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Our minds have the ability to dream, create and imagine. They can take us to some really beautiful places, but in the same way, they can take us to some dark places as well.  The first leaves us feeling hopeful, ushers in peace and allows us to feel happiness. The latter, on the other hand, quickly leads us in places of hopelessness, restlessness, and worry. There is so much bliss that can be birthed from this place, but equally it can abandon us to depths in which no one was never meant to be trapped in.

Unfortunately, we have all spent moments, perhaps even seasons in both…I know I have. Over the past years, I have been really trying to be mindful of my mind. You see, a few years ago, I spent a season trapped in anxiety. To be honest, I never intended to share about this on the worldwide web.  In fact, I remember the preliminary discussions about being a part of sharing our lives with all of you on the internet, thinking ‘wow! What an opportunity! I’ll be open with everything, except for this topic.’ Well here I am, and actually, this wasn’t even on my radar to write about for this post, but it brought me here, so (deep breath), here we go!

Life is easy to share when it’s glam and pretty, but we need to learn to live in vulnerability. Seasons like this can sneak in without us even realizing how.  Mine slowly and suddenly crept in. It left me panicky and swirling in every single (scary) what if. I would hear stories about tragedies and then fear that it would happen to me or a loved one. Rather than my empathy being a gift of strength and connection, it was demolished by fear. Furthermore, in the process of it, I felt so much shame being there. Shame has no friends and therefore it left me wanting to hide and isolate myself all the more. Fortunately, my husband wouldn’t let me stay there. He legit had to coach me out of it which took months. The panic that went on in my mind eventually affected my physical health which landed me in the ER one night with heart palpitations. After battling with this thing for 7 months, I was set free in an instant by a prayer of freedom and healing…PRAISE GOD!

I understand that it is not everyone’s story, although I do believe that freedom is God’s heart for us. Moreover, just because I have been (miraculously) set free from it, it’s still my intentional choice to stay in that place…which leads me back to being mindful of my mind.  For some reason, especially as women, it’s a twisted tendency to find comfort in worrying. Sometimes it’s easy to keep something in the back of our minds to worry about. It’s almost as though we’re meditating on it. The reality is, it’s not our friend. It does not bring comfort and we are not designed like that.

Releasing the shame I felt was a huge breakthrough for me. It led me to share and open up about where I was and allowed light to shine on my dark places.

I only opened up to 3 dear friends about it. One told me to call her anytime I felt overwhelmed by it all. I’d cry to her every time before even getting a word out. She would kindly yet firmly speak truth to me reminding me who I am. I am not the anxiety or fear that I felt.

Next, my husband would tell me the same truths over and over and over again. It was as though each time he was helping me rewire my mind. Almost daily he’d say “If it’s not from God, it doesn’t belong there. When you feel those thoughts come in, take them captive in Christ Jesus. Say NO to them.” It sounded so elementary to me that it frustrated me that I wasn’t good at choosing it. Instead, I’d let the thoughts travel down rabbit trails in my brain and consume me, but each time I said and now, still say NO, sometimes even audibly, it leads/keeps me in freedom.

When opening up to another friend, she shared her season of anxiety with me…I cried thinking none of my friends would ever understand. She did. And she shared, “If my story can be an encouragement to even just one person then having walked through it all was so worth it.” I was that one person. That echoed word often echoes in my mind. There are people who need to hear your story. In doing so it’ll help them become free and you even freer.

Through it all I’ve learned to say ‘no’ when I feel anxiety or fear come in. If my thoughts and imagination try to take me to dark places or swirl around me like an annoying fly with their what-ifs I tell them “NO, you are not my friend.” It may sound ridiculous, but it’s true and totally works for me.  If I still need reinforcements I’ll speak my verse of truth over myself… Psalm 121:5-8

 

The LORD himself watches over you!

The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.

The sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon at night.

The LORD keeps you from all harm

and watches over your life.

The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go,

both now and forever.

