How are you starting off your new spiritual year?

There are many ways that you can start off your year to try and get back on track spiritually or to just start this year on a positive foot. I started mine by listening/watching online sermons and I'm going to be having a few days of silence.

I've thought a lot about how to go about this whole silence-vow thing and I've prayed about it every night and I'm happy to say that I've come to a final decision. I will be starting my silence on Wednesday. I plan to stay silent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This may carry on to Saturday, but I'm not making that choice right now, we'll see what God has to say on Friday about it haha. I decided to stop trying to be so strict on myself with "I will talk to PJ for one hour in the morning and once at night," as I had previously talked about. Instead, I'm just remaining silent. I won't be getting online, I won't be answering my phone unless it seems like something extremely important (like a number I don't know, which could be about a job). I *will* be checking my texts, but I won't be responding to them unless they're an emergency. I *will* be checking my voicemails, but I won't be responding unless it's an emergency. I'll respond to all of them after my silent time, but not during or before.

Now, this is just the way I want to start my year. I don't think this is necessarily what is best for everyone else's spiritual journeys. Other options are out there. One that I really suggest for anyone who is up for it is a Daniel Fast. The diet you eat during a Daniel Fast is very similar to veganism with adding in no sugars and no processed things like white flour and white rice. They typically last for 21 days, though you can do one for any amount of time you feel is being put on your heart. The blogged I linked on the "Daniel Fast" text outlines everything that it entails, and if you have the money and want to I highly suggest her book "The Daniel Fast." I own it, and it's great.

So maybe fasting isn't for you.
There are even more options. You could begin doing devotionals, decide to do a "read the bible in a year" program, start regularly attending a church, etc etc.

And you may choose not to do anything new! It's all about personal choice because faith is an extremely personal thing and no one can tell what is best for your life. But I just find something empowering about starting the new year off doing something to "mark the occasion."

Hope you all are still having a wonderful new year, and a wonderful Sunday!
Off to watch today's live broadcast (in 20 minutes) of the sermon at Champions Centre because I missed church this morning (long story).

Getting Married/Getting Back on Track/Silence

First things first:
Guess who's getting MARRIED?! *jumps up and down* ME ME ME! PJ proposed to me on Christmas!! More to come on that subject, but I have something on my heart I want to share...

Things have been kind of here and there for the past few weeks. I haven't been doing my devotionals, and because of either snow or being out of town I also haven't been at church. The first thing that made me realize I need to get my behind back on track was a couple of weeks or so ago when PJ and I were eating lunch. I don't know what sparked it, but out of nowhere he looked at me and asked, "Have you been doing your devotionals?" I did a kind of timid looking face and admitted that no, I hadn't. "Well...you need to get on that." Since he doesn't do devotionals I wasn't sure why it seemed like such a big deal until I asked why. "Doing them made you happy, and I want you to be happy." He was right, as he almost always is. So that's what I'm starting with as soon as we can get back to the house (we were having electrical issues so we stayed at a friend's house tonight). Back to devotionals and *thank God* back to church. I've missed church, I haven't been skipping it because of wanting to. I've been skipping it because I've not been anywhere I could go. For two Sundays we were snowed into our house, and then we were with his family in Jacksonville and I was just so engrossed in being with family that I didn't go. Plus I found out some unsettling things about the church we attended the last time we were there...but that's not something I need to go into right now.

Anyways so tomorrow it's back to devotionals. I've also been praying about the silence I'm feeling I need in my life. So far my plan is that January 3rd through January 8th I will be taking my silent time. That is from a Monday until a Saturday. Here will be the exceptions to the silence:

1 - I can speak while out job hunting, because I really need to find work.

2 - I can speak with my fiancée for one hour during the morning, and one hour at night, this has a condition of if something is extremely important that needs to be discussed.

3 - I will not be using the internet *or* answering the phone/text messages. The exception is if the number that is calling is one I don't recognize and therefore may be something related to getting a job. I haven't decided yet, but I may allow myself to check voicemails once at night...I'm still praying over that one.

4 - I may or may not also be choosing to not watch any TV/movies, and instead opt to read. I'm leaning towards doing this (no TV), another one I'm praying about.

I think that's about it. I'm still praying about it and will be up until the time it begins. I can't believe I'm doing this, and I've had two people say so far that basically they don't think I'm going to be able to do it. But that's half of the point, doing something that's hard and working my way through it. The other half is learning to enjoy the silence (not always feel a need to fill it), learning to enjoy time without technology, and having time with God.

