Tag: Change

Life Changes

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“We didn’t plan for things to go this way, but can you even imagine what life would be like if this weren’t happening?”

I said this to my husband last night as we stood in the kitchen and I showed him the baby books I had just bought (our child will definitely not have a lack of reading material – I have a problem…). We originally planned to have kids when we were both out of school, or at the very least when I was completely done. But when I sat in the campus infirmary one February afternoon and watched that little line appear, everything changed.

I was half terrified because this was NOT the plan, but at the same time, I couldn’t contain tears of pure joy as I realized I was going to be a mom. Finally.

I realize that may sound silly to some as I am not quite 22 yet, but the desire to be a mother has been brewing strong inside me for years and has only gotten stronger as I do life with the most amazing man in the world. When my best friend had the most beautiful baby girl in the world last December, I was in love. There were tears of joy streaming down my face as I saw her perfect little face for the first time. Later, though, if I’m being completely honest, which I try to be, I was crying for a different reason. Seeing that perfect little girl and seeing my best friend’s face as she held her baby for the first time created a deep ache in my heart because I still had years to go before that happened for me, and as absolutely happy as I was for her and her little family, part of me was heart-broken.

I know that to some that may seem silly or selfish, but it was how I felt. So I gave it to God. I didn’t want those feelings inside of me getting in the way of the pure joy I really was feeling for my best friend of nearly 10 years. I stopped thinking about it and just my best friend and her sweet little girl.

A month later I was pregnant.

I’m not saying that just because you surrender something to God, you are going to immediately get what you desire – that’s not how God works – but His timing is different than ours and it is perfect.

A few months ago I was praying that God would give me the strength, peace, and patience for these next few years of waiting. Now I’m praying for this sweet baby growing inside of me, whom I already love more than I ever could have imagined.

Our plans have changed significantly since that day in February, but oh, they have changed in the best way. There are still many unknowns, but I know God will carry us through just like He always has and just like He always will. We have plans, sure, but as Thomas Rhett says, “Life changes, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Love,

B

Photo credit: unsplash-logoMaxime Lelièvre

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Things Change

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Do you ever feel like one minute you have everything together and the next minute you don’t? Yeah, that’s how I’ve been feeling. During Christmas break I was on a consistent housework schedule, I was writing nearly everyday, I was reading for fun everyday, it was great. Then the most stressful semester in my history of school started. Let’s just say things have went off the rails a bit (having the stomach bug last week didn’t help).

I knew that this semester was going to be difficult for me, but I assumed that I could keep doing things the way I was and I would be fine – I even increased my fitness goals (Yeah, that’s not happening) – and I was quite wrong. Even though I know routines change with the ebbs and flows of life, I was quite determined to keep doing things the way I was doing them.

After a few break downs I realized that I simply cannot continue the way I was going a month ago. I have six classes and a lot of homework, papers, and tests; I work around twenty hours a week; and I have other commitments. This season does not look like the last one. So, what am I doing about it? I’m realizing what goals I need to adjust and what changes I need to make. We’re going to be getting an elliptical because going to the gym multiple days a week just isn’t feasible right now, the housework schedule isn’t so much of a schedule anymore but more of a nightly tidying with my husband, and I take naps. And drink coffee (I was caffeine free for almost two months).

This season I have to take things easier, I have to be more flexible, or I’m going to run myself ragged. When God first planted the idea of Life Management Monday in my heart I wanted one of the central messages to be that life management looks different for everyone. We cannot compare ourselves to others or think that what works for someone else will necessarily work for us. I was so caught up in the comparison game – and the worst part is is that the person I was comparing myself to was myself! Sometimes we really do have to take a page out of our own books!

Keep on creating a life you love, but be reasonable. We aren’t super human.

With love,

B

Photo credit:unsplash-logoJilbert Ebrahimi

Life-Long Learning

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In less than four months I will be graduating with my Bachelor’s degree!

