Author: jrsoltez

Still Standing. I know, I know, I get Elton John stuck in my head every time I see my blog's name, but no, that's not where I got it from. That was just a happy coincidence! :) Still Standing seemed to fit the theme of my life the best. After all the times life has knocked me down, I have always gotten back up and in the end, I'm still standing!💚🙌 I'm a simple gal who wants to share her life experiences and faith with others, in hopes that it'll have some type of a positive impact on each person. Feel free to browse, read and comment! Thank you to every one who has decided to follow and even visit my page! Everyone is welcome 💚😊

Lordship In Our Life: The Bottom Line

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The Stability of Lordship

In Luke 6:46-47 Jesus is addressing the attitude of our hearts towards Him. It was as if He was surprised and disappointed at the opinions some had about following Him. So many of us are quick to say what we think should be said, yet we don’t live the words we speak. In other words, we talk the talk but most of us don’t walk the walk. God wants us to not just tell Him that He is number one in our lives, He wants us to show Him that He is number one in our lives and that is true Lordship!

We are kind of given a biblical blueprint on how to have a relationship with God.

Salvation- when we come to Him. He makes us brand new and gives us this second chance at living the life we were called to live.

Discipleship- when we listen to Him. When we truly listen to Him, we learn from Him and we grow in our faith and maturity as believers and we become better followers.

Obedience- when we follow Him. True obedience is Lordship. Through true obedience we are continually learning. We are prioritizing God and making Him Lord of our life! We are acknowledging that He is not just our Savior; He’s more than just forgiveness! True obedience and Lordship is often forgotten because we accept God as our Savior yet that’s where our faith ends; we forget to live out our faith and follow His word and put it to practice in our daily lives.

Luke 6:47-48 gives us insight to a healthy relationship.

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Foundation.

Foundation offers long-term stability. When we have a house built, we are adamant about taking time on building a firm and solid foundation; we want time and care put into it. Why then do we not offer the same time and care to the foundation that our lives are built upon? We need to dig deep, prepare the soil of our hearts and remove all of the unnecessary junk! We alone are responsible for the foundation we lay; not our spouse or friends or family! The foundation we lay should provide us stability and we can build our life on Him! Our marriages, friendships, businesses, they should all be built upon God. When we build our lives upon Him, we can endure all the storms of life. Lordship is the foundation that holds it all together. If He is not holding your life together, it will most assuredly unravel at some point. Most of us Christians become overwhelmed over the storms of life and it boils down to our unstable foundation. We can never experience the extent of all things without the right foundation in our life.

The next passage can be a bit uncomfortable for most of us. It is parallel to Luke 6 that I referred to earlier.

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The reality of Lordship is in Matthew 7:21-23 (above). Not everyone who calls out Lord Lord will be saved. As I stated before, it’s more than just the words we use, its our actions. Whoever DOES the will of God…not whoever repeats the will of God to others. We have to live out what we believe and ask God to guide us where He wants us to go and do what He wants us to do. Lordship is more than just attending church, taking notes and singing a few songs…it’s what we are doing with our lives when we leave. What are we doing the other 6 days of the week?

What is the message we are given in Matthew 7? Lordship has nothing to do with perfection; we will never be perfect! It is giving effort and sincerity and willingness to do His will in our lives. Saying the right things does not guarantee Heaven. Doing good works does not guarantee Heaven. Heartfelt obedience is what guarantees us Heaven! That should make us all stop and think of our life’s foundation. True Lordship is not doing what we want when we want to, it’s doing what God is calling us to do when He calls us to do it.

Here are the choices we have:

Selective Obedience- when we obey only when it is convenient for us and fits our schedules; doesn’t put much demand on us.

Situational Obedience- when we obey when the situation is right; it depends on who we are with or where we are at. It should never matter who you are with or where you are at, we should always be obedient.

Steady Obedience- when our obedience is consistent.

It’s not about “maybe later Lord” or “someone else please Lord” it’s about “Yes Lord!” When our lives are built on Jesus, we do our best to follow scriptures! When storms come, we can stand up to anything and everything because God is our foundation and we know we can do ALL things through Christ!

Lordship is the bottom line. Everything else in life doesn’t become easy, but it becomes easier! We will realize we are not alone and we are not just going through the motions! We must know that we know that we know! Every thing in our lives belongs to Him and once we understand Lordship and accept it and live it, all else will fall into place.

What is your foundation built upon? Is it solid or will it start to crumble at the first sign of a storm? I speak to myself as well because we may think our foundation is rather solid, but if it was truly solid and built upon God, why then will we become overwhelmed by life’s storms? Why will we become fearful? If our foundation is truly what it should be, then we should have confidence that those storms may rage but they’ll never reach us. Those storms may cause us some headaches, but we will survive them! It’s not unlike the story we have all heard of the 3 Little Pigs. One built his house of straw and one built his house of sticks; neither wanted to invest much time in their foundations or building because it was inconvenient for them. They wanted more time for themselves to do what they wanted to do. They even laughed at and made fun of the third pig for taking so much time in building his house. We know the third pig built his house of bricks. He put time, thought and effort into building a strong and solid house; he looked ahead and prepared himself for trouble he knew would come. Many of us Christians are mocked and laughed at for investing our time in God and our faith. We are often criticised for wasting our time and life living by scriptures and the word of God and preparing for what we know is inevitable. I assure you though, there will come a time when those who have scoffed at us will be like those first two pigs; they will see their homes/lives crumble before them and run to us for safety. They will say “We’re sorry, you were right all along! Please help us!” Let’s just pray they come to this realization before it’s too late! Let’s pray that we live what we preach and model an example they need to see! Let’s pray that we all exhibit true Lordship in our lives and show others what life is like when we build our foundations on Him!