 

How can you be more mindful of your mind? Is your mind in a place of being renewed? Evaluate how you’re feeling: do you feel hopeful and at peace or are you restless and in a place of worry?  Examine what you let in that influences your thoughts- TV, music, movies, books, social media, etc. Do you need to make any adjustments here? Choose to partner with the Lord. Let him be the gatekeeper as you become more mindful of your mind. Wherever you are on your journey, know you’re not alone. Know there is freedom to be found in vulnerability. Yes, it seems scary, but find someone who you can trust. Your vulnerability will shine a bright light on the darkness and it will have to go. Finally, your journey of being set free is the key to someone else’s freedom.

Feel good. Look good. Do good.

Several weeks ago, I ran past this catchy slogan on the Happy Givers website, an online clothing store where you can “change the world one purchase at a time”.

As I scrolled through their website, I came upon the “Kindness is the Revolution” Collection. Those four words grabbed my attention and I knew I wanted to support their work.

After making my purchase, I thought more about this concept. Can kindness really be the revolution? And how closely is it related to their website’s slogan?

Feel good. – Have you ever heard the phrase, “Hurt people… hurt people”? Often times, what comes out of us is reflective of what is going on inside of us. If you encounter a person who is rude, unkind or mean, more than likely, they are feeling/thinking some unkind, mean, rude things about themselves. I’ve grown a lot in how I handle when someone is unkind to me or mistreats me. I realize it says a lot more about them than it does me. For “out of the mouth so the heart speaks”.

Look good. – We all want to look good and present ourselves in the best light. Be it in what we wear, how we accessorize, apply makeup, or experiment with different hairstyles. But what we put on our bodies is not the only thing we wear. We also wear our emotions. We can wear our thoughts and judgments through the expressions on our face and acceptance (or lack thereof) in our eyes. I’ve always been told that I cannot hide how I feel. If you and I are in a good place, then you definitely know it, and if we’re not, well, you know that too.

Do Good. – I am a big supporter of personal health and wholeness. I believe in practicing mindfulness, going to therapy, journaling; just about anything that allows you to process your thoughts and feelings in a healthy way.

There’s a reason why airline stewards tell you in a time of emergency, to first put your facemask on and then help others. We are best equipped to help others, when we first do the work within.

How kind are your thoughts about yourself?  This can affect how kind your thoughts are about others. And how much in your daily life would you say that you feel good, look good, and do good? Are there any areas that can be improved upon?

Lately, my heart has been hurting from the unkindness I see on the news and in social media. It doesn’t seem like we listen to each other, or at least not in an effective way. It seems there are very few people who are open to real discussions. In Proverbs, it says, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his (her) opinion.”  I don’t know about you, but my momma didn’t raise no fool! 😉

Passionate discourse is a beautiful thing. Kindness is even more beautiful. 

While I may have strong viewpoints on certain issues, I also have love. I know the truth can only be shared and planted in love.  We all can passionately disagree on hotly debated topics, but we cannot expect real change to happen in the hearts of others (or ourselves) if we do not first operate in love.

When in a discussion, ask yourself, do I expect other people to listen to me but not offer the same courtesy?  Can I really say I respond out of love to them? Or am I responding out of hurt, anger, frustration, judgment, etc? All of these feelings are valid when discussing important issues, but are they helpful?

What is your end goal? To argue with someone? Or do you desire for something good, some real change to transpire? If that is your goal, then it can only happen rooted in love. And Kindness is an extension of love.

The bible has one of the best one-liners when engaging in a healthy debate:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. -Prov. 31:26

So yes, kindness is the revolution! And I believe the foundation lies in how we think and feel about ourselves. And from there it is how we look, how we present ourselves to others. Am I wearing a smile today or a frown? Then, through all of this, we are able to do good. To be kind to one another. To treat others as we would want to be treated. And to extend the same grace that has been freely bestowed upon us.

Who’s ready to start a revolution? 🙂

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. ~Aesop

“How are you still single, you are amazing?” I hear it more often than I would like (though it’s truly flattering). I really am over this season.  But what I want to focus on is “this season.” You see, it’s not easy being 36 and single, seeing all your friends in the place you desire to be, attending parties and holidays solo, etc.  But it is a season and it ABSOLUTELY serves a purpose, so I ask, will I be committed to seeking that out? YES!

