two blog post's a week. 
If you follow my blog, it's clear that this did not happen. I attribute that to a lack of planning. With a full-time job and the responsibilities that come with being a full-time adult, there is time to accomplish things, you just have to be very choosy about what you let yourself spend time on. I say that to myself, mostly.

My goal for my bog posts will remain the same. Two a week. I know I can do it, but this time I will work on pre-writing. I will take my Saturdays (or any day that I find I have a lot of free time) and devote as much of this time to writing, writing, writing. It's all about getting ahead of the game. Once I get ahead, it will be a lot easier to keep up with my quota.

3. Three chapters a day. And it must be one book at a time. Not counting the Bible, of course.
This proved to be far more difficult than I had anticipated. When I was in middle school and high school, I was a bookworm. I loved to read, and I still do, but now I work until 5:00pm, and not 3:30pm. And that whole being an adult thing- yah, that is a thing that takes time after work too. So I am a little on the fence about this goal. I might or might not keep it. I could end up reducing it to fewer chapters per day, but I am still adamant about reading more. So we will just have to see how February goes.

5. Expect three pictures per month. 
I am actually proud to say that I have kept up with this one! (Gold star for me.) I have been using pictures that I personally took in all of my blog posts since the one I put up in January about my goals, and it has been great to combine two things that I love in that way! THIS goal is more than achievable, and I will continue to keep on posting at least three pictures each month. I will consider increasing this goal depending on how February pans out. I want to push my self when I am comfortable, but then again, I am also struggling with the rest of my goals. If I am able to get on top of my other goals easily, then I might conceder adding a few more pictures to this quota. If I am still barely screeching by on the other resolutions, I might keep it where it is.

8. I really like to do stretches on my yoga mat in the morning, and I use to make at lest fifteen minutes of time for it every day. I'm going to go back to that. 
Did not happen. Just didn't. I have a routine I like to use when I wake up, and everything. I just neglected to wake up early enough. That is my monster to tackle this month. I must start waking up with enough time to really start my morning off right. Breakfast, getting ready, stretching, time with God- they are all very important to me! But when I wake up with 40 minutes until I leave for work, I have time for one of those things-maybe.

This all gets back to my need to spend my time more wisely and efficiently. I realized about a week into this month that I waste a ton of time at work on my phone. I use a ton of data, and even end up going over our limit. It was also beginning to effect how my boss was viewing me as an employee (eek!), so I decided that enough was enough. I forwarded my work email to my hubby, and have been leaving my phone in my car all work day since.

As a result of God's brilliant suggestion, my productivity has gone up, I work my entire day, and at the end of my day, I feel invigorated! God blessed me with my job, but I was squandering it. As soon as I listened to God's suggestion, my work life changed completely! I now love going in to work, and work as hard as I can. Work is vibrant and challenging, whereas before it was dull and seemed to go on for days on end. I know that the same could happen with my mornings if I would stop practically worshiping sleep.

God gives us the hours of every day, and I love how it feels to fall asleep after an alarm probably more than most. But it is not God's plan for my life to sleep away so much of my day! For me, living intentionally for God and the goals he has set before me means getting enough sleep, but also saying "enough sleep!" when I need to wake up. God has placed some incredible goals before me, and they will take sacrifice, and it will be daily. If the only reason that I wake up earlier is to spend more quality time with God, then it will be so so worth it. I guess this might be a new goal then: 11. Wake up at 5:30 every day.

9. I am committing to at least fifteen minutes of solid prayer time. It's as simple as that.
I did not really do this one like I wish I could tell you I have. I did it some of the time, but, and this goes back to the time thing again, I really just need to manage my time better. I am frequently very tired after I wake up. I have tried praying and spending time with God in this state, but the quality of this time suffers greatly. So I decided to devote the first 15 minutes that I am home after work to prayer with God. I did do that for a little while, but in the following weeks, I soon let it fall to the wayside. I rationalized that I didn't want to loose my momentum and that this chore really needed to be done first, but I was wrong. Wrong because it says a lot when you have a million things tugging you in all directions, but you choose to ignore the signals firing in your brain in order to simply be quiet before God.

