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.

Skinny for Lack of Eating

Today I shall introduce you to Chief, Teagan and I's furry baby.

Chief is a great dane, and the breed is normally skinnier than most, but recently, we noticed that Chief had passed the line between healthy skinny and gone to the quarter-a-day-for-this-dying-dog skinny. We would feed Chief every day without fail, but he would simply leave his bowl quite full after nibbling just a little bit on what we gave him. I was beginning to worry that one of the local dog fanatics would see and think something of it!

Finally, after this going on for a few weeks with no change even after trying to change up his food, we decided it was time to visit the vet. On his day off, Teagan did all of the hard work of taking an incredibly large, but incredibly timid dog to the vet. But the blood work that the ran came back completely fine. Our horse sized dog was as healthy as one, he was just simply not taking in the food that his body needed.

We learned that part of this was due to the quality of food that we were feeding him. Currently, we were trying out Kibbles and Bits. We were fully aware of how low of a quality that Kibbles is, but Teagan and I were just trying something new for the sake of seeing if Chief would eat more. Another reason that Chief had not been eating as much as he should have was because we had the food available to him all day. He had no anticipation of his mealtime. As a result of this lack of schedule, Chief was eating far less than he should have been.

Armed with this new knowledge, a tub of yogurt, and some packets of powdered medicine to help our dane pack on the pounds, we optimistically started to become more strict about when Chief was allowed to eat. His new mealtime was 8 o'clock. As soon as Teagan was home from a long shift of selling Toyotas, Chief was served a healthy concoction of the powder, yogurt, and some rather expensive dog food. And the schedule worked almost immediately. I was astonished at how quickly I began to notice Chief putting on a nice layer of weight. With the implementation of a schedule and better nutrition, we now had a new dog. He looked incredibly healthy, and no longer made the song "In the Arms of an Angel" come to my mind.

Don't worry, he got none of the wine.

Now dog's are smart, but only to an extent. Our little guy didn't even know that he was starving himself or how to eat enough, until we made sure to set a stricter schedule for him. So for the most part, I would say that we as humans have been given a little more sense and personal awareness. We might even laugh a little bit at poor old Chief. Not out of spite, but because he was completely healthy! He just honestly didn't know how to properly take care of his nutrition! What he needed was right in front of him, but he chose not to partake in what was essentially keeping him alive, because he was not conditioned to. And to be honest, it's so silly, it's laughable! Clean bill of health, but we need to teach our dog to eat. Who would have thought?

But aren't we that way sometimes? Probably not with actual food. I would be willing to bet that none of you have real problems remembering when and how much to feed yourselves. But how do we look spiritually? Is our spirit man ribby and boney? If we could see our spirit man, would we try and donate a quarter a day because of the guilt his malnourished appearance fills us with? This comparison has been used time and time again, but until we went through the process of having a ridiculously skinny dog and finding out that there was nothing wrong with him, it had never occurred to me how ridiculous it is. Ridiculous, I mean, that we have the resources-the food right in front of us, but we still decide to not eat.

We go to church, but think about the pot roast and the Sunday game the whole time. We have our bible in our nightstand, but haven't touched it in weeks. The solution to our spiritual dryness-the dehydration and malnutrition is right in front of us. But we do not partake. We are as senseless as Chief was.

I have been down this road before. More than once actually, because starvation is a slow process. You don't skip your dinner one day and discover that you look like an impoverished orphan the next. It's meal after meal; skipped prayer time after skipped prayer time that eventually adds up. And then one day, you wake up so disconnected from God that something inside of you starts screaming loud enough for you to hear. Somethings not okay! I am dying in here! Every part of life is too much for me to bear! You were once fine. The things you are facing use to be simple hills, and now they are looming mountains with no way of escape. That's when we need to stop in our tracks, about-face, and go back to God.

