Praising God through the storms in life

Often times in life things don't go the way we want or expect them to and we can sometimes look too often at our circumstances and let them discourage us or depress us. Instead of constantly looking at your circumstances and what the world has to say, try focusing on what God's word has to say about your life and the promises he has for you. God is our provider, we need to keep our eyes on him. Philippians 4:19 says, that God will provide for us ALL our needs and Deuteronomy 28:29 says that we are above all circumstances, not beneath! Walk by faith and not sight, trust God and you will live a victorious Christian life!  My Husband is a truck Driver and is often gone during the week, We have been praying and standing on some of these scriptures for awhile and believing God for Glen (my husband) to find a local driving job, after being on the road for 8 months and only home on weekends, it was taking its toll. A few weeks ago he was offered a great opportunity, that was just what we were praying for, so he put in his two week notice at his previous employer, then just before he was to start his new job, the companies sales went down, so they decided to freeze hiring and take back their job offer. So, we were left jobless, no income coming in, bills to pay, confused, angry, and let's just be honest...panicked. I think that's a natural response, but what we do after that initial panic is crucial, we were quick to stop and give that worry, our troubles to God and continue to trust him to provide and  continue to stand on his promises for our lives.  Your words our powerful, they frame the world you live in. Choose them wisely. Choose words of life, stand on Gods word and confess his promises out loud for your life. Ask and believe, have faith that your prayer has been answered by confessing that it has, by praising and thanking God that it has and continue to do so until it comes to pass! (proverbs 18:21) It would have been easy to go with anger and worry  and let our circumstances overwhelm and consume us, but would it have been beneficial? Would the outcome have been the same? The answer is no. So often people get so wrapped up in the busy , chaotic, stressful, things of life and  we miss  out on the blessings. We forget that God is there for us, he has your back, he loves you and wants the best for you. He's just waiting for you to ask him and to trust him and not lean on your own understanding. "So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." Luke 11:9 NIV. I believe because we were quick to turn our trust to God, he opened another door for us. Satan might come to steal, kill, and destroy, but if you trust in the Lord, no weapon shall form against you, the gates of hell cannot prevail, Jesus came so that we may have life and have it abundantly! God will have glory!  John 10:10, Isaiah 54:17, John 3:16. Today we praise The Lord, just like we did on the day we found out Glen had no job, because we trusted God would provide and he did! He provided us another way and a better one.  Glen was offered a local job as a supervisor, that has more home time, less hours, and better pay and he starts tomorrow! Praise The Lord, for he is good and faithful! He provided us with a job that was more than what we were asking for and better than what we asked for! We may not always understand why things happen the way they do, but I am glad that my circumstances don't define me and that I have a God who loves me and wants the best for me, I just have to be still, be quiet, have trust, faith and listen. Praise him all the days of your life, through the good times and the hard times. Give him thanks, for he is a good God, a mighty God, our warrior, our shield, our provider, our shoulder to lean on, our strength when we can't go on, our joy when we are sad, he is merciful and gracious. God is love. Life. Happiness. "Therefore You are great, O Lord GOD. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears. (II Samuel 7:22 NKJV)

New Year, New Beginnings and new Goals

   I might be a little late on this one, but wow it's really 2014! A new year! Do any of you out there have any new year resolutions? I'm always excited for the new beginnings that a new year can bring, but you know what? It doesn't have to be a new year for you to have a new beginning! You can make your new beginning, or start fresh any time of the year, it just takes discipline, diligence, and a whole lot of help from The Lord! I love that as a follower of Christ, we can have a new beginning. When we accept Jesus into our hearts, he wipes the slate clean. (Ephesians 1:7) How cool is that? Not only that, but he is quick to wipe it clean again when we fail or mess up along our journey following him, as long as we repent. God is such a loving, forgiving, merciful God. Aren't you glad?  I know I am. I'm so happy that one of the many benefits of being a child of God is that, I can start over, start fresh, all my sins forgiven, all my mistakes forgotten. While, we should always be walking in his shadow, following Jesus' example and God's commandments, but God knows were not perfect and we make mistakes, big or small, if you repent with the right heart, he is merciful and forgives. Praise The Lord!

