Loyalty

Don't forget it. Freedom isn't free.

God bless our military and their families.

Updated About Me

Hey, kids! I updated my "About Me" page! Pretty much all I tossed in was that this wasn't only a devotional blog, but also kind of a sort of "interesting event" diary! I realized I needed to change the description after a few "Awkward + Awesome" posts! Haha! Hope you enjoy my blog!

Awkward + Awesome

Because these are always fun :D

Awkward:

1. Accidentally sounding extremely racist toward two Asians at youth group, who I happen to get along with better than anyone else there....

2. Getting dressed up for a photo shoot and your neighbour friend coming over.. yeah... I just.. look like this every day...

3. Standing there waiting to say goodbye to your youth leader as one of the kids' parents is having this deep discussion about looking deeper into things with them and you just have no clue what he's trying to say....

Awesome:

1. Making new friends (one of the Asians I sounded racist about hehehe)

2. Blogging :D

3. Winning all but one of the five games we've played in our youth group series so far! Go team Lacidar! lol

Hope you enjoyed it!

Doubt

Doubt has a sneaky way of creeping into my life. I'm not exactly sure what starts it, but probably hard times. Like, a change in who I'm around. Problems with people I know. Stress. But he comes in quietly and sneakily with just a quiet whisper in my ear. "How do you  know you believe? How do you know you're saved?" Shameful thoughts, really, and thoughts that should be put out of my mind as quickly as possible! But when they're not immediately pushed away, they bring more and worse thoughts. "How do you know God is real?"

This happened to me just over this past weekend. It was the worst feeling, wondering if I really did doubt God's existence. I prayed my way through it, though, and God gave me a feeling of his realness in my soul. "Yea, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him who loved us." Satan was beat back and I am so happy!

I want to say that, just because you allow a thought into your head like, "How do I know God is real?", it does not mean you have lost faith or were never saved. Satan has a way of quietly slipping ideas into our brain and it is  a war to keep them out. "Taking captive every thought to the obedience of Christ." I need to make that my practice! To not let thoughts contrary to what God and  His Word tell me continue in my brain. I need to push them back immediately. There is a part in "Pilgrim's Progress" which was written by a man named John Bunyan, where Christian (his hero) is going through "The Valley of the Shadow of Death" and a devil slips up beside him in the darkness and whispers doubts and blasphemies in his ear. Bunyan writes "the poor man was so confounded he thought these things did arise from his own heart, for he did not perceive the devil" or words to that effect ;) I don't have the book in front of me. But we need to beware that we do not let Satan's thoughts continue in our brain. We need to be ready "in season and out" to combat, not only people who confront God's word, but also devils.

My thoughts for today! :) Hope they encourage you!

Armed Forces Day

Hey there! Happy Armed Forces day! I found out, that a lot of people don't realize there's even a day that we honour men and women currently enlisted in the armed forces. Which to me, being the patriotic and supportive little soul I am, is quite astounding!

So... Armed Forces Day, is the day we honour people currently serving in the U.S. Military.  Veterans' Day is for honouring veterans (anyone who has fought) and Memorial Day is remembering those who died.

So there's your brief tutorial on military holidays! Don't forget to thank people in your life who are serving, or have a family member who is serving in our military! They deserve our love, our respect, our support, and our unwavering loyalty. Don't forget to pray for them and our Country and their families! There's a saying "The only thing harder than being a soldier, is loving a soldier" Show any military family or member you know some love today. They need it!

Thanks to all our military and their families for what they do for us! God bless you all!

Awkward + Awesome

I love reading these, so I thought I'd start doing them on here! I do have quite a few interesting moments, but for now, we'll limit it to three in each category ;)

Awkward:

Not receiving an answer to a text or facebook message and wondering if the person is mad at you.

Rounding the corner of your house whistling "He wears a blue bonnet" (old English folk song) and realizing state guys are putting up a "Work Zone" sign right there! AHHH

Taking selfies and realizing your face is extremely sunburnt...

Awesome!

Finding a baby deer at the park and picking it up! She was cute!

Going outside to feed my pets on Mother's Day and taking selfies with them and my yearling goat putting his muzzle to my forehead right as I snapped a shot! O.O So cute! He gave me a Mother's Day kiss!

Finding out the person that didn't text you back is not at all mad at you! *whew!*


There you have it! Hope it made you smile! Let me know if you want pictures of my goat and the deer! I love comments!

One of "Those" Weeks

I don't know if you've had one of these weeks before. You're super busy. You're happy. You're doing pretty well in school (except this week *sigh* I haven't been doing much school. But when I have, it's been going well!) And then you finally get a minute to sit down. Bam! Wait.. I was happy a minute ago....

Stress of things that happened.. things that are scheduled to happen.... things you don't know how they're going to happen. That's what makes me have weeks like this! I wrote a song about it... I'm going to be posting it to my Google+ if you're interested. (Not sure exactly when that will happen ... limited internet service around here) Here are the lyrics. It's called, "You Are the One". I wrote it on April 27th, 2015. It is my own personal work. Just putting it out there.

Here I am again,

Aching and hurting.

Here my cry again,

Begging and pleading!

I don't know why,

I feel this way.

But I know!

Chorus:

You are the One, 

My heart longs for.

You are the One,

Who gives me joy!

You are the One,

I run to, 'cause I know that You,

Are always here for me!

Here I am again,

Brought down to my knees.

Here my plea again,

Take this pain from me!

I don't know how, I really feel.

It doesn't really matter 'cause I know!

Chorus

Bridge: 

God I'm running for Your love,

I'll follow only You,

doesn't matter where You lead,

I'll follow only You!

Chorus

So there's a little insight into my lyric writing... my week. I actually wrote this last week, but I'm constantly reminding myself of it this week. God is my joy! He is always here for me and nothing else really, actually factually matters. I can be as stressed as anything, but so long as I have God, it doesn't matter. It's very comforting to be able to go to God with everything and to lean on Him. My prayers have always been personal rather than formal. I think that's how God wants us to come to Him. Remember Jesus said, "Abba" Which is "Daddy" in Hebrew. And we are brothers and sisters to Christ. We have a personal relationship with God the Father, through Jesus! He wants us to be personal! It's beautiful! I cannot imagine my life without Jesus!

Don't forget to lean on Jesus! He loves us more than we love ourselves!

Hey!

First post on this new blog, and I'm totally excited! I want to share with you something that I've been learning lately.

Patience and faith mostly. You know, I was worried for a while about what my life's going to look like in a few years. Will I get married? Will I have a family? Or am I going to be a spinster my whole life? I got impatient to know what the future was. Do you know that I heard at least three times last week (which was really a climax of my being like.. WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?!) that God holds everything for us and gives it to us at the right time. A random cashier at the grocery store. A story on the radio. A small voice inside me while I was praying. I distinctly remember being incredibly surprised that I had heard the same thing so many times! Okay. I got the message. God, you aren't going to tell me right now what I can expect. I need to have faith and know You're planning a perfect future for me.

I may get impatient, but overall I am going to try my best to be patient and wait on God's timing. I may lose faith about His plan, but when I do, I remind myself. God is perfect. He's in control! Why worry when you know God loves you?! It's a great comfort!

There you go! My first post! I'll be trying to post about twice a week! Check out my about page! It has some info on me to help you get to know the writer behind the posts ;)

"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus"

That's what this blog is about! My journey pressing toward the prize! It's going to be crazy. It's going to be awesome! It's going to be sad. It's going to be happy! But it will all ultimately be for God's glory!