On Depression: Everything is Not Okay, by Hannah K.  

I have been through periods of life where every day has been characterized by some kind of anxiety. Sometimes it could be seen on the surface- and sometimes my anxiety brewed more dangerously beneath the surface.  As a predominantly “happy” person, bouts of depression cause a conflict in my soul between the need to be authentic about  my struggles and the desire to maintain a cheerful exterior.  It can make asking for help all that much more difficult.  It is easy to assume that the happy, cheerful, strong person has no need of assistance and suffers no lows–but nothing could be further from the truth.

During one particular low, I felt as if my footing had literally been ripped out from under me. A series of negative events plunged me farther and farther into depression, each event seeming to follow after the other like a train of dominoes. From that place, what I wanted most was for others to recognize that everything is not okay–even if I could not always communicate how badly I felt.

“The Lord will take care of me… the Lord will take care of me… the Lord will take care of me..”  Some of my journal entries included God’s promises written over and over, as if their repetition would seal their truth in my soul. Even if their truth sometimes seemed to be undermined by fear, anxiety, and nightmares–I desired God’s Word to conquer the cynicism that had seeped into my soul in the form of depression.   

God cannot renege on his faithfulness, even if our circumstances seem to speak otherwise. It is then important not to attribute to God the negative characteristics of those that hurt us or the bad events that we have experienced.  If others lie to us, it doesn’t mean God will lie to us.  If others injure us, it does not mean God desires to harm us. No matter what the negative voice speaks to our minds during depression, none of it can be from God if it conflicts with His character that desires good for and through us.

Silencing Intimidation for The Sake of Greater Things, by Sarah. 

This has not been an easy semester, or year really, for me.
Why, you ask? Well, maybe you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway because I hate ambiguity/usually disclose more than I should.
Knowing that this is my last semester of school for now makes time pass slowly. I’ve watched my favorite professor show his true colors, my roommate leaves non-confrontational, grammatically incorrect notes on the fridge when life doesn’t suit her, I’m serving on leadership in an organization where people regularly tell me my ideas suck, and when people found out I was in a relationship they thought it was a stunt I was pulling for attention.
I’ve battled depression since I was 16, so you know, these things are definitely a piece of cake for me to process.  (Let me just sidebar here for a moment to give you a definition of “sarcasm”. . .)

Tired of combatting the speculations over my personal life and discouragement over my fundraising for Uganda, I finally had enough. I broke down and went to Starbucks as soon as I got off of work.  I sat down with a green tea lemonade, my study Bible, and what is possibly my favorite podcast.  Jesus and I needed to spend some incredibly serious time together, and it needed to be now.

Jonathan David Helser has a podcast called “Born For Greatness” that I recommend for anyone who has ever felt inadequate or scared or has taken a breath on this earth. I’ll give you the link right now (see here), and I won’t be offended if you just stop reading this right now so you can go listen.  Actually, I would rather you do that.

The thing I love about this podcast is how it opens up with a straight up spiritual punch in the face.

“The exact place you are hit with the most fear is the place you are created to do great things,”

Let that sink in with you for a moment. Read it again. Good stuff, right?
I find myself often hit with fear.  Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of falling flat on my face in front of everyone.  More recently, fear has taken shape in the form of $8,000 and the next year of my life.  After raising around $900 for the World Race, I knew the Lord was calling me to a different path.  Trusting Him and His guidance and going into serious prayer, I withdrew from the Race so that I will be able to spend five months in Uganda.  The money in my AIM account will now go to help other people who will be leaving on the World Race. Although I have people who support me in this decision and I know this is where God is leading me for this season of life, it hasn’t come without a fair share of skepticism which makes fundraising difficult.  I’m going to Uganda independent of an organization, so the fundraising is something I have to handle all on my own and so far I’ve only managed to raise $10.

With this worry on my heart, I sat down to listen to this podcast once again.  Truth ran over me in a new way, as if it were the first time I had ever heard it.

See, fear is a tool of the Enemy which he uses to intimidate us.  The Enemy has to use intimidation because otherwise he is completely, totally powerless. He can’t do anything other than intimidate us, but if we give into that intimidation then he has won.  If I allow the Enemy to intimidate me and place a yolk of fear upon me, then I’m basically telling God that I don’t trust Him to provide.  By allowing Satan to bring me down and discourage me, I’m telling God that He isn’t good, He won’t provide, and I doubt Him.
This is unacceptable.  Actually, it’s repulsive.
It’s rejecting Truth and accepting death, it’s a direct insult to God.  After stepping out in faith and telling Him that I will follow His will all the way to Uganda, if I allow fear to take over, I’m telling God that He is wrong.
No longer will I walk in that lie.  No longer will I believe that death which Satan throws at me.  Instead, I am going to step up and walk in the Truth of who the Lord has made me to be.  Why?