Much Love and God Bless ❤

Lordship In Our Life: Part 2

I believe, by now, you all understand where my messages are coming from and there is no need to keep reiterating! I’ll just dive right in!

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ALL things were created through Him and for Him! Not a few things, not certain things, but ALL things. As I blogged in my last entry, Lordship is giving God the place He deserves in our lives; 1st place. God should take 1st place in EVERYTHING in our lives…everything meaning ALL! God is the one who holds all things together and if He is the center of our lives, we have a solid foundation; if He’s not given His true place in our lives, then our foundation is cracking and shifting and therefore compromised!

Lordship can be the greatest challenge facing the church today, but Lordship is “The Main Thing.” The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing 😜 It’s okay to re-read and repeat that! Simply put, Lordship is the main thing and we know Lordship is the act of putting God first in every aspect of our lives. Whether it’s in our marriage, church, family, work or finances, God should always come before all else.

Lordship is rooted in love and true love is not just receiving love but reciprocating it! We shouldn’t just be content with collecting God’s love, we should also be offering our true love back to God. In Mark 12:28-30 we read that Jesus had been involved in some debating and He was answering all His questions superbly (no surprise there) and one of the teachers of the law came and offered up his question. His question (as seen below) was “Of ALL the commandments, which is the most important?” And again you can see below what Jesus’ reply was…to love God with ALL our heart, mind, soul and strength.

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If we love Him, He will have first place in our lives! We tend to offer up higher priority to other people and things we deem more worthy…intentionally and unintentionally. Speaking as a mom, when mothers get sick and then our children also get sick, we put our sickness aside and prioritize our kid’s needs before our own. Lordship is similar to that of a parent’s love in that it should be just as easy for us to put our personal feelings aside and make God the top priority in all aspects of our lives.

In those verses above, we can see that we can show our love by doing what needs to be done and obeying God’s commandments. When we start to do that, we become not only better believers but better people all around.

Lordship also involves accountability. This is where it can become more challenging and uncomfortable. We must ask ourselves, what are we doing with the second chance God has given all of us as believers? What are we doing with the time He has given us here on Earth? What are we doing with the unique abilities or gifts He has specifically given to us? How are we blessing others with what we are given?

God entrusts us with His blessings. Every blessing is from God and although God loves us all the same, we are not all blessed the same! We are blessed in accordance to our ability/abilities and maturity levels. God illustrates this concept through a parable in Matthew 25:14-30.

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God is essentially the man setting out for a long journey and we, as Christians, are his servants entrusted with different blessings. What we do with those blessings determines what we will be entrusted with later and to what degree! His blessings provide opportunities to us to be gifted with even more blessings. Many people say they don’t have any talents or abilities because they often are looking at everyone else and comparing themselves to everyone around them. When we stop looking outward and start looking inward, we will realize all of us have a unique talent or ability God has entrusted us with and we must recognize them and decide how we can use them to bring glory to God and bless others! As we see in verse 19 of Matthew 25 the man returned to account for his money. We will ALL have to account for how we have used our blessings that were gifted to us. We all want to hear “well done” when we stand before God and He asks for us account for all He had trusted us with! Being accountable leads to God’s favor, promotion and blessing! As we see in the last verses of the parable in Matthew 25, The man was full of praise towards 2 of the men, the ones who took action and put to use what he had entrusted them with. Since they were faithful and able to handle what was given to them, they were entrusted with even more responsibilities and the man wanted them to come celebrate with him! But the 3rd servant wasn’t faithful. His fear clouded his judgement and he played it safe; he stayed within his comfort zone and therefore did not get any return on the blessings he was left. He would not be blessed with more if he was not accountable for less. Remember, in this parable, we are the servants and God is the man. We can’t expect our lives to be full of blessings if we are not using the blessings we are already given to better ourselves and the lives of others around us.

I pray that we all continue to work on Lordship in our lives and start looking at ourselves and determining what gifts/talents/abilities God has blessed us with. I also pray that as we start to recognize and acknowledge those blessings, that we ask ourselves how we are using or how we will use them to help and better ourselves and others…always giving honor and glory to God! God has invested in all of us, so let’s work on giving Him a return on those investments!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

Lordship In Our Life

Today marks the first sermon in another new 3 part journey I am on; Lordship! Much like the Importance of Prayer blogs, this will be 3 blogs each covering what I took away from the sermons through the church’s outline and my own notes. I like to pass along the messages!

Today was about evaluating Lordship in our life. What is Lordship? Lordship is putting God first in our lives.

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There were two issues we talked about; The Position Issue and The Permission Issue. The Position Issue is who or what holds the number one position in our life? Who or what will be number one in our life? Everybody serves somebody or something…The Lord, The World, Self etc. There is one thing in our lives which will constantly challenge the position issue; Pride. Pride has always affected relationships with God from the very beginning and it hinders us and our relationship with Him. Lucifer, once an angel, was essentially what we would categorize as a worship leader in Heaven; similar to say a choir director. Lucifer had too much pride in his life and he didn’t want God to be number one, he wanted to be number one, he wanted to be GREATER than God. Then we know he was cast out of Heaven and became who we refer to as Satan. We also know Lucifer (Satan) made an appearance as a serpent in the Garden of Eden where he tempted Adam and Eve. He tempted their pride in telling them if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would be like God. One issue with many of us is we always want to be number one. There are many situations in the Bible where pride and challenge of the position issue comes up. The disciples themselves struggled with the position issue! They even argued over who was the greatest among them. They let pride and position take place over Lordship. In John 13:3-5 Jesus Himself washed the disciples feet. Why would Jesus, the Son of God, wash the feet of each disciple? Did He just want to? No. He wanted to demonstrate to each of them what true Lordship looked like. He wanted them to resolve and settle the position issue in their lives. Jesus knew He was from God, He had no insecurity about who He was. He knew He had all authority but He chose to humble Himself and He submitted to His Father’s will to serve!

