Out Of Order

26 Years On December 27, 2016, I celebrated my birthday with my housemates. It was my first birthday away from my mom and sister and my first birthday in California. We went to a Denny's and I had a yummy veggie and egg dish, it was great! I enjoyed a sweet hot chocolate and went down memory lane and purchased a snack that my mom and I used to share, Chick-O-Stick . I didn't enjoy it as much as I had when I was a child but it brought back warm memories. I was made to feel so loved by those with whom I live and it was just a great time. As part of their family tradition, I awakened to printed out posters of birthday greetings practically all over the house! It was beautiful and I am so thankful to God for 26 years! I have realized this year that I have actually made accomplishments worthy of recognition, if only by myself and I am so excited for the ones I will make in 2017. If I had been told last year this time that by the time I was 26, I would be living comfortably in...

What gift can I bring to the King First off, Merry Christmas everyone!!! Yay!! Yes!! Woo!!  Yesterday my church (C3 Church) had an amazing service for Christmas Eve. There was caroling and amazing worship and a great message about offering our gifts to God. And that's such a needed word for us. What is your gift? What is that thing that you can offer to Jesus? The wise men came to the newborn Jesus and presented different gifts to Him. They didn't all bring the same thing but gave what they had. What can you give to Jesus today in honor of His birth and the Ultimate Gift which He has given, Himself? God has given all of us gifts and abilities which we can use to honor Him and bring His name glory. For instance, I have been blessed with an incredible ability to write and create stories and worlds using words. Whether it's in my songs or books, I use this gift to bring God praise, I give this talent back to the King. This is what God has given me and I don't have to ...

Keeping my trust in the right place I was pulled into my boss' office after work today and after we had chit chatted a bit (she's such a chill boss), we got down to business. Before I go on to share what came next, let me back up some. So lately I have been... concerned with how I am going to afford saving money and pay rent as well as other expenses. I haven't been too worried about it but it is a genuine concern. I don't want to get another job because I really like this one but I was a little frustrated with the amount I was bringing in every other week. I applied for another position within this same company but I was unqualified for it. It stung a bit but I agreed with decision. But how am I going to save now? That new position started at a way higher wage and would be perfect. I talked to my mom about how I felt and she encouraged me as only she could. Since then, I've been in an off and on restful place concerning having enough money for needs and wants...

But way too hot So here is my obligatory post about the conflicts of Christmastime and eating disorders. I am struggling to keep my focus on the Reason for the Season  and am finding it to be so torturous engaging in the mealtime festivities. I have been able to engage in the meals but distracting myself afterwards is getting increasingly harder. The aftermath is rough. I have another Christmas party coming up and I don't know how much more I can take. It's as if we just had the Thanksgiving feast and now I'm going to all these Christmas ones. I'm feeling really tired and drained from these meals when I know I shouldn't. Ugh . I have been enjoying the company of those around whom I've been but I've still been very distracted. It definitely helps to focus on the birth of Jesus and why we celebrate (if you're a Christian) but it's very hard to do with all this extra noise in my head. There were even very brief times  this month where I felt a sma...

Be hope. Be hospitable. Cinnamon boiling on the stove. The succulent aroma of homemade sweet potato pie. Carols playing throughout the house. This is Christmas to me. My Christmas this year is going to be very different now that I'm away from my family. I'm going to have to do some major adjusting to what will be my very first Christmas (and birthday) without my mom and sister present. While it's going to be very different, thankfully I'm not going to be alone for this beautiful holiday. I'll be celebrating with the warm and lovely people with whom I share a house. I have been very blessed and am very grateful to have housemates who practice hospitality. That brings me to the amazing message at church this morning. It wasn't too deep nor was it full of hard to understand Biblical jargon. It was easy to get and put into practice. The message was about hospitality. Christmastime is a time where others so often open their homes to friends and family and maybe...

And gifts are for unwrapping This morning, one of my pastors at church was talking about allowing God to unwrap us. He was drawing from John 11:38-44 and was really hitting on a lot of heart places. He spoke of how after Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead, Jesus told the family and friends of Lazarus to unwrap him. He told them to take off his grave clothes and then let him go free. Pastor Jurgen explained that when one comes to Jesus and makes that decision to follow Him , spiritually we are free. We are no longer going to be found dead in sin and we are no longer under the control of death, meaning our spirits will find eternal rest in Heaven at the end of days. But , we still have to be freed from everything else, such as our earthly constraints. He went on to say that we need unwrapping after coming to Jesus because we are still wrapped in where we just came from. Places like abuse or divorce begin to wrap us up and bind us in ways that make it difficult for God to use u...

When "can" becomes "must" I saw a post online about how people with eds heard the phrase, "you can be anything you want" and interpreted it as, "you have to be everything ". That's definitely true for me. Because of my personality, I feel a lot of pressure to "be everything" for people. Not only because of my genuine desire to help people but also due to my perfectionistic tendencies will I interpret "cans" to "musts". I'll give the example of what happened earlier this week. I was talking to my mom on my way to work and I shared that I didn't know if I was making a difference in my kids' lives. I was upset because, well, if I wasn't making a difference, why was I there? My mom said something to me that blew my mind. She told me that I didn't have to (nor should I try to) make a difference in every child's life. What?! I don't have to try and impact every single child's ...

Ouch First off, my goal for the rest of this year and into the new year for my blog is to publish at least one post every Sunday. I want to increase the traffic to this blog and I need to step up my post game. Also, I typically choose a picture to represent the topic of my post but being that Christmas is weeks away, every picture from here on out will only reflect Christmas and my obsession with it... And I'm okay with that. Okay, so moving on... Christianity as a mask. You know how some people dive into work to avoid problems in their lives? How they just become obsessed with work and ignore what's eating at them? That's what I did with Jesus. At the time when I was 17, which is when I feel these behaviors began to really morph into the abuser know as ED, I paid no mind to what my emotions were screaming at me (which I didn't even realize at the time) and only focused on my relationship with Jesus. This was NOT a good thing. To all my seasoned saints out there,...

    Happy December 1st So it's finally December and it feels as if it's taken forever to get here lol. My birthday is at the end of this month and I'm not dreading it at all. This is probably the first year where I am looking forward to and feeling proud of that date. I made a huge move across the U.S. alone and since then have taken on so many adventures. I'm super proud of that! I have a car and a job I really like and I'm slowly but surely saving money to move out of my roommate's and on my own (or with my sister, whichever happens first). I feel like I can finally be proud of myself and feel as though I've accomplished something... and all before I turned 26. I noticed something earlier today, though. Even though I really do feel so great with what I've accomplished this year, I had negative thoughts pop up questioning my pride in what I've done. But what about this thing about you? What about that? What about these other areas you have ...