For so long I wasn’t even dating and I  truly thought it was not my choice. I thought I just wasn’t meeting anyone worth dating. I wasn’t intentionally not dating (or so I thought), but when I sat down and looked at the big picture, it was absolutely my choice. I didn’t realize it, but I was waiting for this “perfect man” to walk across my path. I simply thought, “God, why aren’t you bringing him to me? I am being faithful in creating a business, working hard on myself, staying pure, and building something….surely you can just insert a man into the equation if you want….so obviously you don’t want to.”

Well, I was wrong. You see, I have learned more about myself and what I am looking for in this short dating season of my recent life than I have the past 10 years while waiting for this man I created in my mind. I get it — make a list, declare it, create it and manifest this man. Well yes, but there is another part. Do I do all of that? ABSOLUTELY and I do think it is important. But I also believe there is another part of the equation. THAT IS ACTION ON MY PART and a willingness to risk a little….be vulnerable!  Crazy thought, I know.

I honestly had no idea what to do, but the one thing I knew was that in order to get a different result, I had to do something different. So, I broke my mold and my ideals (never leaving my foundational convictions), but allowing life to happen. I have been on 7 dates in the past couple months and my mind is blown. I am learning more about who I am, how I operate, my walls and blocks that come up, what triggers them, what parts of my past are blocking my future, what I like in a man, what I don’t like, how I can honor a man and respect his masculinity, how to walk in my true femininity,  and more. And though I have not met “my person” or arrived somewhere specific, I know without a shadow of a doubt I am closer to him and the only reason is because I got into action. It really is no different than how I would advise my clients to step into their dreams. Action on their part is ESSENTIAL, so why was I not doing that in my BIGGEST DREAM of all?!?!?!

So that is where I am at. I am in “a season” that one day will end and I will begin yet another season of life that will bring its joys and growing pains. But one thing I can take with me into those future seasons is my part of the equation, how I can immerse myself in the depths of it and squeeze every ounce of wisdom, pain, growth, and truth out of it because I know God has a plan and He gives good gifts. However, I must remember in order to receive those good gifts, it takes me extending my hand and heart in a posture ready to receive, and ready to take some risk along the way. I know I am not the only one in this space, so all I can say is hold fast, don’t settle, but be settled in this season and explore at it has to give!

 

“Dogs are minor angels, and I don’t mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it’s “only” a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day– we’re just so used to them that we pay no attention.

-John Carroll

“Pets are the unrivaled masters of giving back. The pleasure they take in giving themselves back to us is perhaps their greatest lesson. Like our animals, we are wired to connect. To reach out, to love. But unlike them, with us other things get in the way— jealousy, insecurity, irritation, anger. Pets help us constantly come back to what makes us human. They’re a furry version of our best selves.” 

-Ariana Huffington

All my life I thought clarity would come from sitting in silence, reading, thinking harder, and obtaining more knowledge. Though these are all very important aspects of growth, I believe the key component of clarity comes through engagement. When I say clarity comes through engagement, I mean the dream inside of us begins to come ALIVE when we get our hands dirty and engage in life.

Since forever I knew I wanted to work with women on a deeper level— get past superficial blocks and help them become who they were meant to be. But that’s where it ended. I could not get clarity on how to do it, what it would look like, or the areas of life I would work with them. That is, not until I ENGAGED IN THE PROCESS.

So, I stepped out, hired a coach, starting literally connecting with women and engaging in purposeful conversation and activity NOT HAVING ANY CLUE WHERE IT WAS GOING TO GO.  The crazy thing is, if you have a personality type anything like mine, you know this is freakin’ HUGE. For most of my life, I held the opinion that I had to make EVERYTHING perfect (or as close as I possibly could), had to be STRONG, and had to keep everything under CONTROL before I could move forward with it…whatever it was.

Well, you can probably guess how far that took me. Not very far! I had great ideas that were all ALMOST READY, but nothing was ever HAPPENING. So I decided to try something new. I hired a coach (which I thought was going to give me the perfectly laid out blueprint to get where I was going). This is where the story began to look different from before.

