Apr 9, 2015 | Everyday Life, Faith
I started writing this post last year. It was a time in my life where I had graduated college, didn’t have a job and had plenty of bills to pay. It was a hard time in my life, but I think it’s a time that A LOT of people go through – whether it’s right after college or after many years of being in the workforce. And either way, it’s not easy. BUT be encouraged, friends. It gets better. I finished it up today with where I currently am. Here’s my story.
I’ve started writing this post so many times. But it’s hard and normally I don’t do that kind of stuff. I brush it off and wait for it to pass but that is not how God is glorified. He is glorified in our hardest moments, the nitty gritty ones where we have to surrender to Him, completely. The ones where we wrongly question His sovereignty and His plan even though He continually prevails time and time again. I have been doing a Bible study with She Reads Truth and last night I read:
Have you ever asked for prayer simply because you could not pray on your own? Have you ever uttered “pray for me” and meant “pray instead of me, because I just can’t do it”?
If prayer is a picture of believers lifting one another before the Lord, then there are times I have been full-on carried. Not just walked beside or agreed with, but picked up from the pit and held high before the Lord, my spiritual self limp and lifeless, in need of the life-breath from my Savior. It’s a metaphor that sounds melodramatic until you’re in the thick of it, too spent to sigh another “please” or “amen”.
And maybe not having a full-time job wasn’t that bad, but the questions, assumptions and rejection letters built up. I had applied for over 40 jobs since I started looking and of those, I had only heard back from five (well, unless we are counting rejections too…but let’s not go there). I had whispered the words, “pray for this one” as I began applications and phone interviews.
Two years ago, I was prompted by God to change my major and I know that in following His plan for my life, He will be glorified. But still I waited. I began to wonder where God was and why I had even listened to him anyway. Maybe I should have just stuck with math and hopefully had a better outcome. Maybe I had heard Him wrong after all! A lot of self-doubt crept in.
When I finally got my interview a few months later, it felt like my only chance. And of course, I jumped at it. At first, I loved it but slowly I started to fall into the every day pace and the retail-type hours were really getting me down. I worked later in the day and didn’t have two consecutive days off. I realize that this is reality for a LOT of people, but it it bothered me enough to do something about it. So I did. I had a few friends who told me about how much they loved their jobs and that I should get on there. I was very interested and asked one friend forward my resume to the HR department. A few weeks later, I heard back that they wanted to have a casual conversation about the positions that they were hiring for. The week before our wedding, I was offered the job.
As soon as we got back from the honeymoon, I had my first day. We did all kinds of fun orientation type stuff and I just knew from the beginning that this is where I’m supposed to be. For the next few weeks, I spent all of my time in and out of the office studying for the big SAFE test so that I could become a Mortgage Loan Originator. I felt really great about it and had never studied harder for an exam.
It was during these weeks that I wrote the Be Still post. I wanted to remind myself that “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still“. I knew that if it was God’s will for me to pass, I would. If not, I wouldn’t.
At the test, they wave a metal detector around you and it’s all pretty intense. But I went through the test question by question with a growing fear that I don’t know enough questions to get a passing score. I prayed. As I submitted it, I held my breath. A big fat “FAIL” showed up.
REALLY!? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?
On the drive back home, all of the self doubt came flooding back. What would I do now? What if I lost my job? I thought this is where I was supposed to be. And mainly, how could I have studied for over 125 hours and still fail? I prayed. And I waited.
I got a call the next morning, they asked if I would be interested in another job in the company that did not require this license. YES YES YES. Of course. Like I said, even up to this point I completely thought that this was where I was supposed to be. And that’s when I realized. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a loan originator at all. I ended up having an interview that very same day and was given the job on the spot.
I started Monday.
Maybe it’s humiliating and scary to post this for the entire world to see, but maybe it will encourage someone. Or maybe sometime in the future, I’ll need to come back to this again. To come back and remember that God is sovereign and His plan is good.
So, future me (and everyone else reading this), know that no matter what you are waiting for, expect it to be downright hard. It’s hard not to complain, to doubt and to worry but I’m learning that those things are harmful to yourself and to your testimony. You can’t be serving God fully if you are caught up on waiting around for the perfect job, the next phone call or an email reply. Instead, you need to pray hard and listen closely – God’s plan is always good.
Dec 12, 2014 | Everyday Life
She believes that books are sacred time traveling agents.
She believes that joy is something worth seeking every single day, all she has to do is be thankful.
She believes that yeses have more power when there are also nos.
She believes that imagination can make simple tasks more exciting.
She believes in early morning productivity, chai tea, and late night conversations. And naps, always naps.
She believes in savoring each moment and freezing time with photographs.
She believes in buying herself flowers and going out of her way for self care.
She believes in being imperfect and making ugly art on purpose.
She believes in having five journals at a time and writing her feelings.
She believes that creating art is a form of worship to the Artist, Himself.