Let the greatest among you be a servant of all; He was demonstrating the power of God! It is much easier for us to serve when we resolve the position issue in our lives and submit to the will of God.

The other issue that was covered today was The Permission Issue. We want to know who has the right to ask for our time, talents, resources etc. There is a prevailing “me first” mentality that exists with many Christians today. They believe God is there just to make us happy and feel good every day. They see Him as their savior but not as their Lord. He has saved them, yet they’re not giving Him the number one position in their lives. In many cases we want or expect HIM to follow US. We expect Him to submit to our will and not the other way around! God is the Lord of all the living and dead; so whether dead or alive, He should be number one in our lives 😉 Many of us give excuses rather than permission.

We all know life is not easy; anything worth doing will present a challenge and call for effort on our part. Many of us just make excuses for why we can’t do what we are called to do and in turn we are making our excuses more important than following God.

Jesus always looks at the heart; He knows our true intentions. With that knowledge alone, we should be re-evaluating the motives of our heart. We can’t have things both ways…it’s either for God or for ourselves. Not everyone who professes Lordship embraces or lives Lordship. As with many things in life, it seems to be a lot easier for us to talk it than to walk it! True Lordship is embracing His will regardless of the inconvenience or discomfort; those will always be present! We must remain faithful and still place God in the number one spot in our lives. It’s embracing the future regardless of our past! We all have a past and for almost all of us, our pasts aren’t the greatest times of our lives. Our pasts are almost always full of things we wish to forget and things we are ashamed of, but the good thing is we must turn loose of our pasts and follow where He leads us! We should be moving forward with Jesus no matter the cost! There will always be a cost and often that cost is our own pride! Pride is the mother of all sin…you can see its roots in every sin. Pride is also usually something everyone around us knows we have, yet we don’t know we have! We have to recognize pride in our lives and deal with it because it will always challenge the position issue, therefore causing God not to be able to be number one in our lives. Lordship should be making Jesus the center of our lives. We naturally think of ourselves and our own wants and needs, but if we first seek the kingdom of God, He will provide all we need and we will be filled with true happiness and contentment because He makes us whole!

I pray all of us today will take a step back and examine God’s role in our lives and the position we permit Him to have. Are there other people or things taking His place as number one? How much time do we devote to Him in comparison to these other people or things? Asking these questions will make it easier to identify a position issue and hopefully help us resolve them. I also pray that we all look for evidence of pride in our lives and recognize it as an issue. We must rid ourselves of pride because it is deeply rooted in sin and usually when pride is in our lives, God will never be at the center of our lives where He should be.

As always, thank you for taking time out to read my blog posts! I hope that God blessed your lives today and every day!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

The Importance of Intercessory Prayer

Today I was able to listen to the last sermon in the short series on the importance of prayer, and can share my notes and pass along the message! While all prayer is of the utmost importance, intercessory prayer may just be the most important type of prayer!

If you do a simple search on the definition of the word intercession, you’ll see that it is defined as follows: To plead or make a request on behalf of another person. When we come before God in intercessory prayer, we are in agreement with God on not only the situation, but also on the solution to the situation. We agree on what the person’s needs are and we agree that God has the power to turn their situation around for good.

A big problem is, not many Christians take the time to intercede for others. When we come before God in intercession, we have an influence greater than we know! In Genesis 18 & 19, Abraham interceded for his nephew Lot; he prayed for his nephew to be spared. In Exodus 32:11-14, Moses interceded for the nation of Israel; he prayed for change and believed God had the power to change. In Ezekiel 22, we know God was going to bring judgement upon Israel, but we know God was looking for someone to come and intercede! It’s a simple task with a monumental reward! I can think of no greater reward than to know I am the reason someone came to know and believe in God!

Salvation is much more than just deliverance from sin; it also promotes us to sons and daughters of Christ and also kings and priests! We are priests in relation to God and kings in relation to satan. Priests represented the people before God; traditionally a priest was a man chosen by God who had authority we didn’t. There were certain rituals and places only priests were allowed to venture, but now we can all come before God on another’s behalf! As priests, we have the privilege of going before the Father and interceding for others, claiming the provision and power of His blood! We can ALL come before God not only on behalf of ourselves, but for others…especially those who don’t believe in God. Now, we take authority over satan! Not many of us really realize that fact; we tend to let satan bully us. Ultimately though, we are kings in relation to Satan. Kings exercise power and authority. Kings defeat their enemies and establish their will or desire in their kingdom. They are in control! In the same way, we rule over satan and we control what he can and cannot do in our lives, and by intercessory prayer we can come before God and do our part to stop satan in other’s lives and in the world around us. Some people will say, “Pray for me, Satan won’t leave me alone.” Nothing wrong with asking for prayer, but as believers we can also stop running, turn around and start chasing him! Satan will only do what you allow him to do in your life; if you give him the key, he will come in! God has given us a key to His kingdom and we can open doors we want open and close doors we want closed!

How do we effectively intercede?