I will almost always make time to read my Bible every day. It just feels too out of the ordinary when I do not. But real devoted prayer time has never been my strong suit. I just did not learn it and make a habit of it like I did with studying the Word. But I know in my head how important it is to talk with God. If I were asked if spending time in prayer was important, my answer would be a resounding yes. So why don't I??

I am out of practice, I don't make time, it can bee a little boring-there are any number of excuses that I could hurl out. So it's time to stop trying to think of ways to make prayer more glamorous for myself. It comes down to if I am going to be faithful to do what I said I will do or not. Am I a faithful person, or am I not? I am willing to ask that question with the risk of finding the answer to be no. Right now, in this area, the answer is, "no". But I can still get up, and I can still keep on going. I might not be where I want to be-where God desires for me to be, but I have faith that I can get there with God on my side. As I lean into God and the fact that he is my righteousness, I know that this will come to pass. I just need to not quit.

Is for goals 2, 4, 6, 7, and 10, I definitely have to say that I feel good about these. I have continued to not let my lack of experience in writing and photography scare me, and it has been a lot of fun viewing the things that I do without the fear of sucking. So I feel confident in how number two (Dare to Suck) went.

Number four, Let Yourself Off the Hook has gone very well. Even though I pretty much failed on most of my goals right off the bat and well through the entire month, I am still incredibly excited about each of my goals! In fact, I know that even though the results of those goals has been mostly failure, God has been working mightily in my life this entire month! I have never had as much ambition, and clarity for my life as I have right now. I am ready to rocket forward for whatever God has for me! And even when I fail, I will not let myself wallow in self pity anymore. God has far too much planned for me. I must, and will continue to let myself off the hook.

As for goal number six, Just Do You, Boo, I haven't received very much pushback form others. No one has made me feel as if I should not do what God has placed in my heart, and I think that says something important. It is mostly in your head. The part of your brain that tells you that you can't do what you want because of the negative people around you is lying. Sometimes in life, there will be people who it would be best to ignore, but I think most of us can take a deep breath and exhale. And let me tell you a secret, most folks around you could not care less what you do or don't do. Yep, I said it. So take it from me: ignore the people spewing hate, but also ignore the voice in your head trying to tell you that everyone will be hating on you if you decide to follow your dreams, because it is lying. It's as simple as that.

Goal number seven is Finish Projects, and I actually did finish one of the projects that Teagan and I had started at the beginning of the month. Teagan and I, as we read through the Don't Limit God book, decided that we were going to make a list of things that we were no longer going to limit God on, I decided to make a painting to hang in our room as a reminder, and I finished the painting! Granted, my mind is already telling me how I could do a painting like this better next time, but it is done. And I am pretty happy with the end result.

Chief is a master photobomber.

Goal ten was to stop limiting God. I think that I have learned how to do that a little more through my change at work. I have also learned how to not do stop limiting God as well this month. It has been an journey, and I expect to never get to a spot in which I think that I have completely imagined all that God can do for me. Because God can do anything. His ability far outreaches the mind of any man. So I could never come to a point that my mind is expanded enough to know all that God can do for me. And that is so amazing and humbling.

All in all, I think that this has been an amazing month. God has shown me a lot about myself that I never wanted to believe. He has also shown me how to conquer some of the most difficult mountains in my life. Read: flee from temptation. I may have not had a month of completing every resolution on my list, but that is why I set them for a year. I will continue to walk with God and expect an amazing outcome that brings him glory.

My resolutions still stand, and I will add and amend as necessary. Next month I will update my progress and note all that God has done in my month. God is doing big things, and he desires to do them for you too! Do yourself a huge favor, and get real with God. Ask him what he wants for your life. Ask him what you really need to change or get rid of in your life. He will be faithful to answer. And when we let God in the mix of our lives, there is no cap on the supernatural changes that we will see.