Because when Satan throws an obstacle in your way, Christ is right there with even greater provision.

All the Enemy can do is try to intimidate me, but if I refuse to give in then he can never win.  Instead, I’m trusting in my God who has promised me great things, who has gone before me and laid out the path, and He knows where every single dollar will come from. $8,000 is pocket change to Him.  No matter what other people think, no matter what rumors they spread or discouragement they throw at me, my God has a plan and a purpose and so much provision in store.  He has shaped my life and written my story so that He is brought the glory and TRUTH will reign. I have no reason to worry, no reason to believe the lies.

The Lord has a plan, He has a purpose, and He never stops providing.  He has made me for great things, to take His name to the nations and share His love with the world.  The love of Christ is the power to stop intimidation from the Enemy, to speak truth and life and pour out living water to every corner of the earth.  His provision is great, His love is powerful, and His Truth is constant.  Believe it, accept His crazy love for you, and walk forward in truth knowing that you were born for GREATNESS.

This post originally appeared here at Sarah’s blog, and is reprinted with permission.  *Note: in order to listen to the podcast included with this post, you may need to download Flash Player, or use Internet Explorer as your browser.

To find out more about Sarah, visit our writer’s page.  

Art Credit: Tumblr

Born To Deliver book review, by Hannah K. 

I recently had the opportunity to review a copy of Born to Deliver by Kathy Brace, with Natalie Wickham. Kathy and Natalie were kind enough to contribute a copy of this book so that our readership could be introduced to the story.  Thank you so much to the two of them for their kind offer!

One of the great qualities about this book is that it is true, which in and of itself is unusual for a book of this nature.  The writers summed up the story well in a letter they included with the book, saying that it “is a true story that shares the reality of the consequences of sexual promiscuity and chasing worldly  happiness, but also the beauty of God’s redemptive power when we surrender our hearts and lives to Him”.

Born to Deliver takes a candid look at Kathy’s personal struggles to find purpose and live by faith despite the “wreck of her past”.  I appreciated the realness of this book, which you can tell is written from a place in the author’s heart.  Nothing about this book seemed contrived, like books on the subject of redemptive love often are.  Rather, it stands out because the reader can relate to Kathy’s searching.  For example, Kathy writes, “How was I supposed to know what real love was, anyway?  I had never seen it or experienced it“. It is this desire to understand the realness of love that ultimately characterizes Kathy’s story.

This book will be meaningful to anyone who has a less than “shiny” family history.  So often it seems that stories about grace are presented as too sterile, to the point at which they no longer represent just how difficult it can be to trace God’s hand in everything.  It is my hope that readers will find that the case of Born to Deliver is different, and that the book will help women as they relate to Kathy’s hardships, and also to the unwavering grace of God.  As Kathy writes, “The love and acceptance I needed was real“.  This need is just as urgent and innate in every human being. Yet as Kathy was to discover, it’s fulfillment can be found in nothing less than the greatest love on earth.

For additional information about the book, please stop by the Born to Deliver site.  You can also purchase the book at Amazon.  Disclosure: A complimentary copy of Born to Deliver was provided to the blog editor in return for her honest review.

To find out more about Hannah K., visit our writer’s page.

Art Credit: Born to Deliver (Sibro Publishing)

Filed under: Culture, Faith, Home ]]> http://herspacioussoul.com/2013/04/15/born-to-deliver-review/feed/ 0 joyfulidealist background3 http://herspacioussoul.com/2013/03/04/nostalgia-more/ http://herspacioussoul.com/2013/03/04/nostalgia-more/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2013 02:41:29 +0000 HK http://herspacioussoul.com/?p=4029 Continue reading →]]>

Nostalgia + More, by Baylee C.  We welcome her to the blog team!

The past creeps up on me, slowly sometimes, or instead all at once.
The good, the bad, the really good, and the really bad.

It seems like a waste, to keep going back to a time that is non-existent.
If there’s no benefit to draw from it, no new lesson to be learned..why?
Yet to me, it’s incredible that we even have a memory.
A little storage compartment.
To be able to recall how I felt, how it changed me, how I feel about it now.
My memory is like a box kept under lock & key,
containing precious things and moments that matter only to me.

But is it only me? do other people feel this same way?
If these things were to all perish, which one day in the future they will,
would someone else care? would they miss those moments?
The things and time we shared?

I think they would. and to me, that matters.