Whew.

So next post, hopefully tomorrow...if I'm around a computer, will be some more details about my very recent engagement (^_^).

Later folks!!!

Thanking God for picking us back up.

The other night I woke up to the sound of my daughter crying. We're out of town visiting family so we were sleeping in the same bed...so I started looking for her. I quickly realized that the sounds I heard were coming from the floor next to the bed. I reached down and picked her up from where she had fallen onto the floor, held her close and laid her back in the bed. Then I handed her cup back to her and heard, "Thank you," followed by me handing her sock monkey back to her. I was met with another, "Thank you." It made me think a lot the next morning. That situation reminded me of the relationship that we all sometimes have with God. Sometimes, without any warning we find that we have fallen. The good thing is that God is always there to pick us back up and hold us close to him. After that he gives us back the things we were missing...faith and hope. The only problem is that many times we all forget the last part...saying Thank You.

Too many people only seem to give thanks on Thanksgiving Day. Are you one of those people? Take out time today (and every day) to thank God for all the blessings in your life. Spend time thinking in depth about things that may have been blessing in disguise, and even thank him for the hard times and for him helping you with courage to get through them. Every moment is a blessing, even the ones that hurt.

Youth Ministry and Clearing My Head

First things first, I want to share something I haven't really shared with anyone...not even Patrick...at this point.  I had a breakdown over Thanksgiving vacation.  I should have talked to Patrick about it, but I just haven't been in the right mental state to be able to discuss it without getting emotional...I'm not good at being that emotional in front of people.  It's a fault, and I recognize it.  Anyways so him and I were having an argument.  Details in this aren't important and I don't need to air our dirty laundry on the internet.  The point is that I was sleeping in the bed at his parent's house and he was in the living room.  We were both brooding and texting each other.  At that point I'm not even sure what happened, but I broke down crying and just couldn't stop.  I had all these bad thoughts...that I'm going to be a horrible wife, that I'm a bad mother...and they just kept escalating until I was hyperventilating and worrying over things like, "When we have kids, he's going to leave me and take the kids."  Which with my past situation, which some of you are aware of, is a legitimate fear.  I've relayed these fears to Patrick in the past and he's promised me that would never happen.  He's seen the pain that I have from the situation with the kids and he swears he would never do that to me.  But it doesn't change that I have the fear.  All of this continued to get worse and worse until I almost couldn't breathe and out of nowhere came the biggest repenting session I've ever had in my entire life.  I laid there just staring up at the ceiling with tears rolling down my face asking God to forgive me for everything I've ever done against him.  I literally kept crying out (in a 'whisper yell') "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" and it just kept going.  I continued texting Patrick through all of this, not even sure how I had the strength to use my fingers at that point.

Suddenly I felt a weight lifted and I just felt...better.  I continued to pray and just have a little one-on-one time with God until Patrick came in and we made up.  We both apologized for the fight and held each other and moved on.  Life continued on...

...but for once it hasn't continued on in the "same old same old" kind of way.  My mind feels completely transformed.  The night after this we were back in Boone and I was all hopped up on energy drinks from driving home from the beach.  While Patrick slept I laid there with my eyes open praying...no, not praying...talking to God.  I laid there for about two hours just talking.  Venting, laughing, even just telling him how my day went.  I talked to God as if I was literally looking right into his eyes and having a conversation.  I've learned...this is the way that praying works best for me.  I had never really tried praying that way, and not sure why, but it was amazing for me.  Some people do better, as pastor Marianne said, heads bowed and eyes closed.  I'm learning that I'm not one of those people.  I already have realized that God speaks to me through music and now I know that for me, praying works better as just relaxed conversation.  During my talk with God that night I told him how I have so many fears about the whole youth pastor thing.  I told him that I know it's what he wants me to do and that I know I've been putting it on the back burner, but that I'm scared.

It was the very next day that I got on the phone with the assistant pastor, Tracey.  I told her that I wanted to talk to her about youth ministry.  I went in to the church office and began helping her with the food pantry.  I haven't volunteered much in church since The Rock because until this new church I hadn't felt connected to a church on a deeper level.  But volunteering with the food pantry quickly seemed like second nature and the hour and a half I was there went by quickly.  Then I sat down with her.