First,  my Coach did not give me the perfect blueprint I was expecting. Rather she GUIDED ME to the blueprint that was already inside of me  (sounds cheesy, I know…bear with me). As she guided me through barriers and challenged me to do things I had never done before (in order to get results I had never gotten), I actually started getting really clear on my vision and goals. I was able to make decisions easier, grab onto wisdom easier, and take actual steps towards action.  Now, let me tell you, THE PROCESS HAS NOT BEEN EASIER, but the ENGAGEMENT GOT EASIER, resulting in continued CLARITY. My coaches have helped me to engage in the process through their expertise and experience. I can now literally say without a shadow of a doubt that CLARITY COMES FROM ENGAGEMENT, NOT THOUGHT.

It’s almost like I am a faucet and God is the water. I am the container that God’s creativity and clarity runs through, but it will never come out unless I actively engage in turning the faucet on, even if I don’t know what will come out. It has taken me to a place of releasing what LIFE IS SUPPOSED to look like and allowed me to just be in what LIFE IS.

It’s a beautiful process and if I could leave you with one thing, it would be this. You know when a facet that has been turned off for a while (I mean pipes turned off), and then it’s turned back on…the water spurts and sprays out, and gets a little messy, right?  And then it eventually flows in a clear stream doing what it needs to do? Well, allow that process in your life. Step out, fail forward, and trust that you were created for a purpose.  Allow the facet to be turned on and be ok with it spouting and spraying out at first. The flow will come. Don’t get caught up in the why of it, but get caught up in the process of it…it’s good, so good!

 

By the time this blog is posted, I will be celebrating my 33rd birthday, south of Dublin, in a little seaside village with some great friends. I’m really looking forward to it! Partly because I love the way the Irish say “Turty-tree”, and partly because it means I am well into my thirties and that is exciting. I’ve made it another year —another year older, another year wiser!

I remember being a teenager and thinking that I knew it all… didn’t we all! If I knew half of what I thought I knew when I was a teenager I would be the smartest human alive*. The teen years are an odd time —a mix of over confidence and a dash of self-doubt, toss in a bit of awkwardness, some fickle hormones, and don’t forget the unrealistic pressure to know what you want out of life before you’ve actually lived it. I am happy to have survived my teen years with as little damage as I did. 

Then came the twenties —a time of figuring out who you are and more importantly who you are not. Somewhere along the way of growing up we put on a lot things that aren’t actually us. It might be societal pressures to look or act a certain way, expectations from parents when it comes to career, religion, education, or relationships, or maybe it is just a self-preservation idea that we have attached to our identity. Regardless of the origins, I think most 20 somethings walk around with layers and layers of not themselves clothing. 

I feel like I spent my twenties taking off those layers to uncover who I really was — who God created me to be, the inner me with all my unique and beautiful characteristics. I took off layer after layer…  the coat of I need to be more outgoing in order to be taken seriously, the sweater of a good Christian girl acts and looks like XYZ, the socks of I will never be as pretty as the friend that had all the boyfriends in high school, the boots of my dreams are selfish and not realistic, the scarf of no one wants to listen to what I have to say… and so many more. Some layers were taken off in the blink of an eye when I replaced a lie with truth, and other layers were like peeling your skin off a leather seat in the heat of summer, slow and painful. But each layer was worth it. 

I was able to enter my thirties a lot lighter and more confident in who I am, but a little wobbly when it came to walking out life. After years of extra layers and restrictive clothes, it takes some time to get used to walking in freedom and true identity. As I celebrate another birthday, I feel like I am getting steadier in my walk each day. I know who I am and I know what it looks like to be fully me. There are still days when I put on some old ‘clothes’ out of insecurity, doubt, habit, or self-preservation, but I am getting quicker at stripping back down to the real me. 

What clothes are you wearing that aren’t really you? What things are restricting you, holding you back, weighing you down?

Whether you are in your teens, 20s, 30s, or an age older and wiser, it is never too early or too late to strip down to the real you, the one God made you to be. Strip down to the glorious and beautiful human that God created. Trust me, it feels really good. 

Cheers to 33 and another year of walking out who I am!

*That line is from my mom 🙂 She is a smart one. 