She believes that a good night’s sleep is a dream come true.
She believes that a smile is the best accessory.
She believes that leaves falling and crunching make the happiest walks.
She believes in learning and improving daily, in challenging herself.
She believes that bad days are a reminder to be thankful for the good ones.
Sep 29, 2014 | Everyday Life
I have a hard time believing that a non-creative person exists. I mean, creativity comes in all forms and looks completely different for each person. Without creative people, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist – no musicians, no designers, no entrepreneurs, no engineers, no architects, no doctors…and the list goes on. If you are a problem solver, art-maker, hobby-haver, communicator, or thinker then you are a creative person.
Even everyday conversations require creativity to use combinations of words and phrases together! One of the most fascinating things is to eavesdrop on a conversation and compare what you would have said to what the eavesdropee is saying. (If this isn’t a thing that people do, then let’s pretend I didn’t just admit to eavesdropping.)
Here are a few tips to unleash your creativity:
- Try something new. If you want to be a painter, you can be! All you have to do is start painting – that’s it.
- Just Start. Go ahead and begin a project. Realize that if you mess up or if what you’re working on isn’t up to your standards, you’re in a better place than if you wouldn’t have started at all because now at least you know what doesn’t work!
- Practice makes perfect. So maybe you don’t believe in perfect, per-se, but my parents used to say this all the time in relation to not just being able to expect yourself to be good at something the first time. It’s a shame I threw away the hundred pages I first tried calligraphy on, because if that wasn’t the epitome of that saying, I don’t know what is.
- Use inspiration. Sparingly. This is a toughy. Inspiration is great and can help you get some fantastic ideas just be careful about copying someone’s work or using a voice that’s not necessarily your own. Gather ideas and use those to formulate your plans and notes. If you do take someone else’s ideas verbatim, you definitely need to site where you found it.
- Get ideas flowing. Start by warming up for five minutes. This can be anything from writing a timed journal entry to free playing on your guitar while making up words, to taking a walk, to combining colors, themes and patterns to create a “mood board”. I like to listen to music I don’t know the words to when I am painting, this helps me to focus on the paint and strokes while also having some background noise.
- Make lists. What are your goals – both big and little? Ticking them off as you go will help you feel more productive. Lists can also be used to reflect on projects to compare what you liked and what you didn’t so that you will can improve next time.
- Set deadlines. Force yourself to finish something. This is one of the greatest lessons that I have learned from Get Messy in the past nine weeks. The time crunch holds me accountable and gets the creativeness going even when I’m tired or want to do something else.
- Bounce ideas off an expert. Find someone who is creative in a way that you connect with and ask them questions. See what there creative process is like and how each project is executed.
- Don’t be afraid to be embarrassed. Some of my worst projects have been posted right here on this blog and even though I hated posting it, I love looking back on it to see how much my art work has changed. Even the photos in some of my very first blog posts are a mess, but the journey is oh-so lovely. This is what pushes me to keep practicing.
- Overcome self-negativity. This one’s obvious. The more you put yourself down or tell yourself that you can’t do something, the more you won’t want to (or be able to) do something.
- Save it. If you’re stuck and your project doesn’t seem complete, let it sit around in a place you will see it for a few days. Let your brain think of it in the background and see if you can’t come up with something to add or change to make your project better.
- Scrap it. It’s not practical to think that every single project/hobby will be “your thing”. Do what you love and scrap what you don’t.
Try something new and let me know how it goes!
Jan 2, 2014 | Everyday Life, Faith
I realized at the beginning of college that God had been preparing me for Himself all my life. Little seeds that were slowly but surely being watered and nurtured. Daily He began teaching me who he is and it left me seeking more. In the fall of 2011, I proclaimed myself as a follower of Christ through baptism. It was a take-my-breath-away moment (literally, the water was freezing!) and I began to realize what following Him means.
It means that His grace and mercy are significantly more abundant than my failures. God’s forgiveness doesn’t expire, all I need to do is repent and trust Him. (Ephesians 2:4-9, Acts 3:19, Acts 16:31)
It means that God created me and in His eyes I am absolutely perfect. And nothing can change that. (Psalm 139: 13-16)
It means that He knows me better than I know myself and He has my future figured out, so I don’t have to worry about it. (Matthew 6:25-34, Jeremiah 29:11)
It means that I will find eternal life with God because He sent His son to die on the cross for my sins. (John 3:16, 1 Timothy 1:15)
It means that following Him, serving others, and forgiving won’t be easy but it will bring Him glory, and that is why I am here. (Isaiah 43:6-7, 1 Chronicles 16:23-24, Habakuk 2:14)
It means that He is always with me and apart from Him I can do nothing. (Deuteronomy 31:8, John 15:5)
I am continually in awe of my wonderful Creator. For the hope He gives and the amazing grace that I do not deserve. I am thankful that He always draws me near when life gets tough and that He takes care of my every need.