Very long story short, she put me in touch with Kyle who is the youth minister at Faithbridge.  He has invited me to a lunch on Sunday after church with him and others from the ministry team.  Tracey wants me to spend time working alongside him and learning.  It's a chance to gain experience and follow my calling from God.  I'm so excited, but at the same time so extremely nervous.  I never thought that the day I finally pursued ministry would be the day that it actually started the wheels turning and got the bus moving...but when you're called to something from God it's only inevitable that you're going to end up on that path lol.  Anyways so that means that I now have an extremely full Sunday.  I will be taking a class on spiritual disciplines taught by Tracey before church, then I have church, then the lunch, then at five I was going to go to an event I saw Jonathan Fawcett post about on Facebook that's at Legends.  That is unless I need to go to the youth meeting that night to work with Kyle.  Sadly the love of my life won't be joining me for a lot of this because I had forgotten he has a benefit airsoft game that day.  They're collecting toys for children for Christmas :).  I wish him so much luck with that!!

Hmmm so now onto the "clearing my head."
I realize more and more everyday that I've gotten over my feelings for my ex-husband, and that I'm able to move on with my life but still wish him well in his.  It took me a while to not have feelings for him, but once I was able to get over that I still can admit to having some hatred in my heart.  I didn't love him, but instead I had replaced it with hate.  And hate is always taxing on your emotions, it's never a good thing.  Now though, I've gotten rid of that too.  I knew it for certain when I went to his mother's facebook page.  Yes, I admit it...sometimes I check out the pages of his family.  It's not because I'm hanging onto anything, it's because I care about how their life is going and wish that I had a way to be updated on it.  Sadly I was met with seeing her posts about surgeries.  I immediately felt panicked and worried.  As much as her and I never got along, I never would want her to have to go through anything bad.  I looked back through months of posts and couldn't figure out what was going on so I texted Alex's fiance.  She told me that his mother had her gallbladder removed and now something is "still wrong" but no one has been able to figure out what it is.
I knew after reading that that I am over the hate in my heart for him and anyone in his family...though I never really felt any bad feelings towards his dad or his grandparents.  I have moved on from those ill feelings and I'm happy about it.


Now though, I need some prayers for some things if anyone reads this and wants to jump in.
First, my friend Robbie's grandmother is in the hospital.  She originally went in for fluid on her lungs but now is having issues with her heart.  They're taking her to Charlotte on Monday, so keep her in your thoughts.
And otherwise I want prayers for Sandy Hawkins, that's Alex's mom.  I still don't know all the details, but she is definitely in need of them figuring out what exactly is still going wrong.

Thanks everyone!!!!

It's not my place to judge.

"What the Bible Says About Healthy Living" by Rex Russell
I usually refrain from reading more than one thing at once unless it's a graphic novel, but I forgot the book mentioned in my last post (unChristian) at my house by accident so I grabbed a different one from the car.  I got this book a while ago at the used book store, but hadn't gotten a chance to read it yet.  I haven't gotten far into it yet, but so far it's a great book.  It talks about eating things as close as they come from nature, seasonal, and certain things for certain health issues.  I'm going to give a better analysis of it once I finish it, though that may be a while since I'm very into unChristian right now!

In other news, things have been amazing.  I told Patrick today that I'm okay with us trying to have his ex-girlfriend Lisa as a part of our lives.  Not necessarily as a good friend or anything (though I don't disregard that possibility whatsoever), but I don't mind her being around sometimes.  I thought today about how she seems to be really trying to salvage a friendship with him, and she seems really happy and happy for us.  I told him that the other day when she started texting I had a feeling in my heart that I should invite her to come to church with us, but I didn't say anything to him about it at the time because I was content in my dislike of her.  Then I thought about how I haven't really met her one-on-one and have no reason to pass judgement on her other than the fact that she's his ex makes me uncomfortable.  But having some of my exes as friends means that I was being an absolute hypocrite.  I don't want to be like that.  So at this point I've told him that I'd really like to get to know her some before we all hang out.  I am hoping she'll either call me, text me, or unblock me on Facebook so that we can talk through messaging.  He's going to bring it up to her.  I just think that if she's trying to be his friend, I shouldn't push her out of his life.  At the least she deserves for me to get to know her. So we'll see how this goes.  I especially want to do this because apparently her new boyfriend is a Christian and she told Patrick that she's praying and has been getting close to God and well, I don't want to push away someone who is trying to have God in their lives (not that I'd push away people who weren't lol).

Well honestly for right now that's about it, maybe I'll have more to say tomorrow :)