The Gleeful Journey

"Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord." - Psalm 89:15

I'm 12 weeks into my journey of being gleeful. If nothing else, this journey has taught me that I must continually be seeking the good things and the blessings because they aren't always obvious. When you seek and count your blessings, it causes you to have a thankful heart. When you are thankful and worshipping God, it is pretty hard not to have joy. To be happy. To be gleeful. 

Life isn't always good. In fact, sometimes life is very difficult. And sometimes our season of life makes us question whether there is anything good at all. But there is always something good. There is always something to be thankful for. God always has a reason for giving us one more day. Sometimes our hard days help form our ministry, so that we can help another person. Sometimes our hard days make us cause us to look at the great days and worship God.

Here are some things I've noticed about my joy in this 3 month process. 
- My family brings me more joy than I could have possibly imagined. 
- The sunlight has a huge impact on my mood. I'm definitely not a cold weather kind of girl. Sunny days make my soul happy. 
- Focusing on my blessings, whether small or large has really helped me see how good God truly is. 

Here are some of the things that I've praised God for in the past 3 months. 
-My children's health, my mom being okay after a bad fall, music, youth retreats, quiet times with God, creating things, coffee dates, restful nights, good school days,  snow days, long days at home with family, hard working hubby, baby chicks, baby showers, friend's spiritual retreat, and beautiful spring days. 

I pray that those of you following along in this journey with me are feeling the positive impact of recording our gleeful moments. If you aren't, please join the Facebook group and join us in sharing throughout the week on the things that bring us glee. We'd love the company! 

Friends, we are happy when we take these things that make us gleeful and hear them as the joyful call to worship our Creator.  We will walk in the light of His presence.  I encourage you to take time out of your busy lives and figure out what makes you gleeful. 

~Peace out, homies. 
#BeGleeful

A New Year Full of Awesome Things

I absolutely love a new year. A new year holds so much promise. I get another year older, another year wiser, and married a little bit longer to my main man. My children continue to grow and discover the world around them and it is just all a really awesome thing. As do many, I love to organize things and declutter my life as well as work on priorities. Just like most others, I probably don't keep a lot of these new habits, but I'm a dreamer. That's just the life of a dreamer like myself. I love to dream of new possibilities and what might be. I love to think of better ways to do things and how I can make myself become a better version of me. I would love to be more of a doer. Hmmmm....maybe that should be a goal for 2015. But I have digressed.....

I was studying my last devotion of the year and one of the scriptures to read was Romans 15:13.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." 

Then I read in another devotion, John 14: 26-28 It is Jesus speaking. The words gave me chills. I'm pretty sure I've read this passage often, but for some reason it really hit me.

"But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative - that is, the Holy Spirit - he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. I am leaving you with a gift - peace of mind and heart. And that peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid."

So these two passages stayed in my heart over the course of the day. We have a gift. A very important gift. We have peace of mind and heart. It is a kind of peace that nothing else in the world can give. Sometimes my anxiety is over the top, but then I read this. He gives ME peace. A peace that is different. Our God of Hope fills us with JOY and PEACE as we trust HIM. We can OVERFLOW with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit. Did you read that? It said overflow. Overflow with hope. Wow.

I don't know about you, but those promises are comforting. So as we go into our new year filled with new adventures, new life, new jobs, moving,  possibilities,  major life changes, or whatever it may be for you - remember, He's got this. HE has GOT this. He has you. He gives you peace. Be brave. Take risks. You might fail. In fact, you probably will fail at some things. It is okay. I promise. You'll keep going. You'll make it. Do some hard stuff. Do some fun stuff. Do some silly stuff. Allow yourself to love and experience joy like never before. He doesn't promise a perfect life, but he promises us something that the world cannot offer - a peace like no other - and I'm clinging to that promise. 

~ Peace out homies. May your 2015 be peaceful, full of hope, lots of joy, and rockin' all at the same time. 

#TrueBeautyIsLivingLife

This is hard for me to write, but I definitely fee like many of my precious friends can relate to me. And honestly God has been dealing with me on this subject since last year and I'm finally coming full circle to embrace the big picture.

Do you know that I haven't worn shorts in public for several years?I live in Tennessee for crying out loud! It is hotter than two goats in a pepper patch.  Because of my utter disdain for my legs, I almost always wear capri pants. 

Why? 

Because I am ashamed of my body. Years and years of hating my body. Hating what I see every day when I look in the mirror. Focusing on my lumpy thighs and big butt. You name it. I probably hate it. 

Friends, this is no way to live. I've struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. I even had lap band surgery to aid in weight loss when I was 29 years old. I lost almost 100 lbs and have kept off 65 lbs of it. Last year when I had the knee drama, I gained around 15 lbs and have been unable to lose it. Now that my knee has rehabilitated finally, I feel that my weight will slowly go back down.

As many of you know, I've been on a journey to get healthier by taking baby steps and this has been going on for nearly 18 months. I screw up and still make bad choices, but I've come a long way from where I was many years ago. Unfortunately, it isn't making me thinner and for once, I'm finally okay with that.

One thing that became abundantly clear to me, is that when I was unable to do much because of knee pain - I was miserable. I was unable to be active and quite frankly it sucked. I was sitting on the sidelines of my life.