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I am, however, going an extra year to get my teaching license. This is honestly pretty exciting because though I am ready to be done with school, I also really love learning.

Learning isn’t confined to a classroom, though. Nor is it confined to any one period of time in our lives. As we live our lives we are constantly changing and growing. Any and every point in our lives is a great time to learn.

I love to soak up information about the season of life I’m currently in as well as future seasons. I’m not a mom yet, but I hope to be some day. So I do spend time reading articles and books and listening to podcasts that have to do with pregnancy and parenting because someday they will be relevant. I’m not a teacher yet, but I try to learn as much as I can to help me with that season of life. I am also currently a wife and a follower of Jesus, two things that I’m not going to stop being; however, there is always room for growth and development and thus I strive to learn and grow constantly.

We are not done learning when we are finished with school; we aren’t done until we take our last breath. Read books, go to conferences, listen to podcasts, read blogs. Learn. Grow. Change.

With love,

B

Photo credit: unsplash-logoNick Hillier

The Social-Media Christian

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What is Christianity? A label in an Instagram bio? A t-shirt? Church attendance? A list of rules? Something you are because your family is? Tweeting Bible verses?

Being a Christian isn’t something you do one day a week, or something you present yourself as on social media; it’s something you are to the core of your being.

I imagine if I had this shallow attitude towards my husband when he and I were dating:

What if I posted about how great our relationship was on social media yet rarely talked to or interacted with him?

What if I saw him every once and awhile yet never invested?

What if I talked about how much I loved him yet never showed love?

If this were the case, there wouldn’t have been much of a relationship behind the label.

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Just like human relationships, Christianity is meant to be a relationship, not a label. Because of Jesus we get the privilege of having a direct connection with our Creator. We get to learn more about Him, how much He loves us, and what He calls us to do. We get to draw into an intimate relationship with the One who will never leave or forsake us. If this is the case, why would we ever settle for less?

Are we going to choose to actually invest in a relationship that changes our hearts, minds, attitudes, and lives, or are we going to settle for a shallow label that changes nothing?

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Seasons of Life

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Our lives are not linear; we do not stay in the same place constantly. Like the seasons of the year, the seasons of our lives come and go. This thought is comforting in difficult times and perhaps bitter in more joyful times.

The season that we are in is unique to us and may look quite different from the people around us even if they are in a similar time in their life. For example, my best friend and I are one month apart in age, we are both seniors in college, we have similar majors, and we are both married, yet we are in very different seasons of life. The season I am in involves managing a full-time course load for school, work, and an internship. I am not home very much and spend most of my time doing homework and housework. Genelle on the other hand is going to school full-time as well, has a work-study through the university, and is preparing to have a baby in three months! Though the seasons that we are in share commonalities, they are quite different indeed!

Both of the seasons we are in are beautiful in their own ways, and one of my favorite things to do as of late is have conversations with her about what is going on in her life and sharing what is going on in mine, because for the first time, the seasons of our lives are more different than similar and the priorities and focuses of our lives are different. I love it.

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The thing about life is that we can never really expect what the future seasons of life will look like. For instance, when I was a freshman in college, I never would have guessed that I would change my major or that I would be getting married my junior year. We can plan all we want, but that doesn’t mean that things are going to work out that way – and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Genelle, for example, wasn’t necessarily planning on having a baby this year, and the season she was expecting to go into changed, but the unexpected season turned into a season of joy and blessings.

A valuable skill I have learned in the past few years is to accept the season of life that I am in. The current one I’m in is quite busy. I rarely get to spend time with my husband or my family and I have to be extra intentional about finding rest and being still in the presence of the Lord. When things feel like they are too much to handle, when I’m upset about not seeing my husband as much as I would like to, I simply say to myself, “It is only a season.” Though it is a trying season at times, it is a season full of immense blessings and joy as well. I can’t sit around and wait for that perfect time in my life to come along – it’s never going to. I have to find joy in each day.

This season will go and the next one will come. What will it be like? I have no clue, but perhaps the mystery is part of the adventure.