In Middle School, I played the clarinet and saxophone in band. Our school in San Antonio had a fantastic band director, and one day, while instructing our 13-15 year old class on why it was so incredibly important to practice daily, he said something that I have never forgotten. "When you don't practice one day, you know. Two days, your director knows. And by a week, your audience knows." Practicing musically, athleticly, and even spiritually is gradual in it's effectiveness. It takes a while to get to a certain level, and it takes a lesser while (but a while still) to slide back down from where you once fought to be.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a spot if great inner turmoil, spiritual strife, or spiritual dryness. We need not look to the heavens, crying "Why me? This always happens to me!" We are not dogs that we should forget how to feed ourselves. We must stay connected to the source, and dive back into the word. Don't let shame keep you from coming back to God. There is now no condemnation in Christ. None. Right now this minute, there is none. Don't take the devils whispers of deception as truth. Run back to God. Continue to feast upon the word. Eventually we can regain stability and return back to health.

When I was a very young girl, around six or so, my parents payed for me to take piano lessons. At the time, we lived in Ohio while all of our family lived in Texas. Every Christmas break, we would make the long drive across the country to see our family. When not on vacation, I was pretty good about taking time each day to practice. But we opted not to haul our keyboard with us whenever we trekked all the way to grandmother's house, so I did not practice during that period of time. When we came back from vacation, my teacher was less than happy that I had not practiced. Perhaps I did a poor job of explaining the exactly why I had not practiced during our break, but the interaction with my piano teacher was not a great one. I remember crying, as I did for just about everything, and not continuing my lessons anymore.

Now looking back, I feel bad for the poor woman. I was pretty prone to tears, and I probably could have gone back, continued my lesson's, and been just fine. But because of that day, my piano teacher would not be teaching me anymore. Despite any residual feelings of disappointment in the way things unfolded, though, I can know that I will never have to face a similar situation with God.

When we decide to reconnect with him after a long hiatus, God is not looking down on us with a lecture ready. God is the father of the prodigal son who ran when he saw his son from a distance. We can expect the exact same thing from God when we realize that our spiritual starvation needs to come to an end. God is full of mercy and love. All we need is to come back to him.

So there is no need to sit in our squalor and refuse to take in what is good for us. Poor old Chief didn't know any better, but we know that in order to experience peace in our lives, we must stay rooted and connected to God. When we are feeding our spirit man on a regular basis, we will be in good health and fully able to weather the various winters that are included in this life. So it's not about doing, it's about holding fast to our Father. We must be honest with ourselves. If we find that we have been neglecting our spirit, all we need to do is come back to our Father. He is faithful to heal, and soon we will wonder why we ever left.

Why I Failed All of My Resolutions

Last week I decided to start ten resolutions for 2015. I felt fairly confident that I would be able to do all of these things, especially since they were things that I had tried to do before, but it's one week later, and I have not done one bit of any of it. Okay, that's not true. To be honest, I did get a fair amount of morning yoga in there, but for the most part, I started the year off with one big flop of a week.

Now I'm not here to make excuses. God knows I have a back for that. I'm here to follow up, and most importantly to be honest. I think too much of the time, our "Christian" examples and stories of other's lives only include the most beautiful, Christian aspects of their lives, and none of the real, true grit type of things that we all, if we were to be honest with ourselves, experience on a day to day basis. My goal with this blog is to give an honest and real look into a Christ follower who is a real person. Not a shinned up, glorified example of who I really am. So here is how I sabotaged my first real week of resolutions.

First of all, just to throw out the obvious, I did not keep my two blog post a week resolution. We are all here, a week later, with only one post for last week. Sorry about that. I also did a horrible job at reading. I read two chapters for the whole week. Yep. Two. But it's not about what I did or didn't do. I mean it sort of is, but it really isn't.