Current location: Dublin region, Ireland

Beverage of choice: 8 oz Flat white

 

It has currently been 6 months of living out of my black American Tourists bag, luging around too many books and layers for all weather conditions. It has also been a time in my life when I have been able to hug numerous friends and family, meet the new babies, dream again and attempt to slow down to discern what is next on the horizon. It’s transition. The unknown. It’s uncomfortable but it’s worth discovering the raw definition of NEW beginnings.

When you are in transition, you are asked the same questions over and over, as we all know so well. Some days I feel I am content with responding to the “What are you doing in life?” question with a simple…”I don’t know, but I’m learning to trust God deeper!”. On other days there is a small panic followed by a lack of enthusiasm as I try to fill in the blank to suppress my own unknowing.  It is these moments that help me to observe what is really happening deep within.

We are constantly changing and seeking things that are true or things that are counterfeit. Some of us change depending on our diets, how much we want transformation, what we read, what we listen to, what we watch, how we rest, what we are running from and/or towards. We are constantly changing whether for good or not so good and new ways of thinking are always possible.

I am finding that sometimes my speech and the speech of those I journey with don’t always reflect or mirror the change or NEW happening within. Maybe we haven’t stopped to realize the change and we respond in auto-pilot. Or maybe we keep playing old tapes, old speeches to the same questions when really something new is happening.

Is there a person you have known for some time and you almost know how they are going to answer certain questions or what song they are about to start singing because someone said that one word. It could be a family member, a best friend or a spouse. Are there times you hear them sell themselves short or answer a question in a way that doesn’t truly reflect who they are today? Maybe they shorten the response based on some sort of fear, or they hit an automated response that does the job but doesn’t do justice to who they are or who they are becoming.

And how about you? What questions do you keep answering on repeat about who you are or where you are in life that don’t align with the new that has been developing in you?

It may not seem like a big deal, but the danger is if we keep responding from places of old we are keeping the old patterns alive. If we stop, pause, and realize the wild beauty that is growing within and be honest with where we are in life…I believe we make room for the NEW to take root. We will respond with honesty and leave space for our communication to change as we speak with hope instead of blocking the transition from transforming us.

It’s a good thing to clear out the archives of our old responses and truly speak from the heart.  And sometimes that sounds like “I don’t know, but I am trusting God deeper” and sometimes it sounds like new vision, or confidence in yourself, or being real about your pain. It is in that place, where you can heal, grow, and clear the table to make room for the NEW. It’s time for new words and new responses. Who you are becoming is worth it!

If you would have told me 15 years ago that I would be running a creative business from my home, I would have stared back at you in utter disbelief. You see I was that kid who avoided art class, who hated the messiness of art and preferred to stay in what felt like more tangible, controllable arenas. I simply wanted no part in the creative realm. And deeper still, I felt as if I had no business being there. A chasm between the artist and the rest of the world existed. Creativity was in a very confined box, only to be opened by the chosen few.

Over the years, season by season, layer upon layer, I have come to understand that as Elizabeth Gilbert says, “In creativity, no one is left out of the inheritance.” Every single individual is unique and possesses a creativity all their own that longs to be unleashed to the world. There is no one that wholly possesses your thoughts, emotions, experiences, or ideas and therefore only you can be an agent of your unique creativity.   But like anything of value and beauty in this world, lies came against creativity and taint its original intention. I have seen in the lives of others, as well as in my own experience, that shame and fear are the biggest liars and most corruptive to our creative nature.

It is amazing how simple off-handed comments or experiences growing up introduced shame into my creative nature. I remember a seemingly small moment in my education where I worked and worked at cursive writing. I just couldn’t get it right. I would erase through paper upon paper trying to form the letters perfectly, and I remember my 8-year-old self declare, “I will never get this. Can’t the teacher just accept that I am not creative?!” I have no idea why those words came out at such a young age, related to such a small task.  But the roots took hold right there and continued to spread as I declared over myself again and again: I am not creative. I just stopped trying. A fear of failure sank into my identity that clouded many seasons and stunted many opportunities.

