Hosanna in the Highest

faith

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time over the last month thinking about the upcoming holiday. Easter Sunday. Resurrection Day. I wanted to spend time really meditating on it, about the significance of it, and not just let it pass me by like any other Sunday, any other weekend, any other holiday. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about the week leading up to that day – this week– what some people call Holy Week, and others have aptly named Passion Week. I’ve been trying to imagine what would have been going through Jesus’ mind each day leading up to his betrayal, trial, and execution. Today, the first day of Passion Week, is called…

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Speaking Life

marriage, relationships, Spiritual Growth

This week a professional friend/acquaintance told me “you have one of the happiest marriages I’ve ever seen on Facebook.” While I appreciate what he said, his comment in and of itself was a can of worms.  I mean, we are all guilty of using our Social Media pages to portray the “highlight reel” of our lives – I certainly wasn’t posting a status update about the little squabble Barry and I had thirty minutes after that compliment!!  But later that night I thought about what he said while I was taking a shower.  Then I looked up and a reminder of why this is was literally right in front of me. You want…

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And yet…..

faith, freedom, grace, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

My incredible friend Gaynelle helped me with a section in my book about combating the lies and falsehoods we hear in our own minds. She shared with me an incredible resource called, the “Complete Personalized Promise Bible for Women”. I snagged my own copy for my Kindle and am pretty much using it as my devotion this year. (It’s awesome) Each section/topic has scripture, then a faith confession, then a list of all the verses from where that faith confession came. I’m having so much fun studying God’s love letters to His children – to me – that substantiate many of the faith claims and confessions that I repeat to myself on the…

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Boys Don’t Like Girls Who Bite Their Nails

Life Lessons, Success & Motivation

I wanted to call this blog, “Boys Don’t Like Girls Who Bite Their Nails – And Other Habit-Breaking Pieces of Wisdom” but that was a bit wordy, and my editor tells me I need to work on that. For as long as I could remember, I was a nail-biter. Like the compulsive, bite-down-until-they-bleed kind. I know, it’s a dirty, disgusting habit. You don’t have to tell me. In middle school my older brother endowed me with the timeless wisdom, “Boys don’t like girls who bite their nails.” Thanks brother. Nice pep talk. I had tried putting tape over them, bitter-tasting stuff on them, sheer will-power, and a myriad of other tricks to get…

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Nothing is Ever Hopeless

faith, Life Lessons, marriage, relationships

I have personally experienced the deep, agonizing pain of hopelessness in a marriage. Riding the merry-go-round of blame and shame and anger and bitterness. Being too exhausted to even try anymore.  Feeling like the only solution is out.  That the ONLY possible way either one of you can be happy is to leave and start over. But please trust me, even when it feels like it is….. I let the hopelessness swallow me whole once.  And it cost me my first marriage. I have caught momentary glimpses of this hopelessness at times in my marriage now, but I refuse to give up.  My mentality is so different now.  I stay hopeful.  (And pray…

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I am a Failure

Life Lessons, marriage, relationships, second marriage, Spiritual Growth

Recently, I received a brokenhearted email from a friend. Her email read simply, “Today, I am struggling with feeling like a failure as a wife”. My heart wretched inside me. In a time and place not so long ago, I had uttered those exact words. I struggled with that exact thought in my own mind. Have you ever had those thoughts? I’m a failure. Damaged goods. Tainted. Too far gone. A lost cause. My divorce was the first time in my life I had failed at something. I failed at marriage. I couldn’t make it work no matter how hard I tried. My marriage failed. I failed. Therefore, I am a failure. That…

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The One Thing

Life Lessons, marriage

Can I confess to you something I’ve been really good at? I’ve been really good at noticing “the one thing”. And that’s not a good thing. Our household is a little bit unique because I travel for my job, so my husband actually does most of the day-to-day keeping the house tidy and in order. I hire a house cleaner to handle the dirty work, because I don’t come home on the weekends to just clean my house either. But Barry does a lot to maintain while I’m out of town. But, I’m really good at walking in the door after a work trip, taking a look around and noticing the one thing…

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I Can’t Stand the Way He Loads the Dishwasher

Life Lessons, marriage

I heard an all-too-familiar story this week about a newlywed couple I know having the same kind of toxic, merry-go-round fights that were a constant, continual pattern in my life at one point. Young wives, can I share with you the two best pieces of wisdom I learned after failing miserably at my first marriage? First: Choose. your. battles. I know as you blissfully walked down the aisle on your wedding day you could never imagine your Prince Charming ever doing anything that would cause you to want to fight with him, but let me tell you a truth: at some point, he’s going to. Even if you lived together prior, there’s just…

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The Day I Was the Sun (Metaphorically Speaking)

Metaphors, Poetry

The mid-afternoon sky was cluttered with ripples of brush-stroked clouds that day, But the sky was still light. Splashes of bright blue broke up the cream and grey colored bodies of dirty air. The relentless sun made her best effort to escape the shadows. Beams of luminescence escaped small pockets in the puffy clouds that crowded the yellow ball. She danced along the outside of their darkening hues – making them three dimensional against their fixed backdrop. Bright white glowed along the edges of each one, Hindering their intimidating discoloration. In all their might, The clouds tried keeping her hidden that day, But she was far too tenacious to be averted. The air…

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The Best Days of Your Life

faith, Life Lessons, Success & Motivation

Every year, I tape a quote to the front of my planner, something I am going to focus on for the year. This is what I choose for 2013.  March of that year would mark 2 years since my divorce, and 3 years since my husband left.  2010 and 2011 were a blur, as everything I believed in and the picture I held of my life shattered in front of me. 2012 was the year God chased after me relentlessly, as I was running full speed away, and invited me into a new, fresh relationship with Him unlike anything I had ever experienced.  But I still struggled to see how my my dreams…

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