Week of October 15th, 2018

The things I want you to know this week. 

1. Life is hard. Just because you see that someone on Facebook or Instagram is battling cancer or has recent lost a parent or loved one, doesn't minimize your daily struggles. We all have our crosses to bare. Perspective is real and it is healthy. We have to try and stay positive and look for the daily blessings in life and constantly turn our hearts to gratitude, but we can still acknowledge that life is hard and we don't know what someone else's life looks like or feels like. We may all be grieving something or someone even if we don't know what that is. Sometimes it's just grieving what we thought we wanted and God thought better for us. Or grieving the life we thought we would have, and circumstances didn't allow that. It's healthy to acknowledge those losses and ideals and try not to get stuck in it. I heard a quote on a Podcast this week. They were talking about life's disappointments and the guy was talking about a really hard season he is walking through and he said "we can handle life's disappointments, but we can't live without hope. Live in the Hope." -Andrew Ripp

2. Don't make your job/career more than just that. A job. It doesn't define you, it doesn't control you, it is merely the means to the end. I admire and value hardworking people who don't ask for handouts or take the easy way out, but there is more to life than how we earn our paycheck. Don't let it consume your life, there is so much more out there and your family and friends don't deserve the bits of energy you have left. 

3. Parenting is hard, yo! I came across this meme recently.

No truer works have been spoken. I have never been more humbled, more challenged by a job and I am not at all qualified for it! These kids test me to the very brink of my being. I'm thankful for them and there are such sweet moments sprinkled amidst the chaos but majority of the time I wonder what in the world I'm doing. I'm not sure about your kids but mine fight like cats and dogs and I feel like I'm about to loose my marbles! I also have one that's super sassy and one that's REALLY hard. Like, hang on to your horse feathers folks, because it's going to be a LONG 13 years!! :)

4. Prayer. I am learning a lot about prayer. How to pray. What to pray for. The expectations I have for prayer. God is really stretching me there. I think my biggest lesson this week is that I'm not praying because God needs me to. I'm praying because I need it. It centers me. It aligns me to Him. It refocuses me. Sometimes I forget that. I feel like He is waiting for my prayer and adoration and requests like He doesn't know all of that. He doesn't need me to boost His ego or define His role in our world. He knows His place. He's waiting for me to come to Him and align my life with Him. I'm so thankful His faithfulness isn't dependant on me. 

5. I've listed to some great podcasts this week and I started and finished a great book "Remember God" by Annie F. Downs. It was all about God's kindness. Is He kind even if our life doesn't look the way we thought it would? We know He's loving and He's just and He's good, but is He kind? I love to listen to the testimony of people wrestling with God. She talks about the story of Jacob and how he wrestled with God and how God dislocated Jacob's hip in the process and how in the end, Jacob received God's blessing that he was seeking, but he forever walked with a limp. She reminded us that many of us have a limp and a blessing. I have chewed on that this week. I encourage you to do the same.