   So with a new year, something our family always tries to do and something that I urge your family to do as well, is to sit down together and talk about the previous year. We talk about our favorites, our challenges, our mistakes, etc. We talk about what we want to continue to do and what we want to change in this new year. We talk about our hopes, our dreams, we write down some goals, and then we pray about it together as a family. Its really good to share our thoughts and our dreams together for the new year and it really helps everyone stay on track and we help each other stay accountable. Some things our family has been praying about for a few months is getting rid of our cable. We are big movie and show buffs, so this wasn't an easy decision for us, but we looked at how much time we were wasting watching television when we could be reading a book or practicing an instrument or spending time with God. The big ticket was, when God revealed to us that Television has really became a bad habit for us, its robbing us of our time together, because at the end of a long day when your tired, its easy to just flip the tube on, rather then play a game or read a book together instead. Most importantly, its taking time away, time from God, time from each other, time from just life. After having Alexia, we realized just how fast life goes by, she is growing so quickly, she will be 4 years old in April, time has gone by so fast, I don't want to waste any of it. Now,  I'm not saying Television is bad and we should all get rid of our cable, I'm just saying for us, we had started to spend too much time watching TV and that is not healthy. We plan to keep our Hulu and Netflicks subscriptions, so we will occasionally watch some of our favorite shows, but in moderation. So,it is  official   as of today we no longer have a subscription to cable! In result we are also welcoming an extra 50 dollars a month into our budget, wahoo! I'm excited about this new change, I think it will help us to spend more time with God together as a family and more quality time together as a family. 

Another change we are adapting is the Paleo/Gluten Free Diet. I personally have done tons of research on diets and health and I'm kind of a health guru. We've been wanting to clean up our diets and detoxify our bodies from all the holiday sugar and goodies and I recently have found out I have a gluten intolerance and it has reeked havoc on my digestive system leaving me with all these out of the blue symptoms that sometimes make me so sick I cant get out of bed. My husband has a diary intolerance and recently our daughter has begun to have some food aversions that is making her sick to her tummy and leaving her constipated or giving her diarrhea for days. After all my research I'm convinced that Gluten  ( a protein used to make wheat, rye, and barely) is the culprit, her doctor thinks so too. So for 30 days, for health reasons, we have decided to go on a Gluten free and Paleo adapted Diet. If you've never heard of the Paleo diet before, its like the cave mans diet. No Gluten, Grains, refined sugars, processed food, or diary (except eggs). Your pretty much eating a whole lot of fruits and veggies and some meat. You can learn more about it here http://www.webmd.com/diet/paleo-diet and this girl has a lot of yummy recipes Brittany Angell . This diet is suppose to help heal your digestive system, so that is why we have decided to go on the Paleo diet. I'm kinda excited about it, I've found lots of recipes that have great reviews for foods to substitute your breads, carbs, and goodies, with wholesome food alternatives. I'm excited to get healthy, although we usually always try eat healthy and I try to buy organics as much as possible, but we love us some Pasta, Pizza and Bread around here. I've slowly cut down on our gluten intake over the past year, alternating gluten free pasta and bread, but what I am realizing is that Gluten is in EVERYTHING! Its in ice cream, popsicles, can foods, snack foods and just about all your shelf foods and  processed goodies. It's used as a thickening agent. I don't think that, that much gluten is really good for anyone's digestive system. Yikes.  A lot of people don't realize that the food we eat is what could be making us sick. So, we are eating for our health and that's what the Paleo diet is all about, making you eat the way God intended us to eat. If you think about it, God didn't design our bodies to digest all the processed  foods were eating in our current day, that's why so many Americans today have digestive and stomach problems, our bodies were never made to digest some of the foods we are consuming  on a daily basis and its making us sick! I'm not saying everyone needs to eat Paleo, I'm just saying think about it. It makes since. When God created us, he created us to live and eat in the Garden of Eden, do you think the Garden of Eden had Doritos, pizza, wheat, bread, and ice cream? Probably not, is my guess.  I'm not saying never eat junk food, I think we just need to limit our intake and be a little more picky about what we digest into our bodies. I don't know if this is a diet we will stick with for long term, but we are committed to it 100% for at least 30 days and after 30 days we will then continue to go Gluten Free and reintroduce dairy and processed food in our diets, in moderation. We will then begin to pray about it again. I think we will be doing a whole lot of praying for strength and discipline through our Paleo and gluten free journey, as it will not always be easy. It's not easy giving up the foods you love, but that's where finding a similar healthy alternative comes in handy. I'm sure on an occasion during this diet we will be invited to gatherings and be tempted by foods we aren't allowed to eat on this diet, in those rare occasions I will allow my daughter  and ourselves to have a little soda and birthday cake, or whatever it may be, but in small amounts. It's all about moderation and like I've said, I have found healthy alternatives to those beloved snack foods, that we will be able to eat while on this diet, that way we aren't all feeling deprived and craving sweets  and so my daughter doesn't develop physiological  food issues. Here are a few yummy treat recipes Paleo Strawberry Ice Cream bars and this one Chocolate- avocado mouse, one more frozen-chocolate-covered-banana. Yum!! If your interested in learning more about this diet and the foods you can eat you can follow me on my blog and and I have a few boards on my Pinterest devoted to healthy Living, paleo recipes, gluten Free recipes and healthy snacks and treat alternatives. This diet may cost you more money in the begining, but it is possibile to afford this diet on a budget, and what extra money it may cost, is worth giving something else up, because it is for your health. I much rather give up my cable or bi-weekly biggby trip, or cut my monthly clothing allowence, or where ever I can cut un-needed cost, to be able to afford healthier food, if it means I will have more energy and my health issues will go away leaving me feel better and live longer, and please the Lord.  Well, that is about all I have to say about that for now.