1. We pray that God draws them (the non-believers) to Him. We pray He creates a desire in them.

2. We should pray that they would pursue God and seek Him out!

3. Pray for someone to tell them about Jesus; whether it be us or someone else! They cannot believe what they never hear about and they will never hear unless we become the messengers we are called to be and share the gospel with them!

4. Pray their spiritual eyes are open! For those who don’t understand, allow their eyes to open and for what they hear to make sense in their minds, hearts and lives.

5. Finally, pray they believe in Christ as their savior! Don’t just pray for them to simply open their eyes and believe, but pray for them to make the most important decision in their lives; to accept God as their personal savior so they may never be condemned but live eternally. Pray for them to get to that point where they can exercise their will to choose belief. God doesn’t want anyone perish; He always gives us a way out. One thing He will not do is violate a person’s free will! Everyone has been given the freedom to choose and we must pray for others who may not believe, to get to the point in their lives where they use their free will to choose belief in God. There should be no reason any of us Christians aren’t actively practicing intercessory prayer. We ALL have important people in our lives who aren’t saved. We should be concerned and care for them and all other non-believers the same! We should be excited to tell others about God and to share our story with them!

What if the only reason someone doesn’t make it to Heaven with us, is because you or I did not take the time to care enough to intercede on their behalf? What if we didn’t take our role and responsibilities as Christians seriously enough and it costs someone eternity? Intercessory prayer doesn’t take much effort, but it can have a huge return! What do you have to lose? As Christians, possibly not much…but what do non-believers you know or come in contact with have to lose? Eternity! Don’t cheat others out of what we have in God! Pray for the power to share with others and open doors for them! We have the key to the kingdom, let’s let them in!

God, we come before you today as believers in You, interceding for all non-believers we know well, have come in contact with or those we will come into contact with! Let us share our story of Your goodness with them, and may their eyes be open! May You draw them near and create in them a desire to pursue You and seek you out. We also pray if we aren’t the person who witnesses to them, that someone else finds them and does! Thank You for allowing is to come in front of You and intercede for ourselves and others! May we all make time for intercessory prayer in our lives! AMEN!

Remember it’s as easy as A·B·C!

·Admit to God we have sinned.

·Believe Jesus is God’s Son who was sent to save us and die for our sins on the cross.

·Confess your belief to God and allow Him into your heart and life.

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Much Love and God Bless 💚

The Fool

IMG_20180614_052524_527 I posted this very early this morning, little did I know I would be the one who needed it most today! Often times things I blog on here I am addressing others but ALWAYS myself as well! Today has felt like a wonky day for me and I have felt my anger and frustrations getting the best of me. I could blame it on being pregnant and hormonal but that would be an easy excuse; I own and admit my faults in order to try to learn from them and grow!

I mentioned multiple times today that I believe someone, somewhere is trying to push me over the edge! I am not one to let things get to me too much, although I have short fuses in few areas, I still usually let it roll off. Now, if I get pushed so far, I will make it known 😱

Lately, I feel there are ridiculous and unnecessary events occurring that have caused such deep aggravation; just keep stewing inside of me. All these things seem so trivial when I actually sit and think about them, yet they’re nagging! I’m “doing the practical” (as my Uncle Tim would say) when it comes to solving the issues, but I’m irritated I even have to worry about these things. I’m very confident that in the end it’ll all have worked out for the best, but in the meantime I am working to be my usual self and brush it all off!

Having all this frustration built up lately has made it easier for me to get mad about little, meaningless stuff! It has made me jump to conclusions and assume things and I realize…that’s not seeing the light or the positive in the day/days, it’s taking that easy way out and focusing on the negative and letting it start to slowly take over. One negative thought leads to another and another and them it snowballs!

Today, I feel like a fraud for making that post and not putting my own words to practice! I feel ashamed for that fact alone, but also for letting my anger and temper get the best of me. I keep seeing and hearing a verse in my mind and I’ll post it below!

That last one says it all! Today my actions and words have been foolish…probably no different from the very foolishness I am irritated about! I can sit and attempt to convince myself that certain foolish behavior is different than the next, but is it really? I know better and I should always be striving to be better!

Everyone has their bad moments or days or even weeks and unfortunately years in some cases! Whatever category you fall into, I pray for you and what you’re going through. I pray that if you have current built up anger and frustration, you are able to give it to God and move forward without dwelling or stewing! Don’t sweat the small stuff! Whether small or big issues, God always provides solutions if you listen and follow His direction. I pray for all of us to let the negative go so it doesn’t start weighing us down and stealing our happiness and overall joy! Let us all be slow to anger! 🙌

Much Love and God Bless! 💚

The Importance of Prayer Continued

Today’s blog will build upon a previous blog called The Importance of Prayer. As I mentioned in the first post, I have been listening to a short sermon series on Prayer and I have been sharing what I take away from the sermons.

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Many are familiar with the verses above; they are often referred to as The Lord’s Prayer. It offers us insight to how we should strive to pray. Every prayer doesn’t have to sound perfect or be about the same things, but we should always pray for His kingdom and His will to be done in any and every circumstance. Prayer to us spiritually is like oxygen to us physically; we NEED it to thrive! Many Christians today are great at identifying problems around them, yet we aren’t taking steps to change our atmosphere! I’m willing to bet that most everyone reading this has two things in their homes right now: a thermometer and a thermostat. Many of us Christians are the thermometer, we help identify the issue yet we aren’t being the thermostat which actually changes the atmosphere around us. The thermometer will tell us the temperature, but it will not change the temperature. In other words, pointing out what’s wrong around us shouldn’t be our main focus; our main focus should be coming up with a process to better what’s around us. A major key to being a strong Christian is setting priorities in our life. These spiritual priorities come from our beliefs and values and they determine the direction or course of our life. We should be asking God what His priorities for our life are and making it a point to achieve them. By nature most of us tend to think of ourselves, but we should remember to always put God and His will first in our lives.