I wish I could relive many times in my life,
replay them somehow with the people who care about them.

I live for the moments that I look at someone’s face and can see
they just put a moment in that little storage compartment.
They’ll find the key to that box in a smell, an image, a person.
Maybe even a song.
I live. for. that.

I don’t know why it’s so important to me.
It’s not like I want to live my life so that in the end,
I’ll possess some mental filing cabinet full of things that aren’t eternal. no.

But I’m starting to believe that those little things are glimpses of the eternal,
the things that will never pass away or perish or be forgotten.

I want to hold on to those glimpses for as long as needed.
to see what they can show me.

The glory of God is inside of those moments.
Because God is in every moment.
I can now see Him in every laugh, every star, and every person.
He is in everything and He is everything.
He is so much more than we know or can see.
He goes beyond these moments, into a place where time is no more
and these amazing, nostalgic, God-given moments
fade away in comparison to Him.

I see things the way that I do because that is how He made me,
and every one else. for the sole purpose of glorifying Him.
My prayer is that we would have our eyes opened to these glorious things,
to the glorious God who created them and loves and saves.

To find out more about Baylee, visit our writer’s page.

Art Credit: Pinterest

Finding God in Fiction, by Rachel McMillan.

One of my favourite musicians, David Crowder, penned a crafty treatise on praise where he examined how to find God in “Sushi and Sunsets”.  Crowder’s book takes a look at the things we view and experience every day- and how they, in their numerous forms, can act as a portal of worship. If we are to accept all good things as a gift from the Creator, then why shouldn’t a beautiful symphony, a painting, an exciting piece of architecture or a gourmet meal make us anything but elated and thankful?  Christians, I believe, can find God and good in many things.  For me, as a voracious reader, I find Him in fiction. Ever since I was a young girl, I loved the pastel-coloured, beautiful worlds of L.M. Montgomery.  Her critics call her penchant for long, flowery musings on nature her “purple prose”; I view her descriptors as a lens through which I can revel in the beauty of the Creator.

Montgomery was born and spent the first part of her life (with the exception of a brief sojourn in Saskatchewan), in Prince Edward Island, Canada.  Prince Edward Island is a divinely beautiful place: full of colour and natural jeweled-tones and light.  The ocean is majestic under the regal slant and scope of the red cliffs, the flora and fauna abound, tall, handcrafted lighthouses wink their lights smartly over the waves.  It is a gloriously majestic place and an obvious inspiration for an imaginative writer. Montgomery’s fiction, with the publication of Anne of Green Gables put Canada on the literary map of the world.  While it introduced a delightful creation in its eponymous heroine, it also allowed the world to steal inside of Montgomery’s brain and see the world through the telescope of her mind.  Montgomery could find beauty in everything: each season, each storm, each downward rain-pour and cold winter night. She loved finding the lovely in the everyday.  The undercurrent and thesis of many of her novels speaks to heroines finding love and romance beyond their ideals, in their own backyards, with the grounding and promise of a cherished homestead where they can hang their hearts and hats and settle home.   Montgomery, indeed, created worlds she would have loved to live in.  It was easy for her to transpose the brushstroke of nature’s painted canvas to written world it was not, however, as easy to patch together the love and family she never had.

What she lacked in familial love, however, she made up for tenfold in imagination and humour.  Montgomery had a keen and persistently observant eye for the human condition.  Anyone familiar with her works will immediately think of the industrious gossiper Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables—who is at once frustrating and endearing. Readers of the Emily of New Moon trilogy will call to mind simple and poetic cousin Jimmy who has a child-like goodness to him.  Readers of The Blue Castle will recall “Roaring” Abel Gay: the robust and hearty carpenter whose flaming-red beard and outlandish ways catch the attention and speculation of the residents of small Deerwood, Muskoka.

Montgomery populated the world of her mind’s eye with a carousel of humorous characters, uplifting anecdotes and long tomes on the glory of nature.  Unbeknownst to most readers, most of her novels were written in Ontario after Montgomery’s marriage to the Rev. Ewan MacDonald and her uprooting from PEI. Here, in the rural farmlands, far from the ocean, Montgomery would call back to mind “lover’s lane”, the “Haunted Wood”, “the Lake of Shining Waters” and all of the small, homey, personally-christened spurts of nature that would lead her path back to the ecstatic geography of her childhood.  Indeed, with the exception of The  Blue Castle (set in and around Bala, Muskoka, where Montgomery vacationed) and half of  Jane of Lantern Hill (set partly in the West End of Toronto where Montgomery ended her life), all of her novels and short stories are set on the Island of her heart.  While her life was far from ideal (she and her husband suffered from battles over publisher’s rights, the disappointing and wayward path of their eldest son, and from mental anguish, depression and anxiety treated with primitive medication), her fiction preserved the good that she was wont to find in everything.