Wow, this post has gotten long, so I will end it here and save some of our other goals, hopes, and dreams for this year for another day and another post. Thanks for reading, kudos to you if you read the entire post! :)

Blessings,
Marcie

I've Got a Dream!

I've got a dream!  Well, I have a lot of dreams really, but one particular dream is coming to play soon. It's a dream that God placed in my heart when I was a young girl. Rapunzel's dream in the Disney movie Tangled, might have been to adventure out to see the floating Lanterns, but this girls dream is to write a book! Ever since I was a little girl I've had the writing bug, writing stories in my diary (that would flip my Mom out), writing songs, writing poems, anything. I've always loved to write. I use to be a pretty diligent blogger on Xanga, before my youngster arrived, then time was very limited and I lost track of blogging, but now that my little is in Pre-school, I have a little more free time. :) So, growing up I always thought I would be a writer,(If for some reason I didn't break into the Acting/Music world, lol) writing something rather it was songs, books, articles, anything, I even minored in English in College. Somewhere along the road,  I lost track of that vision. Life entangled me into its busy web of responsibility, God gave me new dreams, new visions, so I embarked on those. All the while this book dream stayed with me, just taking a back seat for awhile, along my journey. Well, recently ( the past few years) I've been feeling God tug on my heart about this book dream, so I begun to pray about it more and I felt God was giving me the green light finally! Only I had no idea what to write about. So, I asked God, if you want me to write a book, please show me what, what am I suppose to write about? What? For who? How?  Then, one day as I was reading in the Bible, I came across a verse and it just came to me! I felt God telling me that was it. God gave me an idea, a vision for what he wants me to write, I was so thrilled. Then came my next question; God, how am I suppose to get this book written, illustrated, published? I have no idea where to begin. I prayed about this for a few days until one day I was scrolling on facebook and I stumbled upon a post from one of our senior Pastors, (which happened to be an old post and somehow ended up in my newsfeed), Beth Jones, who happens to have written over 20 books and is an amazing author, the post was about her launching an online academy for aspiring authors on how to get a book published and other tips for authors! That was my answer! I couldn't believe the timing on this, incredible. God is so good and faithful. He knows the desires of your heart and when he places a dream in your heart, if you delight yourself in him, he will give you those desires, he will make sure your dreams unveil themselves. He is such a loving and merciful God. (Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself also in the lord, And he shall give you the desires of your heart. NKJV) So here I go, on this next adventure in life, writing. I've got a dream, and its finally coming to pass. We might not always understand God's timing for our lives or why he sometimes takes so long to fulfill the desires of our hearts or his promises, but he has our best interest at heart and let me tell you, this is the perfect season in my life for this next adventure. I'm ready. I'm going to be blogging more often in order to get back into the habit of writing, so if you'd like updates about this new adventure in my life, among others, just follow my blog. I've got a dream, whats yours?

Blessings,
Marcie

Habakkuk 2:3 ESV / 128 helpful votes

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Isaiah 40:31 ESV / 119 helpful votes

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 27:14 ESV / 100 helpful votes

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV / 63 helpful votes

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

Some good verses in the Bible to look up; Psalms 62:8, Psalm 9:9, Prov 3:4 &6, Psalm 18:30, Psalm 37:7-9,