I got a nasty cold that set in about last Thursday. It came with none of the real alarming symptoms that get people to feel sorry for you, just the stupid little ones that bother you all day long and make you exhausted, but don't really merit taking off from work to go to the doctor. You know, constant nose blowing, eye watering, and the need to sneeze but it never comes? Yah. Horrendous while you're in it, but not the type of thing that convinces those around you that you really are under the weather. So after finding myself at the end of Thursday feeling exhausted and icky, I decided that I didn't care if I wasn't barfing in the bathroom, I was taking Friday off.

I took Friday off, and continued on through the whole weekend not feeling better at all. Still just as sick, if not worse, but now I was angry. I was angry because the week prior to all of this, in addition to making a nice list of resolutions that were now falling by there wayside, Teagan and I had decided to start reading and following a book called Don't Limit God. The theme of the book is to allow God to do all that he has always wanted to do in your life by not limiting him with our disbelief. So here I was, barley into the book with my husband, and I was sick as a dog. This was not suppose to be how things were going. This was not suppose to happen to someone who was believing God for everything in her life! And I was convinced that I was believing God for everything. I thought I was. But to be honest, I had really been trusting in myself.

I knew that God was my source, and that I needed to not keep him in the box of my unbelief. But I took that and became so fixated on what I needed to do on my end for everything to fall into place, that soon, I was putting more faith in myself than God. I had all of my ducks in a row. I was going to spend fifteen minutes here, ten there, and gradually become this future version of myself that I had grown to love. But bit by bit, little increments of time turned into my entire day, and I was not making time for God anymore. I had gone from having God as my root and foundation and what my entire life revolved around, to making God a little pill that I take to keep crazy Candace at bay. I had begun to fall in love with works.

After a weekend of being sick, I decided that I couldn't take another day off. I needed to go back to work. So I did, all the time being convinced that I personally needed to take on this cold and command and grow my faith as much as I could. That, my friends, was the most exhausting Monday that I had gone through in a long time. By four o'clock, I was beginning to wonder if anyone had ever had a cold so bad that they wrecked because they fell asleep while driving. You might say that I was having a little bit of an inward pity party. Pushing that thought out of my mind and clocking out, I breathed a sigh of relief that my day was finally done, and drove home wreck-free.

Sundays are when Teagan and I have been reading Don't Limit God together. So the day before my Monday of exhaustion, the chapter we had last read was all about spending time being still with God. We had agreed to take time individually every day to do this. After the tiring Monday I had just had, I was definitely ready for a slow of pace, so I grabbed my prayer list and sat down in my closet.

I started reading through my list, but something wasn't right. I stopped, and it was as if God was saying to me, "finally, you stopped!" I put my various lists down and leaned back. I really was exhausted, and I had an amaizing headache to top it all of. I tried to quiet my mind as best as I could, and actually practice being still.

Being frustrated that I was still sick, and that I was not yet healed, I asked God, "What do I need to do?" By this time, I was thoroughly frustrated, and ultimately convinced that I was personally responsible for my lack of healing because I wasn't doing enough. But what I head God tell me was not that I needed to pray for five hours or that I needed to watch some sort of healing DVD. He told me that I needed a nap.

Really, God? The God of the universe is telling me I need a nap?

"Yes. And what are all of your worries? Tell them to me. Trust me, and go take a nap. Rest."

I was incredibly relieved at that prescription. There was not a bone in my body that was against that plan of action. On my way under my covers, I realized that I had been trying to survive off of putting faith into myself. I had let go of putting faith in God and decided that if I just did this, or if I just got in a certain mindset, then things would fall into place. And God, being the gracious and never forceful God that he is, let me go down this ridiculous thinking. He let me experience the stupidity of thinking that my actions are what matters. But he was always there waiting for me to listen and trust in what he was going to do.

Today, I called in again. I took the day to rest, and trust that the key to all of this is God, not me. And trusting in God does not mean that you use all of your might and willpower to summon God's action by creating some sort of disbelief-free zone. Trust does not also mean "to struggle" in Greek. Trusting God is simple. You just let go of the situation, and take a nap. Okay, not literally. You can't take a nap at work and get away with it by saying that God told you to trust him (but how great would that be?). The point is, when you "let go and let God", you need to really let go. It's not a case of you letting go of one side of the wheel and letting God take the other. Just tell God. Tell him once what you need, and trust him, and listen to him. I had done the former, but neither of the two latter.