A kingdom can be described as a king’s domain. The kingdom of God refers to God’s sovereign rule in the hearts of man. We should pray for His will to be carried out by all of us, including those who lead over our country. In the United States, we obviously don’t have a king or queen to rule over us, but a President and Vice President; we also have Congressman and Mayors etc. Whether we are for or against any leader, we should alway pray that they lead us in a way pleasing to God. It is easy for us to place blame on this leader or that leader, but prayer can cause change! Not much, if anything at all, will change until our leaders operate on Godly wisdom instead of political benefit! Pray for your cities as well! One of our responsibilities as Christians is to BE the change we want to see; stop reporting the issues and go out and make the difference. We are called to influence our communities and come against the negatives/evil in prayer. I personally believe prayer can change anything and that includes our country! Nothing is impossible with God!

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In addition to praying for our leaders, we should remember to pray for our families. We should continually pray for any problems we have within our families and especially remember those who don’t know the word of God. Pray to make an impact on those who don’t believe, as we may be the only form of Jesus they ever experience. May we pray for direction and guidance from God on how to handle any issues within our families and know that it may not always be pleasing to everyone involved, but in the end it will work together for the good of everyone involved.

We should also be praying for our spouse. Pray for our relationship in general; that we are working together to build one another up and to help each other recognize our gifts/talents and encouraging each other to use those skills to reach others and strengthen our relationship with God. We should always want our spouse to excel!

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Of course we can’t forget to pray for our children! One thing we can never pray enough for in these crazy times is protection over our children. Let us remember to pray for children to have wisdom in their choices, especially when it comes to the friends they choose etc. May they always have wisdom to tell the difference between people who will help them grow and those who will cause them to wilt. May we pray for the salvation of our children that they may grow in their very own personal relationship with God.

Pray for your church. Whether it’s a church you visit or are a member of. Pray for the other believers and pastors to have spiritual wisdom and understanding and that they all continue to grow in their faith.

Last, but not least, remember to pray for yourself as well.

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Pray for your struggles, relationships, fears/anxieties/ stresses; don’t just pray for change in everyone else, but for change in yourself and your life as well. Pray to become more like Jesus and let our joy be our strength! Pray to be the “real deal” showing others through your actions and not just your words! Let others see Him in our lives. As I said before, we may just be the one and only contact someone else has with God! May all we do reflect God’s love, peace and joy so that non-believers question what makes us tick. 💚🙌

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I want to pray for everyone reading this, that you all may progress in your own faith and personal relationship with God. I pray we all recognize that we are the body of Christ and in order for the body to move and reach others, we must do more than just speak about the problems, we must become the solution!

Much love and God Bless! 💚

If any of you reading this have any prayer requests, PLEASE don’t hesitate to comment on this blog and I guarantee we will have several people praying for you. Also, if anyone just wants me to pray with them over their comment they leave, please let me know and I would absolutely be willing to do so. My words aren’t perfect, they’re not always the most sophisticated but thankfully our God doesn’t care about that, but only the sincerity of our words. 🙌

Time and Technology

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I’m a person who is constantly stuck in a different decade. I’ve always been fascinated by the 50s and 60s and I have loved 70s and even 80s as well! All of these timeframes have specific characteristics that appeal to me. One of the things is the simplicity of life. Of course I am not claiming these periods of time didn’t have their world problems, but we can all agree that certain aspects of life were more simple. Kids were kids and they were content with that. People could walk to most places and not feel fear the whole time wondering if any danger lurked around the corner. Parents were able to let their kids go out and freely play with other kids without worry that someone would come kidnap them or that the other children would shoot or stab one another out of anger. I can only write this as an outsider to most of the time periods, as I was born towards the end of the 80s, but I truthfully feel many who did grow up back then would agree with my points.

One HUGE thing is that technology wasn’t at all how it is today. Technology being so easily accessible has its advantages, but in my opinion, it brings many more negatives than positives. We all hear the word addiction and we immediately think of alcohol and drugs, but what about technology? I sit here on my phone typing this and I wonder, how much time do we all spend on our electronics? I can bet most of us underestimate the amount of time; we feel like, “oh I’m only on my electronics for a little bit, not long at all” and in reality its 4, 5 or 6 hours a day or even more! I have read that American kids spend about 7.5 or more hours a day on electronics, and worse than that, I have read studies that say adults can spend 10 hours or more. I can’t say for certain how accurate these studies are, but I can most certainly believe those numbers. With social media alone, we can easily lose track of our time spent. Granted, some people have to use electronics for work, but I know that most people use electronics beyond the work realm. I believe technology can be a useful tool when needed, but I hate that it consumes us and we become addicted to it without even realizing it. We are always documenting every detail of our lives that we lose connection with those special moments. We have so much information at our finger tips and many times I believe too much. I feel like it brings more stress into our lives. In my eyes, more harm than good comes from all of this access. As the saying goes, “everything in moderation” and I believe this can be the case for technology. A little can go a long way!

