Taking Faithful Steps

      Have you ever used the words "lost cause" or "beyond hope"? I can say that I absolutely have, more than once, about more than one situation.     There would be people or circumstances that I would be praying about over and over again, sometimes for years. And, when I didn't see results, I would just chalk it up to "They'll never change", or "this is a lost cause", or "I've given up hope on them."  It was frustrating and disheartening because sometimes it made me feel like God wasn't listening. I wondered why my prayers were not being answered, especially because they were prayers for good things. It wasn't like I was sitting there going "Please God let me win the lottery," I'm talking, "Please God let that person find a job so they can support their kids", or "Lord please change that emotionally abusive person's heart and how they treat their family" kind of prayers. So, wh...

      We moved in to our home in April of this year. There were points that we would look at each other and say, "Does it feel like home yet?" My daughter said for a while tat she felt like a guest in someone else's house- we shouldn't touch certain things, or was worried about sitting on the furniture. See, the guy who owned the house previously sold us a bunch of furniture that he left in it. He said he didn't want to  pay to put it in storage, so it worked out pretty well for us.      We were displaced for about four months after the fire. We stayed in a rental property for a few days, then we were able to stay in a three bedroom home that someone allowed us to stay in. That house was fully furnished, so I understood what she meant by feeling like a guest. I kind of felt like that too, at first. Plus, we were all still processing the trauma, so I'm sure we were also kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.     During our time in the tem...

     Why am I the only one who empties this dishwasher? Did anyone even notice that the kitchen was clean? Are they seriously  walking through here with mud on their shoes after I just mopped this floor? Wow, thanks for telling me we're out of eggs!     I can not possibly be the only person who has these thoughts. I love my family more than anything- they truly are the reason I breathe. But sometimes they also frustrate the tar out of me.     I know it isn't very liberating, but I think that I would have made a great 1950s housewife. Not because I have some deep seeded desire to be supported, but I genuinely enjoy things like cooking and cleaning and baking. Cleaning is instant gratification for me- first there's a mess, then there's not. There's something very satisfying to me about being able to walk in to a room that is utter chaos and walk out with it being neat and organized. I love cooking and baking, I don't mind grocery shopping, and I lov...

      I've struggled with body image most of my life. i always felt like I was lesser than most of the girls I encountered. I didn't dress cool enough or trendy enough, I wasn't pretty enough or curvy enough. It seems like I was always reminded of all of the ways I fell short.     My parents were good about encouraging me. They never put me down and gave me the standard mom and dad "You're beautiful just the way you are. Let's be honest though, when you're a teenage girl in high school, that doesn't always help a lot.. I mean, they're your parents, they're supposed to say that, right?     It got a little bit better as I got older, but it probably took me until I was in my early 40s to really feel comfortable and confident in my own skin. I was in the best shape of my life and I felt really good about myself. I liked the way I looked in my clothes and I just felt healthy.     After about 4 years worth of traumatic events, I found out that I wa...

      When God told me that he was taking me in to a season of intentional, there were already some things that I was being pretty intentional about, particularly my health. i was also reading the book "Breaking Free From Body Shame" by Jess Connolly ( a must read, by the way), so I felt like things lined up pretty perfectly.     I started praying to God about other areas in my life I knew that I needed to be intentional about. I also thought about the concept of being intentional. It means that we make choices that line up with a particular way of life, and sometimes a particular goal. Summer, aka "bathing suit season", a wedding, a vacation, a number on a scale. Sometimes we are intentional to reach a goal, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's important to have goals and to work to achieve them.     I started thinking about myself and just thought, "OK, what happens when that goal passes?" When summer is over, the wedding is over, the pictures ...