I'm back from a writing hiatus and ready to blog again. Thing is, there are SO many different things I want to write about. I'm a wife, mom, nurse and a girl who likes hair, wants to learn how to do makeup, I'm into sports, cooking, the list goes on and on and on.... So how do you fit all that in to one blog? I tend to write about God and reflect on the Word and I will continue to do so but I, like ever other woman, am a multifaceted person. So feel free to follow. If it's the inspirational posts you like-great! Follow those. If it's hair or cooking-great! But I'm going to keep it all in one spot. Here's the address http://purposewithpassion.blogspot.com/ see you there.
D
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Pinterest, YouTube, facebook and Real Life
I look at pretty things. I watch tutorials. I love hair and am embarking on the journey of locs for myself. I pin pictures of all things Devyn. But in real life, I'm plain. Why is my internet self so colorful, brilliant and artististic while I am so....normal?
I get up in the morning, fumble until I find my glasses which I never put in the same place, make coffee or tea and proceed to cook breakfast in a robe that resembles a Snuggie with a house dress underneath and slippers. I wonder what the virtual me would be doing? Soaking in a tub three stories in the air watching the sunrise....holding her breath underwater and popping up with a huge gasp for air and laughing out loud at herself.... her life and my life are nothing alike.
Nor are they mutually exclusive. It's me that chooses what's pinworthy. It's me that takes such intricate hair tutorials and does the rushed version on myself. It's really me who admires my own home, while not as creative as what I fantasize about online-it's still art.
For instance there is a pile of pistachio shells next to me right now. Why? Because I have a bowl of pistachios on the table and when I shell them I'm not thinking. They become this growing pile of evidence that as type A as I can be-I'm also carefree. There's a boy on my couch watching Cats & Dogs and even though it's a school morning and quite early, I don't mind. I enjoy Kitty Galore singing, "I'm coming up! So you better get this party started!" This is my life. It's not perfectly tucked and polished. But it's still beautiful.
In fact, it's a beauty that cannot be replicated. It can't be copied and slightly altered to tailor another's style or personality. There can only be one me. I'm not a picture or a song or a video. I could never be summed up in a word or catchy phrase. So why then when I browse the internet do I find myself feeling these twinges of jealousy-my hair will never look like that...I could never afford to decorate that way...-feelings of 'if only....'
More often than I'd like, I close my laptop with an idea that as much as I try to run with, she gets in the way. The real me. The one with children who interrupt her train of thought. And instead of having the discipline to stay on task, she welcomes their questions, needs, curiosities and even interrupts herself to parent, take phone calls and other silly things like use the bathroom. No one online is going to the bathroom.
This morning and this year I want to celebrate my real life. All the things that make me, me. The present contributions to the parts of who I am. Sure, I have wants, goals and dreams-but if we stay focused on the future, the what ifs and if onlys-we may miss or worse despise the present. This morning I'm deciding that I don't want to be her. I like her. I admire things about her. I enjoy browsing her albums, statuses, pictures and videos-but she is missing something so precious and intangible that it can't be captured in any of the aforementioned-breath. You can't take a picture of it. You can't describe it. You can't teach someone how to do-it-yourself. We all have it. In different rhythms and depths and tastes depending on what we're doing. Doing. Living. Breathing.
Celebrate your reality.
D
I get up in the morning, fumble until I find my glasses which I never put in the same place, make coffee or tea and proceed to cook breakfast in a robe that resembles a Snuggie with a house dress underneath and slippers. I wonder what the virtual me would be doing? Soaking in a tub three stories in the air watching the sunrise....holding her breath underwater and popping up with a huge gasp for air and laughing out loud at herself.... her life and my life are nothing alike.
Nor are they mutually exclusive. It's me that chooses what's pinworthy. It's me that takes such intricate hair tutorials and does the rushed version on myself. It's really me who admires my own home, while not as creative as what I fantasize about online-it's still art.
For instance there is a pile of pistachio shells next to me right now. Why? Because I have a bowl of pistachios on the table and when I shell them I'm not thinking. They become this growing pile of evidence that as type A as I can be-I'm also carefree. There's a boy on my couch watching Cats & Dogs and even though it's a school morning and quite early, I don't mind. I enjoy Kitty Galore singing, "I'm coming up! So you better get this party started!" This is my life. It's not perfectly tucked and polished. But it's still beautiful.
In fact, it's a beauty that cannot be replicated. It can't be copied and slightly altered to tailor another's style or personality. There can only be one me. I'm not a picture or a song or a video. I could never be summed up in a word or catchy phrase. So why then when I browse the internet do I find myself feeling these twinges of jealousy-my hair will never look like that...I could never afford to decorate that way...-feelings of 'if only....'