Photo Credit: Fineas Anton

Battling Laziness

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When my husband and I first got married, we had a pretty good routine going. We were eating healthy, meal planning, going to the gym, and we had a cleaning schedule for our apartment. A few months later, though, a series of unfortunate events happened that threw us off track and we never really recovered. What started out as actual reasons to neglect housework and whatnot, eventually just turned to laziness. After awhile, we decided something needed to change; this laziness wasn’t good for us in more than one way. Physically, we did not feel very well because we were not eating well and we were no longer exercising. Our apartment was also taking a toll as was our spiritual lives. I was no longer carving out time to spend with God, I was giving Him whatever time I had left over – if any.

Scripture is dense when it comes to the topic of laziness (seriously, if you don’t believe me, Google it); it’s even one of the 7 Deadly Sins! As I said, we decided that we needed to battle the laziness that was taking over our lives, and we decided to do it as a team. We knew that individually we didn’t stand a chance, but sometimes being a team is hard. It can be hard to encourage one another about something like this without it coming across as nagging. It’s hard to motivate someone else when you don’t want to motivate yourself to do the same thing.

Despite these things, we decided to give it a shot. Making lifestyle changes doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a process that requires steps – and you have to remember that even baby steps are steps. So that is what we started doing – and are still doing – implementing baby steps to get our lives back on track to where we’d like them to be. We’re trying to avoid eating out when we can and to start meal planning again. We’ve started tag-teaming the housework.

A huge part of combatting laziness is effective time management. I’ve started using the planning app Cozi (it is AMAZING, check it out!) again. I have also created a quiet time basket full of everything I could possibly need during quiet time (Bible, highliter, pens,  Bible commentary, journals, lotion in case my hand get dry, etc). We are trying to work on getting up earlier so we can eat a good breakfast and have quiet time, but this has been our most difficult obstacle so far. I also use my 45 minute commute to sometimes listen to podcasts (my current favorites are the Read Scripture Podcast Series by Francis Chan and the Uniquely Woman podcast) – I can make the choice to wake up late and not have time for things, but I can’t make the choice to not drive all the way to work. Other times I listen to worship music, and, of course, other times I just have jam sessions.

Our current goal is to start going to the gym again. As I said, life change is made through baby steps and each baby step, no matter how small, is a victory that should be celebrated. Whether it’s laziness or some other obstacle that you are pushing to overcome, just remember that each day is a new day and a new chance – heck, each hour is a new chance – and to celebrate the victories along the way.

Journaling Through Life

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Tonight I got home, got into bed, and settled in to read my Bible and to journal before watching Netflix.  I’m moving through Job (admittedly the hardest book of the Bible I’ve read) and tonight I was on chapter 38 which is God’s first response to Job and his friends.  After I read it I was journaling about how humbling the chapter was and my thoughts about it (I may do another post about it, but ya’ll should read it).  I was going to blog about it but my computer was taking for-ev-er to turn on, so while I was waiting I flipped through my journal.

I started this journal November 30 of last year – almost a year ago exactly! Admittedly, I’m not a very faithful journalist so my entries tend to be rather spread out, but as I got to looking through it I’ve seen how God has moved in my life this past year: terrible heartbreak, a whole different kind of heartbreak over losing my Papa and my Granny,  moving sermons, my first time leading someone to Christ, my change of heart about teaching, lessons in love being a decision and not just a feeling, the fact that my handwriting is hardly legible a majority of the time, healing God has brought over the heartbreak and losses, God opening new doors in my life, miracles, breakdowns, praise, choosing joy.  The list goes on and on, and all of this in under a year!

Though I’m not the most religious journalist, God has definitely used this journal to show me how He has healed me, changed me, and grown me over the past year, and that is one of the biggest blessings I think a person can receive.  On an ending note, here’s a quote I found in my journal from a man who came to speak at my school:

“Start journaling your journey and watch God.” -Dr. Bobo

Until next time, lovelies.