Today, I felt better than I had in a while. I had begun to forget what it was to be able to breathe through my nose! I know that I was just trusting in myself the whole time rather than God, and that was the only thing holding me back. So do I think that I should scrap all of my goals for the sake of trusting in God? No. God is still for the goals that I set. Health, and reading are still great areas to try and improve on. But If we set goals for ourselves and set our eyes on all that we do or don't do, then we are going to experience failure and spiritual dryness.

In this month of goal setting and goal failing, we must remember to keep our eyes set on God. Yes we are trying to build better habits, but even in the things that in the physical look like they are completely up to us, we must learn to trust God. God is and always will be our true source. It is surely not easy to let go of things that the world (and even religiously confused people) tell us that we need to do fix ourselves. But God is ready, and he is waiting for us to trust him, and take a nap.

10 Very Real Goals for my New Year

It is six days in to the new year, and if I were prone to wagers, I would bet that you fall into one out of two categories. Either you are plugging along, seizing the passing of one year into the next as an opportunity for general self improvement, or you are sitting by, doing the same old things while thinking, "that was just another day. There's no reason to treat it differently than all the other 365." Well if you are the second one, then I commend you for your sharp grip on reality! But I also have to apologize, because I love the New Year, and I am extremely guilty of being the former of the two kinds of people.

In my mind, New Years is one of the best times of year! Yes, the gyms get flooded with people that will be gone in one to two months. Sure a huge percentage of resolutions that are made that soon fall by the wayside unkept. But as a born optimist, I can't help but to see past the bloated commercialized version of New Years, and picture a new year that is strong, young and full of potential!

As soon as Christmas ends, my mind floods with excitement about all of the new goals that I can make! Keep the house cleaner, take better care of my body, vow to stop hanging onto clothing that isn't my style just for the sake of having a full closet, spend my time more wisely, love more, pray more-the list goes on. And I know they tell you not to set too many goals at once, but it almost feels as if the longer my list gets, the more excited I become. It's a cycle. A vicious one, or an uplifting one, I can't be sure. But none the less, as a twenty one year old woman in the year twenty-fifteen, I am going to dive headfirst into this year with expectation galore. So here are some of my very real, and not at all too big goals:

1. Write More

I don't claim any impressive ability. But I do believe that God gave me a passion for writing. The great thing about that is the more I exercise my writing muscles, the better I should get! I can't tell you how many ideas I have written down only to not pursue them at all. Oh, they're still bouncing around in there, but either time or fear has been getting in the way. So from this point on, I am going to make a better effort to honor the ideas that God puts into my brain. The first few might come out stinking worse than my cat's kitty litter, but no one picks up a bike and then signs up for Tour de France. Which brings me to my second resolution.

2. Dare to Suck

When we start something new, we never hope to be really bad at it. In fact, I think we all kind of invasion ourselves in glowing lights, with hopes of not only mastering the new thing we are taking on, but we imagine ourselves as being better than all the rest! As if this new thing that we are going to try is going to be the best thing that we have ever done. Our lives will literally come together and people will pay large sums of money for us to do whatever it is that we are hoping to learn to do. But it never quite works out that way, does it? At least not at first. 

When we first start on any new thing, we are going to probably suck at it. Our New Years visions for our Januarys and Februarys seldom shape up as we had hoped. We cheers to the new year, soon it's Valentines day, and we still aren't pro's at what we started. We will have many dumb questions, and we will have to try many times before even getting to a point of satisfaction. But if you look at the task ahead of you, and failure is all you're able to see, then you might never start. Not starting because you know you'll be out of the gate with blunder after blunder is a monumental shame. Take a moment, and if you have not made any goals at all this year (or for a while, to be honest) just make this one with me. Have the courage to get out there and not be that great for a while. I promise you'll thank me later.