By nature, I'm not an athletic person. I do not like to play sports. If I have a choice between crocheting or playing volleyball, you better believe that I will be hooking it up (with yarn) in here. But I do enjoy being active in things that I enjoy. I like being able to hike, ride bikes, swim, garden, and go on walks. I really, really missed being able to do all of those things when my knee was being ridiculous. 

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Since spring sprung, we've had some fun family outings with hiking and camping. I'm so thankful that I've been an active participant. During all of this,  I've made an important decision. 

I'm going to wear shorts and a bathing suit this summer.

I'm going to enjoy life. I'm going to enjoy life in this body that I was given. This wonderful body has carried me around for 37 years. It has grown 3 amazing babies and nourished them for over 5 years. I've earned every stretch mark on my belly for growing babies. I have loose skin on my tummy because I lost a bunch of weight and became healthier. I am not going to let lumpy thighs and a big butt keep me from living my life.

I'm going to set an example for my daughter that real beauty is not defined by the size of my tummy or a wrinkle free face. Women are beautiful because we love. We are beautiful because we experience pain. We are beautiful because we laugh and we cry. We are beautiful because we can grow humans and nourish them. We are beautiful when we survive tragic things and become stronger because of them. We are beautiful when we create. Women are beautiful when we live life. Women are beautiful when we are thankful for the blessings that God has given us.

Right here. Right now. I'm claiming that my body may not be perfect, but it serves is purpose quite well; and I'm going to enjoy my life and more specifically, my summer as a beautiful woman. Not because of outer beauty, but because I'm living my life and that makes me beautiful. 

"I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls." - Audrey Hepburn

If you would like to join me, I ask that you share this post and hashtag any of your IG/Twitter pictures with #TrueBeautyIsLivingLife

Let's be beautiful, happy, living life to the fullest women together! 

Peace out,  beautiful ladies. 

Distracted - #1

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Ok here goes…

Exactly one week ago when I decided I was going to write, I went to bed with thoughts flying through my head. I mean, my head was just swimming with random thoughts. Now most nights I do go to bed with things on my mind, but I tune them out. Do you know how I do that? I pick up my phone and start by opening up Facebook to see what everyone else is doing. If that is boring enough, I will go to sleep. If not, I will move on to Instagram. Then sometimes Pinterest. Then I will look for a game to play until I am propping my eyes open with toothpicks. 

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I heard a very loud thought. It said,

 “Alicia, STOP! It is okay to just fall asleep. You don’t have to be doing something. God created you to rest. It is okay to rest. That includes resting your mind.”

At that point, I laid my phone down and started praying. Then I heard another loud thought telling me that I needed to focus on getting rid of my distractions and that was going to be my writing venture.

So right then and there I committed to God that I would do this. My intent was to start first thing in the morning. I was going to log my phone usage. My beloved iphone is a huge distraction for me.  Here is the funny thing.  At one point in my life, I was anti smart phone. I was anti texting. I was anti most small electronics. In fact, if you tried to contact me, prior to my iphone, I probably didn’t have a clue where my phone was. We got our first smart phones in fall of 2009. We got blackberries. I didn’t really use mine as it was intended. It was a fancy way to text and I actually started texting a little bit more. I used my blackberry for texting, phone calls, Facebook and emailing. It still wasn’t a really big distraction. Fast forward to Valentines 2011. We upgraded to our iphones. I think Chris and I ignored each other for at least a week while we perfected the apps on our phones, played games, and put our lives on our iphones. We actually joke about it. Thankfully we got them at the same time.

 

Now I don’t think iphones are inherently bad. They are actually pretty nifty little things. I take way more pictures of my children because of it. I mean it is always right there by  my side and they are always being cute.  I rarely forget an appointment now because we have synced all of our information into our lovely color coded calendar – complete with reminders. And let’s be honest - it is nice to have google at your fingertips, especially with Harrison Holbrook as your child. That child is always asking questions that I don’t know how to answer. It does indeed have many good functions. But if I can’t go to sleep at night because I’m aimlessly playing on my phone when I should be trying to fall asleep, we’ve got a problem. A big problem.

Friends, I don’t want my children to have memories of a mother looking at her phone all day long. I don’t want my husband to feel like my phone is more important than what he has to tell me. I don’t want my friends to feel like all of my texts and phone notifications are more important than the time I’m spending with them.  I don’t want my phone replacing real face-to-face memories with the people whom I love the most.

I’ve been trying to keep track of my phone usage over the past week. I’ve also tried to make a point to not use it during meal times and to be more present when I’m spending time with my family.

I will leave you with some questions.

1.  How much time do you spend using your phone each day? (I’m sure there is an  app for it –haha!)

 2. How much of that time that you spend on your phone could you be doing something more fulfilling?

3. How much time do you spend on your phone when you could/should be resting?

Here are some challenges.

1.     Put your phone down at all meal times, even if you are alone.

2.     When you feel tempted to pick up your phone for idle down time, do something else instead.  (play with your child,  pet your dog, knit, crochet, read, journal, sit outside, exercise, etc)

3.     Block out a certain time of your day to respond to emails or to play on your phone. If you are not in that window of time, don’t grab it.

4.     Don’t take your phone to bed with you. (I actually use mine as an alarm, so I will be putting my on my nightstand.)

5.     Utilize the “Do Not Disturb” feature on your iphone. It can be found under settings.

6.     Turn off notifications that are not imperative. (Games, social media, etc).

7.     Put your phone away when you are visiting with another person. Give them your full attention. 

Peace out, friends. May you have a day full of life and memories.