There is an app my husband and I have on our phones called Quality Time and it tracks how long you are on your phone and breaks down which apps you were on and for how long. It also keeps track of how many times you unlock your phone etc. I am in no way connected to this app or the promotion of it, but I believe it can be an eye opener. We all use the excuse, “If I had more time” yet if we only saw how much time we waste, we would be ashamed…at least that is how I felt upon first using the app. I truly felt that I didn’t spend that much time on my phone, especially when a lot of times I am on for 10 mins or so and back off…but I assure you, all those times add up throughout the day. It’s hard for me because it’s my main source of communication with my family, but that’s really no excuse. Before phones, people wrote handwritten letters or saw/talked to each other when they were able. Simple. Maybe I’m a little too stuck in the past, but I feel like less is better. I want to spend less time on electronics and more time with the people around me. I don’t want to be a person so lost in their phone or other forms of technology that they lose touch with reality. My husband and I have actually even contemplated downgrading our phones! We are definitely in the process of implementing technology free days and having designated time frames for when technology can be used and nothing beyond the specific time allotted. The world comes with enough stress, we don’t want to add more to our lives and definitely not more to our children’s lives. We want to be an example to them to enjoy the world around them; to live in the moment and take it all in. We want them to feel free to be kids without having that need to constantly compare themselves to others on social media or be bombarded by all the hate and division in the world. We are said to be living in times when anxiety and depression and suicide are at their highest and I believe an overabudance of technology and information plays a role in those rates.

These are just my opinions, you can take them or leave them. If you feel like you may be spending too much time on your electronics, try timing yourself or even downloading that app Quality Time and see how much time you are devoting to your phone and go from there. Make a plan of attack; determine how much time you want to be spending all together and when you’ve reached that limit, simply put your phone up out of sight. Inform people you contact on a daily basis of your plans so there is no unnecessary worry. Obviously this excludes times of emergencies.

I am really excited to start putting all of this to practice and maybe you’ll decide to join me! You may notice that I haven’t blogged as often and that will likely be the case. Instead of trying to blog daily, I think maybe every other day 👍I pray everyone can take a step back and evaluate where their time is spent on a daily basis. Time is such a precious and valuable gift we are given every day and I pray none of us take it for granted. May we all utilize our time wisely.

Much love and God Bless 💚

The Importance of Prayer

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Sundays were always a day I looked forward to growing up, because it would mean attending church. Sunday mornings would be for Sunday School followed by the actual church service with the whole congregation coming together to hear one sermon. My church was definitely one of a kind and I have never found another that can even come close to comparing. It has actually caused me a lot of aggravation and sadness, now that I’m older and living in another state, that I cannot find a church that lives up to my standards and idea of what a church is or can be. Our church was small, but close-knit. It was like a second family for me. Of course not every one person will get along wonderfully in any kind of group, but for the majority I felt we all truly cared for one another. Also, not everyone in a church is non-judgmental, but that also shows they are not extending their faith in the correct way. If you ever encounter people like that in a church while you’re visiting or even outside of a church, please don’t assume that everyone in that church or anyone that associates with that person is the same. Don’t let one or two cracked eggs ruin the whole dozen!

So, as I am older and living in another state I did not grow up in, I find it difficult to find that kind of church family again. People who welcome you with open arms and love you for who you are and want to help you grow in your faith. Since I have yet to find a church family, I often listen to sermons online from a church I used to attend back home…not one I was a member of and not my original church, but one I did enjoy going to. Today I listened to the beginning of a sermon series on prayer and the importance of it in our lives. I always like to share the message I received with others, so you can guess what this blog will be about!

Many of us believe in praying. We pray before meals, we pray before traveling, we pray when we have problems in our lives…but are we truly putting ourselves into those prayers, or just going through the motions? Are we sincere or has our prayer life become more of a tradition than anything else? Most of us have all learned a prayer or two as a child. “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food, Amen!” “As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” We all have learned those prayers or some versions of those prayers and have even memorized our own unique family prayers for bed time and meal times. I am not knocking any child’s prayers or saying we shouldn’t hand those down, but there comes a point in our lives where we need to break free from the routine prayer and speak more from our hearts. God isn’t interested in big words and fancy speech, He is more concerned about sincerity, honesty and humility. In other words, He craves us to be REAL with Him. He knows everything about us, but He wants us to come to Him and express our concerns or thankfulness. Of course He knows how we feel, but He wants to hear it from us!

Prayer plays a tremendous role in our lives; more than we give it credit for. Prayer can determine the level we rise in all areas of our lives. We can only go as far as our prayers take us. Prayer should be taken seriously and it should make a difference in our daily lives. When we treat prayer as some sort of tradition, we aren’t letting it make a difference in our lives after the prayer is over. Prayer should be of great importance and a top priority in our lives and after we pray it should change how we go about our days; it should impact how we interact with others, how we approach our problems and how we live life in general! It should be helping us grow as a person and also grow in our faith.

Taking the act of prayer seriously allows us not to lose heart. When we lose heart we want to just give up and give in and this is something that pleases Satan! He would love for that to happen to us! If Satan can get us to lose heart, he can get us to doubt and in turn lose faith, which makes him closer to his goal of destroying the gospel! Steal, kill and destroy, that’s what Satan wants to do. Prayer enables us to not only identify Satan in our lives, but it can help us to evade and escape from whatever he is attempting to do in our lives. It shines a light on his deceitfulness!