Close readers of her work and her life writing (she left one autobiography entitled “The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career”, scrapbooks and volumes of personal journals) will easily denote the separation between Montgomery’s blissful fiction and her tragic real life. However, they will also easily recognize her potential and ability to spin yarns that will warm the hearts of her devout readers.  It is not just in the quiet romances or quaintly funny domestic scenes; but in her ability to coax readers into viewing and appreciating nature and God’s beauty in the same way she did.   She delighted in God’s creation. She believed that nature was the serene and splendid gift of a loving Creator.  Battling with religion and her role of a minister’s wife was taxing on her spiritual walk; but she never ceased believing in God and I can assume part of her steadfast belief was born of her ability to steal into nature.

I am an advocate for finding God wherever I can. When I leaf through the pages of my favourite (and very well-worn and loved Montgomery books), I see Him everywhere: in the little things —in the natural beauty and light.  Someday you may make it to the Atlantic Provinces of Canada and feel your breath stolen as mine is every time I stand near the Atlantic Ocean.  Or, perhaps, you will read a few of Montgomery’s passages and appreciate the unique and varied nature around you.   God is in everything and His brushstrokes are those of an original Master.  He doesn’t make two snowflakes exactly the same fall from the sky. In the same way, He created a world different and unique and wonderful.  “There are many different kinds of loveliness”, Barney Snaith tells Valancy in The Blue Castle, and looking at the creation around us we can easily concede this to be so.

To find out more about Rachel, visit our writer’s page. 

Art Credit: Pinterest

Thoughts on the book of Ruth and womanhood, by Rachel McMillan.

Me + The Book of Ruth= Life Long Love.

It’s a love story between God and us, a man and a woman, a mother-in-law and her daughter. It’s a love story about forging families and community in unexpected places. It is God’s fairy-tale, the Bible’s Cinderella story and, ultimately, the most Romantic tale you’ll ever hear.

In Sunday School, as a little girl, I would hear the story of Ruth and dream about growing up to marry my Boaz.  Boaz, in my mind, was the ultimate epitome of a gentleman: strong, kind, generally the Old Testament Mr. Darcy. My little heart would thud and I would think well, well into the future when I was older and finished university, when I had an apartment and a maybe a cat and Boaz would ride up on his white steed. (or, at the very least, take the empty seat adjacent mine on the subway. Most likely reading his Bible so I would know he was a real winner). I don’t have a Boaz or a cat. The subway scenario has not come to pass; but the dream of Boaz sticks strong.  More so, the goal of being a woman worthy of a Boaz sticks stronger.

I recently finished an excellent exploration of the Book of Ruth called The Girl’s Still Got It by renowned Christian writer Liz Curtis Higgs. The entire book challenged me. It also made me ridiculously giddy as Higgs delves deeply into a scripture-by-scripture study of my favourite Biblical Book. Higgs has drawn upon numerous translations, academic studies and a plenitude of historical data to sculpt a fresh revisit to the world of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. Interspersed throughout her writing are italicized inclusions of women who were inspired by the story of Ruth in their real-life relationships with their mother-in-laws and their husbands.  Truth be told, you don’t have to live in the time before Christ to find Ruth’s happy and peaceful ending. You do, however, according to Higgs, need to be worthy of a Boaz.

If Boaz is the consummate gentleman then Christian women need to be the consummate Christian ladies. In short, while we can never be worthy in the sense that we are perfect, but we can become women worth our weight as companions of our knights in Biblically “Shining Armour”. As Christ awaits His bridegroom and our ears and eyes are to be pealed and widened at the anticipation of his return; so we should be aware of the possibility of a Boaz coming into our life.  For a Christian girl, I look to the inclusion of purity as one of the many ways in which we can prepare for his possible arrival.

Certainly Ruth is a woman of valour and virtue in many ways and there is plenty to inherently adapt from her example. Christian women currently live in a society where our traditional views on abstinence are becoming seemingly more lax and have allowed for lenience.  Moreover, the definition of abstinence has stretched and conditions have seemingly changed.  It is more difficult now than ever, I believe, to maintain purity before the altar: Christian or non. There are so many conditions, there is room for some to argue loopholes, and there is a constant social pressure to cave in– one way or another.