3. Read More

Reading is amazing. And if I want to accomplish my fist goal, I will need to implement goal number three. I love to read, actually. A lot. If I could somehow split myself mitosis-style into three or four people, one of myselves would spend her whole life just reading. That's it, just consuming book after book. Devouring story after story forever. But as someone with a full-time job, and no ability of mitosis, I have to make a real effort to have time for anything. 

So this year, I want to commit to reading more. No more excuses. And I don't even have to go buy books! I have multiple books that I have been meaning to read! I get given great books, and neglect them. Then I see another, and for some reason buy that too! Why? Because-BUY ALL THE BOOKS! So this year I am committing. Not to some crazy 50 books a year challenge (that's almost a book a week, folks!), but something manageable, like two to three chapters of something-anything!-a day. I can do that. Anyone can do that. But when you're starting from ground zero, doable is good. Which reminds me-

4. Let Yourself Off the Hook

Personally, this goal has been needing to be said for a long time. I am an odd combination of being ambitious and a procrastinator. I will get completely excited about something, and then get afraid of failure and procrastinate the project right into the dust. THEN (nope, this train wreck isn't done yet) I feel bad about putting off my project for so long, and feel as if even when I do want to continue, that I can't because of my horrible blunder of neglecting the task. That, my friends is a vicious cycle that feeds itself and feeds itself. And sometimes (yep-still going), in light of the trouble that I often have completing my goals, I feel the need to overdo it and never mess up. This leads to all around self loathing, and even bigger and harder falls when I do mess up. 

So really, I need to lay off a little bit and allow room for failure. If I were to try and read 50 books in 2015, I would leave myself only two weeks off for the whole year! That is an unhealthy margin for mistake, at least for me. I need to set more realistic goals. But even then, when I DO fall behind-and I can tell you right now, I will-I need to realize a few things. 1. It's okay. This is not the worst thing that could happen. 2. You are not a lesser you because you have not met all of your expectations. That does not define you. 3. There is absolutely no good reason to let that keep you from continuing on. You might not finish where you thought you would. But the ability to look back, and say you've finished will be so much sweeter than you think it will be. Keep going. Just keep going.

5. Take Lots of Pictures

My family (parent's, husband's mom and stepdad, and my husband) bought me a camera for Christmas. I am pretty much forever indebted to them because of their amazing generosity. I have wanted to pursue photography for a while now. I grew up looking through the articles in the National Geographic, and I developed a taste for the art of capturing moments in time in that way. And now that I have the means to start doing what I have always wanted to do, I have no excuses. I need to be taking pictures, and I need to be taking a lot of them.

6. Just Do You, Boo

One of my favorite YouTubers to watch says that. Her channel name is Shameless Maya. In the video that she put out talking about why she started her channel on youtube, she tells about how she had always wanted to. Starting a youtube channel is a great way to get yourself out there. But she had been afraid to put herself out there and do what she really wanted to do. Finally, she just decided to ignore her fear of what people around her might think and just do exactly what she had always wanted to do. That's where the name for her channel came from. She is unabashed about what she loves and the risks she takes. 

This goes hand in hand with my second goal, but it needs to be said. If we would all just let go of our fear of what other people will think when we really pursue our dreams, then they might actually come true. Ignore anyone around you that you're afraid will look down on you because you're trying something new. Gather up your courage, because there is no better time then now. If you wait until you're in a spot that is devoid of "haters" then you will never begin. Now is as good a time as any. In the words of Shameless Maya, "Just do you, Boo".

7. Finish Projects

I have many projects that I have started, that have fallen to the wayside. Why? I really don't have any good reasons. Maybe I was afraid of messing up, or I didn't have all of the right materials, but there is no reason why I should have a half finished painting sitting sadly in the guest room. Pick it back up, Candace. Address whatever disappointment you may have in yourself and then get over it. We are going to finish things this year. Not pick up new things and make a new pile of halfway done things.