Confessions of a Perfectionist

So, Here I am, 26. A daughter, a wife, a mother, and a friend. Still struggling with who I am and what I'm suppose to do with my life. I know who I am to an extent. I know I am a beautiful woman of God. I know who I am in Christ. But who am I? Other than a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a friend? What is it that I'm suppose to contribute to this world? I know my talents and my gifts, but how am I suppose to use them? So many questions, so little answers. I can tell you that at 16 years old, I thought I would be someone important by the age of 25. I thought I'd live in a big fancy house, be wealthy, and probably famous for something. Even if it were just for my smile. I had high expectations for myself, as well as my family. So, as I sit here at 26, writing this blog, do I think that my 16 year old self would be disappointed in where we ended up at 26? I use to. You see, I'm that kind of girl, that kind of christian, that thinks I have to be perfect. I have to look perfect, I have be perfect, I have to talk perfect, I have to be the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, the perfect mother, the perfect christian. Perfection was my enemy. Until just recently I looked perfection in the eye and finally admitted out loud that I'm not perfect and it is ok. When I finally admitted this to myself, God, my family, and everyone else, that's when my life began to make a turn. A change for the better. I no longer feel the constant pressure to be perfect. I know I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to disappoint people in life, but it will be ok. I will learn and move on. People will forgive me and we'll move on.  All that perfection kept my panties in a bunch anyway.  I feel so less stressed and so much more happy now that I have realized that it's ok to make mistakes, to be flawed. What made me come to this realization? My life. Realizing that I wasn't in that place I exactly wanted to be or had wanted to be at 26 years of age, but then realizing that I was happy. But admitting that I'm not happy with myself. Phew. That was a hard one. Admitting. It's such a hard thing. Being honest with yourself, let alone others, can be the hardest thing to do on your journey to recovery. Any kind of recovery.  Honesty. Here it goes. Step one: admitting your faults to the world, even if just one person ever reads this blog, I'm about to be brutally honest with myself, in this tell all confession. Why? Because I need to. It's therapy. I need to share with you that I'm not perfect and that my life is not perfect, because it will help me to move on and maybe just maybe, it will help you come to some realizations for yourself. So this is the first of many blogs to come, of my confessions as a recovering perfectionist. Hey, we're all recovering from something, right?

Cha...cha...cha.. Changes

   It seems as though I have not used this blog of mine since 2007! A lot has changed in those 4 years and I am in ever need of getting my writing bug out of me, so I thought I would "try" and start this blog thing again. Looks like it didn't work out too well before, so no promises blogger. However, I did use to be quite the savvy blogger on xanga before I was a busy newly married woman & it was very therapeutic for me, so I am going to try and keep this up. :o)

    Well, let me get you caught up to my life in 2011, I've been happily married to the love of my life for 4 years now and we recently, well 11 months ago had our first beautiful  baby girl. Her name is Alexia Grace and she is the cutest blue eyed blond baby ever. She is such a little character and we love her so much. She has changed our lives more than we could have EVER imagined, some of those changes have been difficult and we're STILL trying to adjust to them, but it has has been the best change there could be and worth every moment. There is truly no greater gift in life than being a parent. It brings such joy into my life, every moment of the day.

    Also, since 2007 my husband and I moved to another city, because we were offered the wonderful opportunity to be Youth Pastors at a church. We worked there for 2 1/2 years and now we are exploring new horizons. It was a great experience and we learned so much. We miss the church and the teenagers that we pastored, but God felt it was time for change. Now, we are both currently trying to finish up our degrees and then we plan to go back to ministry school. From there we would like to open our own business & do whatever else it is that God wants us to do. We continue to live our lives for him daily and just try to be the best parents we can be.

    That's about all I can write for today, because as I'm writing this my 11 month old is sitting on our living room  floor tearing all the tissues out of its box and shredding them to pieces. Gotta go!

What a Putz!!

Oh my, oh my, oh my did I make a fool out of myself today! I'm so embarrassed!!! Okay so, I had this interview at Macy's today, and well everything went great! I looked and felt so fab! I was wearing my really cute new outfit from H&M and my black boots, with my super cute new black Dress pea coat from DKNY. So since I was feeling so great about myself after my interview since I did so well, I was walking to my car when I left the Macy's store and I just started to do my Runway walk, lol. I was strutting my best walk down that Macy's parking lot, when I came to my car and turned and did a wicked pose, and attempted to unlock my car door. When I look up and see a LADY sitting there in what I thought was my front seat!!!!! ACK! Okay...breathe. Major oops! She was sitting there reading the paper and snacking on veggie chips when she looked up to me with her fierce eyebrows raised and a widened her eyes, as if saying "what the heck are you doing??" I could feel my face burning with hulimination, because to my surprise I had an audience when i thought no one was in the lot. I quickly told the Lady Sorry and yelled as I turned my back to high tail it outta there to find the right car "My car looks just like yours, sorry!" Thinking "excuse me while I find MY car and die of embarrassment." Well, at least I'll never see that lady again....hopefully.

Yours truly,
The Drama Queen