Ruth’s journey is indubitably different from most of ours. She is a Moabite widow who leaves her home, her nation, her religion and her community and family to follow her mother-in-law to a social atmosphere where she will certainly be seen as an outcast. Days of hunger and poverty as well as an arduous journey await her and yet she gives up the comfort of normalcy, she shirks the “easy way out” and acts in a magnanimous moment of grace and love.  She gives up something she must desperately want—to return to her home, to maybe find another husband, to be near her kin.

Waiting for Boaz and maintaining tradition and virtue in a society wrought with pressure to do the opposite, is a slippery slope with numerous hills and yet, it is the sacrifice of certain passions and persuasions as well as the fortitude to indefatigably hold to one’s personal conviction that make the end worth the means.  Many are familiar with the romantic plight of Jane Eyre from the classic novel by Charlotte Bronte.  Jane is a governess at gothic Thornfield Hall who develops a close relationship with the proprietor of the house, Mr. Rochester.  Plain Jane: poor and orphaned, must think her ship has sailed into the sunset when Rochester unexpectedly proposes and her love life and future seem perfectly planned.  When a tragic shock makes Jane realize that her marriage must never take place, Rochester offers that she remain his mistress at Thornfield. Jane refuses.

This part of the story rips out my heart. Jane knows deep within her core that to do so would be to turn her back on the very principles deeply embedded in her psyche.  To stay would be to sin against herself and against God.  She is resolute enough to be able to pull away, maintain her moral stance and set out into the unknown.  When the tides change, yet again, and her stormy life finds ultimate peace, the reader breathes a sigh of relief. She has earned this happiness due to her resolute conviction. She is deserving of her Rochester and the happiness she finds.

According to Higgs, and according to me, a woman must prepare herself for when her Boaz does come. In order to gain the attention of a godly man who will respect your boundaries and seek to grow alongside you, you must first become a godly woman.  Certainly not a perfect woman- but a woman who seeks after pleasing the God that is perfect.  That means, dear ladies, you have to stick to your guns.

I challenge women to think hard about what this might mean to them. It might mean limiting their dating pool (however casual) to stay within the margin of Christ followers, it may mean re-thinking physical boundaries discussed with a boyfriend or fiancée.  It may mean re-defining with prayer and the seeking of scripture what waiting until marriage really means. It might even mean re-thinking the cut of a hem or a top in order to promote modesty in a world obsessed with a physical upkeep which leaves little to the imagination.  It might mean all of these things; but it certainly means including God in the conversation.

I talk to a lot of young women who still struggle with what purity and virtue means. How far is too far? Can a Christian woman find happiness outside of the fold? It’s a question I often ponder myself. Can God— a loving God who truly believes in love and human union deprive of us of something so wonderful and glorious. What harm can it do if we mean to marry eventually?  These are all well-posed and thoughtful questions specific to circumstance and beyond the realm of my human judgment.  However, I feel strongly certain that being worthy of a Boaz means waiting for marriage. I have a feeling that most young women who seek the heart of God and asked straight out for guidance on the subject of purity and abstinence will get a clear-set heavenly answer.  There is little room for leeway in God’s master plan. He wants the best for you and for me — and for our possible future partners. How, then, can he mean for anything to happen outside of the most romantic construction imaginable: the confines of marriage?

Being worthy of a Boaz is less about fitting a standard of perfection as it is about accepting Christ’s perfection on your behalf, and reflecting Him in your life – and, in turn, becoming the kind of woman who would complement a Christ-seeking gentleman.  This is what Ruth taught me about womanhood..

To find out more about Rachel, visit our writer’s page. 

Art Credit: Pinterest

Thoughts on measuring up, by Rachel (our newest writer, who hails from Canada).  Welcome, Rachel to our blog team! 

If I am made in God’s image, then sometimes I think He must be disappointed in His creation.

The older I get the more I realize how debilitating my relationship with my image is and how long and arduous this daily journey has been. We may be fearfully and wonderfully made, and I know that my body is a strong temple (a vessel wherein I house thoughts, passions and moments of sheer praise) – but it is also an entrapment.

See, I hate it at times. Utterly loathe it. There are some days when I look in the mirror and immediately hone in on every. single. flaw: real or imagined. Why can’t I be Gwyneth Paltrow? I wonder, as I follow the curve of my waist to my hips. Why do these jeans give me a muffin-top?  Why do I not have the self-control to stay away from the tub of frozen yogurt in my fridge?  Why does my hair lack luster? Where did that zit come from (you can you get zits in your 30s?! stupid world..); of course that girl has an engagement ring: look at her! She’s gorgeous… me? Lackluster, hips, penchant for frozen yogurt….ugh.

