Category: Uncategorized

Monday Mid-day

Monday Mid-day pick-me-up time!

A song:

A verse:


“‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the strong man of his strength, or the rich man of his riches; but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 9:24

and a pretty picture:

Monday is half-way done! You can do it 🙂

Happiness Project

Reading The Happiness Project, and happened to check out the Happiness Issue of Whole Living magazine at the same time at the library. Didn’t even know it! I went for a post-rain walk, gave myself a foot soak, and read a bit while sipping some chamomile tea. Then Skype-d with the boy, who told me that if he were here he’d be giving me hugs and kisses because I had on that cute little smile. I’d call that a pretty good night!

Easy Lunch

No time for outfit posts yet….but I’m working from home this morning and put together a quick lunch I thought I’d share. This salad is my favorite pizza toppings made into a salad. My favorite toppings are pepperoni and black olives, usually with onions. The salad is: organic salad mix, mini pepperoni, freshly sliced mozzarella from a block, Sabra greek olive hummus (my new favorite) and organic buttermilk ranch dressing. Easy and delish! On the side: peach iced tea in a canning jar, with an awesome striped straw. That oughta keep me going for the rest of the afternoon!

Have a beautiful first day of June, loves!

We Need Your Perfect Love

“Oh, great and mighty One, with one desire we come: that You, that You would reign in us! We’re offering up our lives, a living sacrifice….We need Your perfect love…that Your love would define us.”
Please, Oh Lord, reign in us!!! To let your PERFECT LOVE DEFINE US, that the world may know You reign! Amen. Amen!!

Cutest Thing

As my Japanese friend said this morning to me after I showed her this, “This is the cutest thing to see!”:

i

I love the caption. “Ballet is hard.” Haha. Makes me reminisce fondly of my ballet days 🙂

Most Days

TRUTH: Most days, we’re all just trying to get through the day. 

 (disclaimer: this is gonna be long, but stick with my two-fold thought here)

Some of us ate burnt toast for breakfast and spend the whole day giving in to that bitterness. Some of us have just suffered some greatly unfair injustice and we are battling the entire day, fighting back tooth and nail at anyone who crosses our path. Some of us have spent the night awake, sobbing, at what the world has taken from us….and we spend the entire day taking from others to fill our emptiness. Some of us have just realized what it means to be utterly alone, utterly terrified, utterly exhausted, utterly disappointed, utterly at rock bottom.

So I urge you, myself included: Be humble. Be patient. Be a servant of the world, like Jesus was, metaphorically ‘washing the feet’ of those you meet. All those you meet. Burnt-toast-taking-from-you-utterly-exhasuted people included (and yes, sometimes we are all of those combined). You are that person some days. I am that person some days.

And when you are, how about instead: Fight against the bitterness. Fight against the fighting. Fight against the taking. Let that light of Jesus Christ shine in you, so that the world knows we’re different. We are different. We must be different. It hurts sometimes, I know. And others will criticize. How can you be so chipper in the face of this? It seems wrong to be so happy when something so terrible happened. God convicted me of that myself not too long ago. But the peace of God passes all understanding.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 

That first verse there is my favorite Bible verse. Rejoice in the Lord always! Let your gentleness be evident to all. Do not be anxious about anything…in every situation…with thanksgiving…and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds. I think my earthly mind was just blown. That sounds way too difficult, not gonna lie. But look: the heart is the wellspring of life, the Bible tells us.

23 Above all else, guard your heart,
   for everything you do flows from it. 
or, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Proverbs 4:23

Wow! He will do that for us, He will guard our hearts if we pray to Him with thanksgiving. He will protect our hearts and minds with His peace that passes all understanding. He will protect our very lives….everything that we do.
Trust me, all of this goes against my nature. Ohhhhh, how some of this goes against my nature! When I’m mad or sad or upset, I want to either be mad and upset totally alone, wallowing…I’m a really good wallower (word?). Or I want the whole world to be as mad or sad as I am. It only seems fair! It seems justifiable to feel that way; natural, even. I’m also really good at passing judgement. Oops. Fail. But here’s the thing: God is a God of different, a God of mercy, and a God of supernatural.