As I have blogged about before, prayer had helped me (and still does) during my extreme anxiety break downs. I always say I believe in the power of prayer! When we pray we should believe our own words and that God is there to hear us and answer our prayers according to His will and what is best for our lives. I’ll be the first to say that unanswered prayers can sometimes be the biggest blessings! It doesn’t mean we weren’t heard, it means God said no because He had something better for you and your life. We cannot see it at the time, so we wonder why God isn’t listening to us…but He is! Now anxiety and worry can consume us! We are in a constant fight whether we want to be or not and the enemy keeps on attacking; he’s relentless! We experience more worry and stress due to our wanting to be in control and believing we are in ultimate control of our lives. We take on all of our issues alone and forget that our God waits for us to bring that baggage to Him! We shouldn’t be carrying any of our own baggage! We should be going to God in prayer and handing it all over to Him to handle. He isn’t like a friend who says vent and unload to me and then they too become overwhelmed; He can truly carry your burdens now just as He did at the cross! He wants to take that weight from us and allow us to breathe easier and stress less. When we go to God in prayer we shouldn’t give Him our problems only to take then right back after we’re done praying; we should have faith that when we give those things to God, He is solving our problems for us and we no longer have to worry about them. It’s not saying to never come to Him over the same concerns, but we should believe that He is working for us! We don’t have to fight alone; God is our strength!

Prayer will allow us to become closer to God and that is a huge reason we should make a point to make prayer a point! Let prayer be a part of you and your daily life! Come to Him with words from your heart and not just words of tradition or routine. Come to Him in good times and bad. Prayer isn’t just about coming to God in times of need, but also coming to Him with thankfulness of all He has blessed you with! I pray that all of us take charge of our prayer lives and make prayer an important habit that we treat with respect. Let us not just go through the motions, but really put our whole hearts into our prayers to God. I pray even families start a prayer time together and put emphasis on the subject. May we all grow closer to God through our prayer life!

Much love and God Bless!

Doubt: Another Thief of Happiness.

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Doubt: A feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.

How many times have you felt so confident in something and then doubt slithered its way into your mind? Doubt can be a product of our own thought process OR it can be placed there both intentionally or non-intentionally by others. No matter how doubt is produced, it has one main objective…steal/kill happiness or contentment. When we are on the right path in our lives and all is going well, that is when doubt likes to feed. I personally believe doubt to be yet another manipulation sent out by Satan himself. Who else gets more enjoyment out of dismantling us? He’s like a vulture who waits to pick us apart slowly, piece by piece.

To me, doubt can come hand in hand with anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, worry and the like. It can be just as hard to rid yourself of as well. I once said, someone telling me “don’t worry” is equivalent to telling me not to breathe; it seems simple, yet it can be hard to reprogram how we think. Doubt is another thing that does not do us any good, yet we can’t help but open the door and let it on in. There are so many quotes about doubt that ring true and I will add a few.

“Over thinking kills your happiness.”

“Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.”-Elizabeth Elliot

“The doubters are just dreamers with broken hearts.”-Atticus

“Not every thought you think is TRUE, and not every thought you think is YOU.”

We may be prone to doubt because we have been let down or our hearts have been broken too many times. We may be very untrusting and doubt arises from that. We may have doubts about many things we do because family, friends or even acquaintances along the way have planted seeds of doubt in our minds. Some individuals purposely plant doubts in our minds out of jealousy; they see great things happening for you and that’s their way of trying to bring you back to their level of unhappiness. Again, no matter how doubt forms itself in our lives, we have the power to throw it out. It usually strikes at times when you are on the right track and have things figured out and when your faith is strongest; don’t let it steal that joy and peace you have! Kill doubt with more positive thinking!! The more thoughts of doubt that begin to pop up in your mind, counter them with positive thoughts and affirmations. It reminds me of something I tell my son about fear…tell it to go away, and that it’s not real! Our God is bigger than any issues that come into our lives, we just have to do our best to rely upon Him and not be shaken! Let us keep out feet firmly planted in faith! Let us know that we are confident and doubt cannot take it away unless we let it!

I pray for all of us feeling any kind of doubt in our lives…whether it’s doubt about school, career paths, parenting, faith, appearance, capabilities, health etc. I pray all of us find our peace and let that and our inner confidence overcome our doubts. Fear likes to feed us doubt and I pray we continue to recognize that most of our worries and doubts are caused by fear and the majority of the time, they have no merit at all! May we stay strong in our faith and know that God is for us, not against us. He is there to have a personal relationship with us and is willing to help us out in any way.

Much love and God Bless 💚

An Anxiety Disorder Reflection

When I first started this blog I recall stating that I would comment and even write multiple blogs on anxiety and I’m here to make good on that promise 😉

Anxiety has been so prevalent in my life (the majority of my life) I now have to consider it a part of me in a way. Don’t mistake my statement as being accepting of my anxiety disorder, rather I have more of an understanding of it and know that although there may be times I am in control, it will likely lurk in waiting. I often describe it as going dormant or partially dormant, but I would never say I am “cured”. I’m a firm believer in a person’s ability to constantly better themselves, and that is how I look at rising above the disorder. I have no issues with the anxiety disorder label hanging over my head, I do however take issue with the control it can have over me as a person; physically, emotionally and even spiritually! Let me state that I do not always have good days and I do backslide in my own personal journey with anxiety disorder (yes, even after all these years) but after enduring it for most of my life, I have learned a thing or two about it. I’m not a doctor or counselor or anyone with a title, I’m simply an individual sharing her experiences with anyone who wants to listen in hopes that it’ll help them in some way!