I think some part of me always wanted to be the ideal girl. By that I mean the girl who looks good in camping photos. You know these girls if, like me, you like to Facebook-photo-stalk people.  The camera can’t catch them at a bad angle. While you look like you somehow grew eight chins as the snapshot crept up on you sideways, your hand fingering a gooey roasted marshmallow fireside, she looks delicious: in light and in near dark.  While you bring your compact and mascara and shave your legs off the side of the dock in the mornings, she can tie her hair up into a bandanna and the only reflection she needs is natural sunlight.  You look odd and uneven as you squint into the sun, she seems to possess it.  Your canoe-in-water shot shows you straining in exertion to paddle, while her arm muscles ripple along, propelling the waves.

I’m not that camping photo girl. I hate looking at photos of myself. I zone in on imperfections like a pro. I like to hide behind makeup to keep the world from seeing myself.  I like to wear clothes that accentuate what I think are my best features.  (Even those “best” features are a curse sometimes when I see a girl at the gym whose features are even BETTER), I spend my life in hopeless comparison.

If I’m fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s eyes and perfect to Him as His child and daughter then why, why, why, do these constant mosquito-like thoughts pulse into my susceptible brain?  Because society can seem stronger: we’re bombarded with images of scantily clad, shimmery bronzed women with yoga bodies and doe-eyes.  The women we are marketed to relate to in films and on television can seemingly scarf down boxes of Chinese food and ice cream when their boyfriend breaks up with them (to give one possible scenario) only to be seen un-bloatedly dancing at a club moments later.

If perception is reality then we need to feel, act, and most importantly look like these women; If society wins we need to judge ourselves consistently against other women—not for their inner strength and beauty; but for their outward appearance; If society wins we need to understand that we will never measure up: that we can starve, buy probiotic yogourt, count our calories, somehow make our bone structures magically shrink.

As much as I admit to struggling with my image, I also admit to wanting desperately to change the cycle.  I don’t want to change because society tells me to. I no longer want to admit that I am its slave. I should not be inspired by it: not by the “curvy” women who look more like sticks, or by the magazines that tell me to eat almonds morning day and night to stay hunger: I don’t want it anymore.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Our minds have toxins in the same way our bodies do.  We purge and plunge into health to rid ourselves of unwanted chemicals and particles; I challenge us to do the same with our brains.  I don’t want to change for you, for him, for them, because TV tells me to, because I read an article in a magazine: I want to change for God, who sees beyond my physiognomy. If I am made in His image, shouldn’t I be gloriously psyched about it?  If He is all-powerful and all-wonderful and knows the hairs on my head and my every thought and every heartbeat, should I not cherish His attention to detail?

Fashions change, ideals change, humans are fallible and weak, we are sheep led to conforming pasture; but God doesn’t waver. He has made people in His image since the beginning of time: He gave us this world and all of its bounty in hopes that we would love ourselves and others and submit to Him. His standards are based on far more than looking the right way in a camera angle; they stretch beyond jeans and muscle-toning, height, weight and make-up…His strength is perfect enough to combat our incessant obsession over seeming imperfection.

I feel slightly hypocritical writing this while full-well knowing that it’s not easy to unravel the tight thread of years and years of pre-possessing thoughts. It’s not easy to keep from harboring guilt following a bout of eating movie-theatre popcorn or skipping the gym or putting on jeans that just don’t look good on me.

It’s not easy; but neither is my Christian walk, neither is faith, neither is reliance on God.

I may not look like that ideal girl in the camping photos when I comparatively run through my Facebook pictures; but I know I look pretty darn spectacular to my Creator and I vow to remember more often and more potently that His is the only opinion that really counts.  I am beautiful, strong, awesome, and …. Oh look! That frozen yogurt isn’t going to eat itself.

To find out more about Rachel, visit our writer’s page. 

Art Credit: Tumblr.

Fact: Bree Holloway helped with designing the icon art for this blog (from a graphic edited by Lea). 

An interview with Bree Holloway

Sometimes it helps to know that blog readership includes a community of readers all over the world.  We may not get to know every reader here, but today we will introduce you to one such person!  Her name is Bree Holloway.  Recently we had the opportunity to do an interview swap with Bree, and she featured our editor at her blog (see the interview here).  We hope that you enjoy reading, and that it is a reminder of the community of readers of which you are a part.

1. Bree – tell us a bit about yourself. 

I’m Bree Holloway, and I’m a shortie – 5’2”. I’m also a God-follower, a graphic designer, a photographer, a literature nut, and writing enthusiast, and a coffee-drinker.