More often than I'd like, I close my laptop with an idea that as much as I try to run with, she gets in the way. The real me. The one with children who interrupt her train of thought. And instead of having the discipline to stay on task, she welcomes their questions, needs, curiosities and even interrupts herself to parent, take phone calls and other silly things like use the bathroom. No one online is going to the bathroom.
This morning and this year I want to celebrate my real life. All the things that make me, me. The present contributions to the parts of who I am. Sure, I have wants, goals and dreams-but if we stay focused on the future, the what ifs and if onlys-we may miss or worse despise the present. This morning I'm deciding that I don't want to be her. I like her. I admire things about her. I enjoy browsing her albums, statuses, pictures and videos-but she is missing something so precious and intangible that it can't be captured in any of the aforementioned-breath. You can't take a picture of it. You can't describe it. You can't teach someone how to do-it-yourself. We all have it. In different rhythms and depths and tastes depending on what we're doing. Doing. Living. Breathing.
Celebrate your reality.
D
Sunday, January 1, 2012
I Am Resolved
Happy New Year!! This year I start out different than many years previous. Instead of resolving, I came into 2012 resolved. Resolved as in Priscilla Shirer's book inspired by the movie Courageous, The Resolution for Women. There are 13 resolutions in the book. Statements that may sound to some like resolutions but the idea isn't try, it is to be.
After completing the One in a Million women's bible study also by Priscilla Shirer, I felt settled in my spirit that the abundant life Jesus Christ came to give us was in fact for me. The distinction may seem small but the significance is huge. The promises of God are for those who believe that He is and as my pastor so passionately illustrated at this morning's service, those who will couple their love of God with fear.
Having been in the Word my entire life, it is harder for me to go against the Holy Spirit than to submit. That said, it doesn't mean I haven't done it-more often that I'd like to admit. But with disobedience came an internal struggle, a near torture of self-condemnation because the fact that I knew I was saying/doing/meditating on things that were out of alignment with the Word God's free forgiveness was hard to ask for.
You don't slap someone in the face and immediately ask for forgiveness. First you're arrested for assault. Then you receive a court date. Then you're sentenced and/or fined. You PAY for mistakes. There's a process to returning to right standing.
Time out for processes. Time out for so-called mistakes. Time in for being fully persuaded. Time in for being resolved. For acting like a child of God instead of just calling ourselves one.
The Resolution for Women is just that. A bold declaration that we will be God's daughters. Period.
I have not finished the book but I have read and reread the resolutions. I am resolved and praying for more of God's women to become fully persuaded, to resolve within themselves that we already are who God says we are and to step out in that.
Just because a car is sitting in a driveway doesn't mean it's not a car-it's just not doing what it was created to do-drive. I started revving up in 2011 and now it's time to drive. I hope the road ahead isn't a lonely one; I hope to come across and build relationships with more resolved women, but if it is, so be it.
*For more information about The Resolution for Women, visit http://www.goingbeyond.com/
After completing the One in a Million women's bible study also by Priscilla Shirer, I felt settled in my spirit that the abundant life Jesus Christ came to give us was in fact for me. The distinction may seem small but the significance is huge. The promises of God are for those who believe that He is and as my pastor so passionately illustrated at this morning's service, those who will couple their love of God with fear.
Having been in the Word my entire life, it is harder for me to go against the Holy Spirit than to submit. That said, it doesn't mean I haven't done it-more often that I'd like to admit. But with disobedience came an internal struggle, a near torture of self-condemnation because the fact that I knew I was saying/doing/meditating on things that were out of alignment with the Word God's free forgiveness was hard to ask for.
You don't slap someone in the face and immediately ask for forgiveness. First you're arrested for assault. Then you receive a court date. Then you're sentenced and/or fined. You PAY for mistakes. There's a process to returning to right standing.
Time out for processes. Time out for so-called mistakes. Time in for being fully persuaded. Time in for being resolved. For acting like a child of God instead of just calling ourselves one.
The Resolution for Women is just that. A bold declaration that we will be God's daughters. Period.
I have not finished the book but I have read and reread the resolutions. I am resolved and praying for more of God's women to become fully persuaded, to resolve within themselves that we already are who God says we are and to step out in that.
Just because a car is sitting in a driveway doesn't mean it's not a car-it's just not doing what it was created to do-drive. I started revving up in 2011 and now it's time to drive. I hope the road ahead isn't a lonely one; I hope to come across and build relationships with more resolved women, but if it is, so be it.
*For more information about The Resolution for Women, visit http://www.goingbeyond.com/
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