And then, around the age of 25, I had a teacher challenge my misconstrued idea of creativity. He was so passionately convinced that creativity is an inherit gift to humanity, a mark of being an image bearer of God that he yelled at us, “Stop killing yourself. Stop stripping yourself of creativity or you strip yourself of the image of God.” Those words shook my core and invited me on a path to discover my own creativity. God slowly began to untangle the lies, to unravel my attempts to quantify and limit my creativity and contain it within the realm of the artist.

And now here I am a maker, producing a product others conceive to be art. It still absolutely baffles me. But here is what I have discovered. Creativity has nothing to do with what it produces and everything to do with the transformative process. God has used my pursuit of creativity to transform so many parts of my heart, my character, and my experiences. I was listening to a podcast called “Cultivating Creativity” by Melissa Helser the other day and she said, “Creativity is your birthright. Remove the pressure. The point of creativity is to bring you joy and produce good fruit.”

Pressing into a creative business the last few years has been fraught with difficult, transformative moments. It has confronted a deep fear of failure, the paralyzing kind that shuts down your soul. I have grappled with this idea that I am a fraud if I don’t produce something wholly “original” which feels next to impossible in a social media saturated world. I have waded in the deep waters of comparison and come to discover there is enough room in this world for everyone’s ideas and products.  We each have our unique beauty to birth into the world and better to cheer one another on than to plague ourselves with judgment and competition. I discovered creativity is not disconnected from hard work. Ideas don’t simply come to us in some mystical way that requires little of our own agency to bring it forth. Creativity is a practice, a decision to notice the smaller moments curiosity invites you to experience and shake off fear of the unknown. It can be tedious and hard, but I have seen that if I press through the monotony, inspiration comes and those efforts transform how I bear the image of God. The difficult seasons sometimes produce the best harvest in our souls.

In the hard moments of the business, I ask myself why I am doing this, pursuing something that seems to steal so much of my time and produces so little. But again, I try to quantify what I produce and fail to notice the unseen. Elizabeth Gilbert in her podcast with Krista Tippet says, “Your life is the work of art, not what you produce.” God keeps asking me to stay in the deep end of this small business, where I am growing stronger and cultivating a discipline of staying in the crucible even when I don’t see the purpose. I stay on the path, not because I understand where it is going to take me but because I know I will be transformed with each step I take. I have learned to give myself grace that just being in motion on the path is a big deal. It is not in what I produce or how I perceive my creativity, but that I continue to show up and move forward.

So where are you killing your creativity? What lies are crippling the way you were meant to put your unique imprint on the world? The beauty of who you are isn’t in what you produce. The beauty is already there, waiting to be cultivated and revealed. To break free from the grasp of our fear and shame. Step on the path and simply start moving forward.

I desired to be married for years, but did my best to wait patiently to meet the right person.  Many referred to me as ‘too picky’ and often said that I ‘had too high of expectations’ for the right person. Well, I am so glad I didn’t settle or lower my standards. I waited and prayed and waited some more. I processed through many days of singleness with the Lord. As I waited, I found one verse that I put my faith in… Psalm 27:13-14, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” And I am so glad I did not accept the comments of others as truth because at the ripe age of 29, I (finally) met the love of my life who actually EXCEEDED those ‘high expectations.’  And it is a love story for the books…

Now, we are just 4 years into being newlyweds and one of our favorite traditions is celebrating our anniversary. Each year we go on a little getaway to spend time together. Although there is a yearly picture we take and share of us wearing our wedding attire while eating a cake saturated in rainbow sprinkles, we often do not share much more about our traditions. We take time to dance to our song (Crazy by Hunter Hayes, if you were wondering 😉 ), smile, and catch each other smitten. It really is one of the happiest days of the year!

The thing that we haven’t shared all that much is my favorite tradition of all. It brings us to a deep place of reflection, remembrance and vision casting for the year ahead. We have this huge roll of kraft paper that each year we unravel to add to.  We look back at our memories from year one until the next. Our lists aren’t so much like a diary, yet we do include special or ridiculous things that happened. We start by reflecting upon the previous years’ dreams, hopes and desires and give any updates on them. Then we make a ‘God-did list.’ This is a list of how God provided for us that year, how we experienced his goodness in the good times, and the challenging ones, then finally, we dream together.  We write little and big things that we want to work towards and pray for as both individuals and as a couple. We close it out by praying over our dreams and goals for the next year and finally, we take communion together.