So then.
What’s that burning rubber smell? Anyone else getting that?
That, my dear friends, is the rubber meeting the road.

Time to Decide

“Stoplights, breakdown, we cry, last try
Worlds collide, time to decide
Where you want to go in this great big world
Where you want to go in this great big world
Stuck here too long in this sad song
Lost on a street, everyone has
Vanished and you’re all alone
But you don’t know where to go
Yeah you’re all alone
And you want to go home
Run just as fast as you can
Run, ’til you reach the end
Where the fallen finally land
And your world starts over again
Run”
Style Secrets
Rose earrings: F21
Dress: Charlotte Russe
Cardi: Target, borrowed from mom
Belt: Charlotte Russe (came with dress)
Heels: Ann Taylor

Note to Self

This is a note to my grumpy self this morning.

Let’s talk about how fabulous you think I am…

Kidding, of course. But we ARE to be like a city on a Hill, shining the light of Jesus into every dark corner (and to every rude waitress who gets your gluten-free order wrong, and on every rainy Sunday when you’d rather stay home and snuggle up). 
“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven.” ~Matthew 5:16
See, the main thing is the light has to point back to God. For within us, without the Holy Spirit, there isn’t much in the way of light. It’s pretty grimy and gritty in there. And that light is what separates us from the rest of the world. It’s what points others to God…that’s a pretty big responsibility. Especially in the face of waitresses who get your gluten free order wrong for the third time and on rainy Sundays when you’d rather stay home and snuggle up and sleep.

I’m a Rebel

 I now own a Canon Rebel T2i camera, and it is truly humbling me. I feel like it’s this huge gift and responsibility I’ve been entrusted with… I have no idea how to best do that. There’s a deep desire within me to be a good steward of this camera. To use it well, for good, to be generous and loving with how I use this gift. But first, I need to learn how to use it.

Well, actually, the strap was nekkie. So to procrastinate learning how to properly work my camera, I decided to make it pretty instead. That is just so me, isn’t it? Doing the least-necessary pretty little thing first. It’s my life M.O. Guess I need to learn how to make dishes and laundry pretty. Then maybe I’ll do them (apartment is a major disaster zone after being sick all week).

Also note: if your name is Stephanie and you’re my sister-in-law, a version of this might be coming your way for Christmas. Just sayin’. Only yours will be better because it won’t be the first one I’ve made 😛

Update: Post edited because I still have a cold and I was up early and apparently can’t function properly. Sheesh.

Falling in Love

It’s springtime. It’s almost wonderful summer….and it seems so romantic, doesn’t it? The miracle of spring just fills my heart to overflowing with a longing for love.

I have a confession to make: I want to fall in love. I need to fall in love. Better, deeper, for real. God calls me to His love. He calls to me, He whispers to me…He longs to be closer to me. And God’s love for us, His relationship with us, is all mirrored on a small scale in our human relationships.

So let me be honest for a minute. Let me be real: My boyfriend and I haven’t said “I love you” yet. It’s been 9 months, but we’ve made a conscious decision not to say it until…well, until we are ready to abide by all that loving someone means. The Bible has a pretty sobering description of love:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  8 Love never fails. ~1 Corin. 13
Yep. Sobering. And I wonder…how can you say to someone, “l love you” unless it involves constantly striving to encompass all of those things? To do so would be to defraud the love of God! God is the only one who can love that perfectly. But the problem still remains for us here on Earth: we are descendents of Adam & Eve. Sinful from the get-go. Having to overcome impatience, meanness, envy, boasting, pride, selfishness, record-keeping, delighting in evil….and the list goes on. Darnet, I thought loving someone was supposed to be easy! 😛
How can I fall in earthly love, until I’ve fallen in Heavenly love? I can’t know how to love the way God intends until I’ve fully immersed myself in His love. So yes, I want to fall in love. I need to fall in love. Better, deeper, for real. To abandon my heart to the God of Love. To the only One who gets it perfect…who gets it right, who will never abandon me. I need to be secure enough in that love, because people I love in this life will disappoint me. Even more so, I will disappoint them. But to love God more and more perfectly (only through His grace) will make me more thoroughly aware of how well I am living in love here on Earth.
And that, my dear friends, is what it’s all about. And it’s so much easier said than done.