I was reflecting on the disorder earlier this morning and remembering how much it has impacted my life and even still does. Anyone with anxiety disorder knows how much time it can steal from you; how many moments you miss out on. In times like these with social media you see so many photos of people who are worry free and just enjoying life on their vacation time…it’s hard not to say to yourself, “man, I wish I could do that!” With anxiety disorder, especially in a peak time, it is SO debilitating. You are unceasingly paralyzed with fear. You opt out of anything and everything, even when you don’t necessarily want to. At one of my absolute worst times with the anxiety disorder, I was living in a continuous and never-ending state of panic and fear. I’m not talking every other day or even once a day, I am saying every second of every single day for more than a year and the disorder was relentless; it NEVER gave up. That year sure seems lost to me. I hardly remember anything else besides what the disorder caused and how it altered my personality and just myself overall. I would sit on the couch at my parents house and be like a zombie. I would be expressionless. I lacked personal hygiene because it felt like such a chore and I had no will or energy to get up and do it. I was terrified every day was my last day. I was convinced I would die every. single. day. Every move I did have the courage to make was over-calculated in my mind; the worst case scenario was always the certainty. I couldn’t go outside because some crazy accident would happen. I couldn’t go out to eat or even eat new foods or foods I hadn’t in a while because I would have severe allergic reaction and my throat would close up and I’d die. I’d like to add that I have no known food allergies. I ended up losing so much weight because I could only muster up enough courage to consume apple sauce, bread and water. I cried at every meal when my parents or husband would attempt to get me to eat because I was petrified. Night time was no different and could even be the worst time for me. Fear and dread kept me from falling asleep every night because in my mind I would have a heart attack and die in my sleep and no one would be able to help me. I would have such bad whole body tremors/shakes. I can’t even put into words everything that I was unable to do. Simple every day tasks were forgotten and I was just this emotionless blob. I truthfully am not embellishing nor am I actually able to convey all that I went through. One of the worst parts was I felt like I was drowning in front of everyone. My head was persistently under water, my arms were in the air yet everyone was looking right at me and telling me I was alright. They couldn’t see the water. They couldn’t see me in trouble. So how could anyone help me if the people who loved me and knew me best couldn’t see how much trouble was surrounding me? They may have acknowledged my feelings but they truly couldn’t understand and therefore they couldn’t help. When I came to this realization, I knew there was only one person who could help me, that person was me…or was it?

Anyone who views these blogs can recognize that I am no one who shies away from my faith. During this particular peak of the anxiety disorder a lot that got me through was my faith. I believe certain events happen in our lives to bring us closer to God when we have become complacent. When we start veering off on our own and although still believers, we lose some of that spiritual spark. Many believers can talk a good game, but they end up, even unintentionally, treating God as a genie. Your life is going great and you go on your merry way and you’re just idling in your faith. You call upon God only when you’re in trouble. There is nothing wrong with calling upon God in times of trouble, but we should always be calling upon Him even when things are going wonderfully! In my opinion, this anxiety disorder is in my life so that I can use it to help others. I can relate on a personal level out of experience! I would never wish it on anyone nor do I enjoy having it myself, but it has allowed me to get here where I can share my story with all of you and hopefully make some sort of positive impact on your life. I want to give others hope who have been in those worst times and felt so alone and not “normal”. You wonder how far you can go before you actually snap and go crazy. At times, we already believe we are crazy. The great part is we’re not and we haven’t gone too far. We can always put our minds in reverse and come back to center! We’re not lost, we just took a detour! 🙂 I know the fear of opening up about it and having this image of someone taking us away in this white straitjacket and locking us in some padded room somewhere. It sounds unreasonable, yet many of us with anxiety have felt that fear. This is one of the many reasons I share my story with everyone so that anyone else having the same feelings can realize they are not alone and their feelings are shared by many other individuals. There is such power in reading or hearing someone who doesn’t even know you express exactly how you have been feeling; it offers a sense of comfort when you need it the most. I mentioned my faith got me through and it truly did. I would pray often or sing older hymns or modern Christian music in my head at night or even recite verses over and over until I was calm enough to fall asleep. I kept a book of verses with me specifically on the subject of fear. It gave me the boosts of confidence when I would need it and assured me that I would be able to make it through this. I so often cried to my husband or my parents that I would never be the same, that I would never find myself again. Anyone out there thinking that they are permanently lost and will never be able to find themselves again, I am here to tell you it’s not only just a possibility, but a CERTAINTY! You CAN and you WILL! At times, all we can do is buckle up and hold on and know that this will pass. I even purchased books on anxiety disorder, both religious based books and non and it helped me to better understand my condition and in learning more about the disorder I was able to regain more control. I am convinced I’ll always be a work in progress, but I am proud of how far I have come. I have a lot to work on still, but this peak time I have been referring to was 2010 for me, so 8 years I worked at it and still continue to! It’s unreal to think that I was married for just 2 years when this particular surge in the disorder occured, and I could never express my gratitude enough for my husband. I talked about how much I have endured, but he also went through all of the ups and downs with me. He stuck by me when most people would have run the other way and he not only stuck by my side, but he encouraged me and did his best to understand and help me along. He did whatever he could to ease my mind at times, yet he gave me tough love when I needed it most. It’s hard on a spouse to see the person they love the most suffer through something and not be able to help at all, just kind of sit back and watch and not even fully comprehend what is actually happening with them. My husband, Brandon, he’s definitely a hero of mine ❤ Yet another gift from God!!

I want to pray for anyone at there who is feeling anxiety to any degree, especially those of you in these peak times that feel hopeless and alone! I want you to know that not only God is with you, but I too understand and you can turn it around. It may take years for you to feel like you’ve gained even some control, but it will happen! I pray for you all to have peace and comfort when you need it most. My dream is that my words, whether now or in the future, help even one of you out there!

Much love and God Bless ❤

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