I started blogging a few months after my sister. The premade templates weren’t my cup of coffee, so I decided to try and make my own. Through trial and error, Googling the most odd questions I’ve ever Googled, and lots of horrid looking blog designs, I finally began to make progress. In 2010, I launched my blog design business, then titled “iDesigns”. Two year later, here I am with a full-grown studio, much more experience, and more of a personal style. Honestly, three years ago I had no idea I would end up doing this, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m not exactly sure. I definitely don’t want to quit any time soon, though, and would love to upgrade to Photoshop in the very near future. =) And since writing (my other hobby) isn’t exactly a steady-paying job, I might keep up the two simultaneously. At any rate, I haven’t published a book yet, so I’m good for now.

I have been taking French for two years, and am head-over-heels in love with it. *sigh* Such a beautiful language. I would love to be fluent one day. I dance about 10-12 hours a week at a Christian dance studio near my home. Dancing is not only my prefered art, but also my relief at the end of a long day. I am currently writing a novel (fiction). You can read the synopsis below:

Ara Isolde is a young, bold girl, daughter of the lord of the land. But when her father passes away just after her sixteenth birthday, and Ara is pressured to marry so she may take on the ladyship, she cracks, and runs from the palace, taking up a small child named Kaitlyn in her escape. But the two can’t hide forever, and soon Ara finds herself pulled into a deep abyss of war, lies, and eventually, love.

I also love photography. Suffice it to say, I can’t exactly make up my mind.

Yes, I have a writing/lifestyle blog called Tea & Bree. You can find it here.

I like to have a place to share my latest work and get others’ opinions on it. It it incredibly helpful, and also very fun.

I am hoping to scratch out some spare time to finish reading Jenny’s The Shadow Things, and get in a little writing of my own. =)

My biggest encouragement is ultimately from God, but I am also encouraged a lot by my sweet, sweet blog readers. All their comments mean a *lot* to me.

Thank you for having me, and thank you for reading, friends! It’s been such a pleasure to get to know you better, and to tell you about myself.

Art Credit: Bree Holloway (self-portrait)

August was a very busy month for some of our writers as we started new semesters and class schedules.  We hope that you will enjoy the insights we discovered this summer as we settle back in! 

A Letter to Those Fearful and Wonderful – an article on dating mishaps and being loved by God, by Sarah.

I dated my best friend for five years.

Though those five years were shaky and disrupted, a constant up and down, yes and no, will they, wonʼt they kind of ordeal, he was the first guy I ever considered spending the rest of my life with. He was the first guy I trusted and opened up too, the first guy I ever let hold my hand and the first guy I ever kissed. Then one day, all of that changed.

We havenʼt spoken in 3 years now.
Heʼs engaged and Iʼm still as single as can be.

Being one whose love language is quality time, my tendency is to seek out company whenever I am down. Iʼll be the first one to admit to you that this means one of my biggest struggles has always been how I handle myself with members of the opposite sex.

I come from a chain of broken, shallow relationships that are usually the result of my poor choice of coping mechanism and shaky ability to commit. In the past, Iʼd blame this on my first relationship falling apart. Itʼs so simple to play the “betrayed by your best friend” card and shrug it off. Itʼs easy to think that one more time wouldnʼt hurt anything and maybe just pushing those boundaries a little further would ease that ache you feel in the crevices of your soul.

It took a lot of bad choices, wrong turns, and bone-breaking collisions of my flesh and spirit before I came to the root of the issue; my burden of broken relationships and gratification issues was not rooted in one relationship gone sour, but instead it was a much deeper issue. It was an issue of identity, a battle with self worth. Like most girls of the 17 year old persuasion, I only felt beautiful when I had a guy noticing me. My worth came in how often my hand was held and whether or not there was a “good morning” text waiting when I got up.

It took me essentially 19 years before it clicked, before I came to realize that all along there has been someone who tells me Iʼm beautiful every day of my life. In fact, He sent me a 24 verse love letter telling me exactly how He feels about me. The love letter is also known as the verses of Psalm 139 and the guy is Jesus Christ.

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. . .
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well,”

- Psalm 139:1-6,13-14

It seems like a fairly basic concept, but it honestly blew my mind the day I realized that God thinks Iʼm beautiful. He not only calls me beautiful, but He cares enough to remind me on a daily basis. The same mighty, sovereign God who created the universe and put the earth into motion is the same God who takes the time each day to look at one measly little girl in North Carolina and say, “Sarah, youʼre beautiful,”. The best part is, He really means it. Not only does He call me beautiful, but He rejoices in the way that He made me and takes the time to lay out the path before me. It doesnʼt matter what anyone else in the world thinks or how I view myself. I know all I have to do is step into the presence of my Heavenly Father and Iʼll be filled with truth, reminded in confidence of who He has made me to be.