To be honest, that’s probably why I haven’t shared it, because I feel like the entire day is so so sacred to us. There is so much to be found in remembering where we have come from and in dreaming about the future. On this day, we don’t just remember our togetherness, but we also remember where we were in the waiting.  These are days that used to be a far-away dream that we are now living.

I hope someday when we are old and gray we can unravel it all and reminisce about our memories in a way that it shines a light on God’s goodness and faithfulness.  I hope that we can share it with our children and perhaps even pass our traditions down to them or include them in it one day.

It’s easy each day to find a place for thankfulness, and there is such value in that, but when do we actually take time to remember and to reflect on a year to year basis? Each year when we celebrate, I tear up and feel all the more humble than the year before. God’s kindness is overwhelming, despite what challenges may face us.  Every bit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control come from the Lord.  Without his existence, NONE of these exist. Take a moment to read that again. Imagine a city without any of those things. It’s unimaginable, right? Now imagine a place where only those things exist. I’m pretty sure when we imagine that place, we have discovered the heart of God.

I want to encourage you, regardless of if you are single or married, to take time to reflect.  Remember the places from which he has brought you out. Remember how you’ve felt his heart (through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control). Remember what the Lord has done for you. Create a ‘God did list’ that you can pass down to future generations and reflect upon in the hard times.  Take time to write down the desires of your heart and to DREAM. Finally, remain confident that no matter what you are longing for, YOU WILL SEE THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING. That, my friends, is a promise you can hang your hopes on.

Hello Beautiful Ladies! OK, so let’s jump straight in… if I’m going to write about vulnerability and transparency, no time like the present, right?   

So, I use to view vulnerability as a weakness. I couldn’t show you the depths of me because I had to keep it all together. I prided myself in being a constant, steady, non-emotional, strong woman. To me, vulnerability was weak, emotional, chaotic, and needy.  Transparency was strong, powerful, in control and deep. Transparency was just enough rawness that still allowed me to appear real, but put together. Oh wow, how I was fooled.   

I have since learned that vulnerability and transparency are both powerful in their own ways, but they are not to be confused with the same. I have learned that how I was using transparency was simply a form of control. The ironic part was, I was using transparency to cover up my insecurities. I was able to control the outcome (or so I thought) of what others thought of me, how they perceived me, and the strength I possessed. I built walls to protect myself from rejection, fear, and hurt.  (And in the spirit of vulnerability, I have to say, I never had some crazy life experience that set these into motion….it simply was life.)

Brene Brown said, “Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when you are terrified of what people might see or think.”  The funny thing is, I always thought of myself as a person who didn’t care what others thought. In reality, I was worried they might think I am not smart enough, skinny enough, fit enough,….simply not enough.  In order for them not to think that, I made sure I appeared strong in every area I could.

Fast forward to today.  I AM DONE! The weight of carrying that became unbearable, unmanageable and unrealistic….it was literally crushing me. I decided to just be me.  What a concept, RIGHT?!?!! Ok, but let’s be real, I didn’t just decide that one day and the next day life was all peaches and cream. It took some tools, experiences, breakdowns, cries, yells, laughs, coaches, mentors, friends, and Jesus.  It took time and it still is taking time, but the “meat” of the work is done. Now I get to walk it out.

I could go on for days about the process (and if you would like to chat to hear it, I would be more than happy to connect with you.  It truly is worth its weight in gold!), but the point of me sharing this is for anyone that feels exhausted in life. Do you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, are you not getting where you want to and working so hard?  This is for you. I say this…stand with hands open, trust you were made perfectly (not perfect as in you need to keep it all together), but perfectly, as in just the way this world needs you to show up.

I’ll leave you with another quote from the amazing Brene Brown. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness.” If your relationships, business, and physical being are not thriving and connecting, that might be a sign to allow some vulnerability to show up.  It might be telling you that you deserve to feel worthy and that worthiness is available for you!!! You got this beautiful, be strengthened in vulnerability. You are worth every ounce of it!