8. Take Care of My Body

I only get one, so can someone tell me again why my diet still consists of microwavable taquitos?! Taking care of your body is not a beginning of the year fad. It is very Biblical! I'm not saying that I am going to swear off of everything that is bad for you. And I'm sorry, but the vegetarian/vegan life is not for me. But I do want to start implementing all of the healthy recipes on my Pinterest that I never seem to cook. Honestly, if I was half of the woman my Pinterest makes it seem like I am, I would not be making this list!

9. Pray More

There is not a major rhyme or reason to the order of this list. I really just wrote it in the order that they came to my mind. I mention that, because this could possibly be the most important thing that I do this year. I pray a woefully sad amount of time each day. Yes, I pray a lot when I am driving, but it's mostly for the general safety of Lubbock. There are many things that God has given me a bigger image in my mind for, and I need to start praying. I have the ability to come boldly to the throne. I have no idea why I have not, but starting 2015, I am going to actually be specific and spend real time going to bat in prayer.

10. Stop Limiting God

For Christmas, my mother gave all of us kids in the immediate family a book by Andrew Womack titled "Don't Limit God". My husband and I have decided to go through it together. I'll save an in-depth update for another blog post, but we have already seen God breaking through because of our renewed faith in anything and everything that God has for us. God is amazing and massive. He has great things for every one of us! This year, Teagan and I have decided to be obedient to stop believing for the status quo (and even bare minimum sometimes), and in turn stop limiting all that God desires for our lives. Do yourself a favor; get into the Word and build up your faith. And if you would like some guidance while you go along, definitely see what God has to say through Andrew Womack's book. Just a friendly recommendation that could change your life!

I realize that all of my goals were fairly general. So here is a quantifiable, checkable list of exactly what I am shooting for. I will check in at the beginning of every month even if that is the only blog that I do that month to honestly say how well or badly I am doing. So here it is. What I would like my two thousand and fifteen to really look like.

1. Two blog post's a week. I think that should be more than manageable. I also want to write at least six short stories this year. That's a half of a story per month. There is no set length, so I can go as long or short as I want. 

3. Three chapters a day. And it must be one book at a time. Not counting the Bible, of course.

5. Expect three pictures per month. Yep- three. That feels scary, but if it matters to me, I can take at least three pictures that I like enough to post each month. I owe it to myself to not chicken out of this one, so there it is. Three a month. Done.

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. A few minutes of yoga every day. That's final. Any person is capable of that. No chickening out, Candace! No chickening out! Also in the realm of taking care of my temple, I am committing to fifteen minutes of cardio at least five days a week. This is not hard to find time for. It's just the execution that I have problems with. Again. No chickening out, Candace.

9. I am committing to at least fifteen minutes of solid prayer time. It's as simple as that.

The numbers that I left out are the goals that I made that are not easily quantifiable. I will still touch base each month on all ten goals, but there isn't really a great way to be more specific about 2, 4, 6, 7, and 10. But they are goals that are worth mentioning none the less.

All of this-every part of it, is possible through God. I am the head and not the tail, and so are you. If there are things in your life that you find yourself wishing were different, maybe this could be a great opportunity for you. Set aside some time by yourself, and be honest. What is not a reality in your life that you desire, or feel that God wants for you? Make a list, or record yourself speaking your goals out loud. But whatever you do, give yourself the best chance to see your life take on a new shape. 

As we rocket into the  new year, let us take the opportunity to build our faith in God. Take the step of faith, and I promise you, God will be with you the entire way. Dream bigger than you have ever imagined. Think thoughts that the your acceptance of the average has not let you think before. God can out-dream the most optimistic of dreamers. It's about time we started approaching life as if that were truth, and not fairy tale.