Iʼm His daughter, made new by His precious sacrifice.
Iʼm His princess, because He is the King of Kings and has called me to live as royalty.
Iʼm a warrior, equipped by His strength to fight with confidence and see the Kingdom come down to earth.
Iʼm fearfully and wonderfully made, a masterpiece in the sight of the Lord.

With the dawn of each morning, in the quiet moments, and even in the chaos of everyday life, there is always someone who takes joy in telling me how much He loves me, and will never grow tired of doing so. His love isnʼt conditional, it isnʼt based on what I give in return, and it isnʼt given to serve an ulterior motive. Instead, Godʼs love is unfailing, never ending, and unconditional; He loves us because He loves us, because that is just who He is.

With this truth under my belt, I find a new wave of confidence that allows me to look in the mirror and see myself through His eyes. Somehow when the Lord tells me Iʼm beautiful, I believe it and begin to walk in it knowing that His word is truth and His truth brings life. In that truth, I donʼt need a guy to make me feel beautiful or to measure my worth. I find myself complete and confident in Christ, more fulfilled than Iʼve ever been before.

Relationships can be shallow and guys go as quickly as they come, but the love that Christ has for us is everlasting, and He will never get tired of telling us exactly how He made us; fearfully and wonderfully and beautifully.

To find out more about Sarah, visit our writer’s page. 

Art Credit: Pinterest

Or, Language, Prayers and People – by Hannah K.

I heard the words of two young women across the cafteria, a familiar tongue.  Foreign words, only some that I could understand.  But they were speaking in the language of the book before me, with sentences I had marked with my pen.  What if I said something?  I was frozen until something in me thawed.  あなたは日本語を話しますか？ (Do you speak Japanese?)  I asked.  Well, of course she did, but I didn’t know what else to say.

Life can be a very solitary event, if we let it be.

We don’t have to acknowledge or give our thanks to the bus driver that takes us from place to place, or smile at the cashier in a grocery store.  We don’t have to sit near anyone at lunch in the cafeteria.  We do not have to engage in conversations with strangers.  We can hear without listening.  We can live without giving.  We can work without networking.  We can walk from room to room and building to building without extending, reaching or seeking words or glances with others.  Essentially, much of our daily communication depends on our individual energy level, mood, and personality.  More than that, I might suggest that sometimes it depends on the state of the soul.

Perhaps often we live as if it is shrunken, rather than risk having it expanded.  Some of us have seen people build additions onto houses.  It is not an easy process, and there is difficulty in the waiting.  There are leaky roofs and sawdust.  In life, with the expansion of one’s heart come doubts and discomfort.  Yet what rewards there are in “ordinary” kindness!

A friend told me about how God had placed on her heart to pray for people that she saw on a road toward her college.  Each day she watched families gardening, playing, sunbathing, working.  But it’s just a commute.  Or perhaps an opportunity.  Perhaps those prayers are needed.  Later she met in person one of the women she had prayed about during her drives.  Words were shared, memories were made.  It meant something to both of them, to have that kind of a connection.  This is not a lone example of changing one’s perspective, or of learning about community, and I hope that you have similar stories to tell.  To return to my earlier story..

I could have stayed safely between the pages of a book about how to communicate in the language I have come recently to care about, rather than communicating with the few words I had.  A book of language – a collection of meaningful phrases – meant to inspire such conversation, rather than provide shelter from it.  Yes, sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. 

I have realized, in recent travels abroad, that I don’t want to be a foreigner, I want to be a friend.  A co-worker.  A person.  I desire to share in life with others, and to speak in words that they will understand.  And right now, my heart bridges across an ocean to Japan from where I recently returned- but there are international students here, too, one foot dipped in American culture and the other anchored in Japan: trying to understand English the way I try to learn their native language.  

So, my head has been spinning this summer with kanji and syllabic scripts.  With symbols and phrases and words that have no purpose outside of community.  And I am learning to use them, too.. 

Oh, how simple it is to speak sentences, yet how often we overlook the opportunity..  I know I have done so many times before.

Certainly we should not engage in conversations with everyone, and it is also true that sometimes lives do not collide in quite the same ways as in years past.  Relationships change, circles of influence do not stay stagnant.  However, what if we conversed with the people God put in our path every day?  Would we feel as lonesome or solitary?  Would we feel something like community?

Would we learn what God meant when He said love thy neighbor?  Perhaps the words to our prayers could become our actions.  Perhaps language could be more than symbols, and strangers could be friends.

To find out more about Hannah K., visit our writer’s page.

Art Credit: Pinterest