I Read Too Much

One of the devotionals I read recently talked about the most effective tool in the enemy's toolbox.  This tool is one common to everyone and one that debilitates, to some degree, all who pick it up or even happen upon in.  I hate to admit the number of times, I too, have fallen to the pull of this tool.  To be honest, I've been holding it firmly in my hands with a white-knuckled grip lately.  This tool and I have gotten to know each other.  There are some days where I can't see how life could function any other way.  Then there are days where the freedom of a victory causes me to set the tool down and walk in the blessed assurance that all is right and good in my life. Discouragement is a mighty tool of the enemy.  People I am so discouraged right now.  It feels like one step forward and two steps back with things. In fact, I have begun to question whether having goals and dreams and desires is even worthwhile.  Most especially when I am tr...

There comes a time in life where you expect to have finally arrived.  What that arrival looks like for you is wholly dependent upon the thing(s) that drive you.  Me, I wanted to have a career I cared about and a feeling of self-worth.  Before you click off and chose something else to read, hear me out on this.  I have long maintained my favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastes; it still is.  I love that book for a myriad of reasons, but most of all because the author got it.  He just did.  Solomon was a great guy.  He had more wisdom than anyone else in all of history and yet still had issues.  I love the story of how he became the wisest person to ever be.  When he came into power, so-to-speak, the Lord asked him to name whatever it was that he wanted.  He could have the cattle on 1000 hills, he could be stronger than any man alive, he could, well, be anyone and anything.  Instead, he, in all his humbleness, simply asked for...

I didn't get this post typed up yesterday.  Between church, taking the Little shopping so they could spend their Christmas $$  from their Aunt Jacqui, coming home to play games, and enjoying our first afternoon with the Mr. who just started 1st shift yesterday!!! As an officer, he doesn't get the holiday's off like the rest of us, but as we tell everyone, the bad guys don't take time off...LOL! Instead of finding a writing topic from one of my Pinterest lists, I thought I would share with you the notes I took at church yesterday.  It was an amazing service filled with an abundance of tears and 'amens'. I just love when you can feel the Holy Spirit move a room.  It is a blessing I wish everyone would feel and/or acknowledge. Naturally, the message was centered around the new year, resolutions of a sort, and becoming all that God designed you to be.  The verses the message was centered on are from the Old Testament - 2 Samual 23:8-12 & 20.  If your Bi...

It's been a while.  Oh, I've been here behind this monitor pounding away fervently at this well worn keyboard, but the words I've been bringing to life haven't been the ones meant for you.  I am happy to report I am three weeks away from completing a life-long goal.  I don't know when I last shared it or if I've shared it at all, but my dream, the one I've had since I was a little girl - a little girl who was so full of hope and wonder and belief in dreams and them coming true - is to become a teacher. Sure I've had opportunities over the years to teach and train and grow and inform others, but never as a career. Never in a school.  Never in a way that I've wanted to for as long as I can remember.  We'll start there. I have so many friends that still, at our ages, don't know what they want to be when they "grow" up.  They don't know what kind of work would make their hearts soar, that would bring joy to their hearts. Ar...

This past Sunday at church Pastor gave a message called "This New Year."  As the week has unfolded and I've ready many, many Facebook posts regarding resolutions and changes people want to make, coupled with all the challenges that my running groups have put out there, I have decided I'm not making a resolution.  It isn't that I don't think I need goals or changes in my life, we all do.  Each and everyone of us need a goal and change.  We need the discipline that a good goal creates and the necessary pain that change gives.  Now, don't misunderstand what I am saying, change for change's sake isn't good, but I think if you were to look deep  you'd find one thing.  I know I have.  Allow me to explain. Year's ago, when I had my first interview for a promotion with my company, I was taken aback by a question the manager asked.  I should tell you that I am a very outspoken person (no, it's true!) and in some circumstances, like when I'...

I run.  I run miles and miles and miles.  I'd like to say that I do it because I want to be a contender for the Boston Marathon, but I don't.  I run because when I am overwhelmed it is the one way I release that pent up energy.  This energy I speak of isn't always from having it to burn, but from an over abundance of feeling that I cannot get through.  Some people, like the one that I love, work with their hands, brute physical force, it is what they use to get through the feelings.  They can channel all that emotion and make beautiful things.  Me, I run. I'd like to say I'm making a beautiful thing.  Perhaps changing my shape could become that thing, but right now, it is a way to let go of the emotion that controls my life.  And it does.  I have been taken over by my emotions.  I had these in those early days and months.  Those days where I started to channel the energy into working out and getting healthier.  The healt...

I did it!  I finished one of my goals.  I took a giant step towards the first day of the rest of my life.  I finished my degree.  What started with small steps, one to two classes at a time, at a traditional college, ended with a runner's sprint to the finish line at a school with a program geared towards working adults/professionals.  All I can say is - where was this school all those years ago?!  Despite the time it took to finish this goal, I can say one thing with certainty; it came at the exact time it needed to, at a precise moment in time.  I knew this was going to be a year of many firsts.  Truth, I've already experienced a lot of them.  So far, this is my favorite!  And it isn't so much the completion of this goal that makes it so.  No, it is all the love and encouragement that I received for accomplishing this goal.  You really need to know - I am so blessed.  I have the most amazing group of people I g...