Rejoicing Always

My mind constantly wonders what your eyes are seeing. During this Christmas season, I long even more to know what the face of my Savior looks like, and you're touching His hands and beholding everything His wonderful face truly is. My fleshly heart longs to have you sitting in my lap next the Christmas tree and see the wonder in your eyes as you gaze into the shiny lights. But oh, my little one. . . you are sitting in the lap of Jesus Himself and gazing into the eyes that light this dark world and I am sure they are unimaginablly more beautiful than the lights on our tree. I long to buy you earthly gifts and see the excitement on your face as you get new toys and things to play with. But the gift you're beholding up there is the greatest gift of all. I want you on the floor babbling and playing as we hurry around to get things ready for Christmas day. But you're sitting on the floor of Heaven praising the One who we all too often forget about on His day. You have no

In the fall of 2017 I went through a Bible study with our women’s class at church where we dug into the characteristics of our holy Lord. We studied His attributes and got to know who He is more closely. Throughout that whole study one characteristic stuck out to me. It’s what I clung to the whole study...His Sovereignty. Little did I know the reason that the Lord imprinted that on my heart, but I would soon find out. He would test how much I really trusted His sovereignty.   He was preparing me for something big. Something scary and something I would have never asked for. But a land He was going to ask me to walk through, all for His glory. It was Valentine’s Day. Cole and I never make a huge deal about Valentine’s Day, but this one on Wednesday, February 14, 2018 would soon change our Valentine’s Days for forever. We were arguing over something insignificant the night before and barely spoke before he headed off to work that morning. I finished up my quiet time with the Lord and

After the countless hours I spent in doctors offices and hospitals over the period of my eating disorder recovery, Jesus ignited something inside me. Something I never thought He would ever ignite in me. A passion to become a nurse. The nurses who took care of me at Children's Hospital and the amazing nurse who took care of me at the clinic I attended weekly made lasting impressions on my life. If somehow, some way, God lead you to read this today, THANK YOU. Thank you is not enough to tell you how much you have impacted my life. Your passion and desire to help others who are in a desperate state in their lives, like I was, is why I am here today. My junior year of high school, after I was in a good routine with my recovery, I brought this idea to my mom. "Ha! Okay..." she said. I was always a germ freak, and me, wanting to be a nurse and work in the most germiest (it's a word) place everyday, yeah okay. So she entertained the idea and organized a way for me to go

Caged :  To put or confine in or as if in a cage. Today I am going to write about something that truly has molded me into the woman I am today. This is something I was "caged" in for many, many years. Most of you probably know about this story, but I am going to put it out there anyway. Am I proud of this? Absolutely NOT. Do I glamorize this? Absolutely NOT. These were some of the most difficult moments in my entire life, and I do not wish this on anyone. But I also would not trade these moments for anything. Through all of this, God was molding me. Even during the times I tried to take over control, He didn't throw me away. He just sat there patiently, continuing to mold me with every bump in the road.  From as far back as I can remember, I have been a perfectionist. I wanted everything to be perfect, everyone to be happy, and everyone to like me. I began gymnastics when I was 3 years old. It was my LIFE. I would eat, sleep and breath gymnastics. Soon just the gymnas

             As you can tell, it has taken a while for God to lay on my heart exactly what my first post would be about. He spoke this to me yesterday as I was sitting in my amazing church service and it was seriously like a "duh" moment! What better way to start off this blogging experience than to share my testimony of salvation?!?!             Like many of you, I was raised in church. I grew up in a house where there was no question as to whether we were going to church on Sunday mornings. I was thankfully raised by amazing Christian parents who always showed me the love of Christ. From as far back as I can remember, I was always the "good girl". I never wanted to get in trouble and always wanted to do the right thing. When I was about 9 or 10 years old, fear struck my heart. I didn't want to go to hell. I was always a worrier and that freaked me out! So one Saturday morning, as I was sitting in my room with curlers in my hair getting ready for a pageant, I

For a while now, God has been showing me Psalm 34:5. He has been reminding me that when I feel dull and feel as though my light has gone out, it's simply because I am not looking to Him. But recently, He laid this blog on my heart. Once He did, this verse and the word "Radiant" started showing up everywhere. So I knew it was time I acted on His calling to this.                 A blog may not seem like much to some people, but I believe I CAN reach people through this and I feel as though that is what God is calling me to do right now. In this dark world we live in, and as it keeps getting darker every day, we need more radiant hearts. More radiant lives. More radiant smiles. More people radiating the love of Christ.               I will not get into too much of my story today, because I will be unfolding it in later posts. But let me tell you I am NOT perfect. I have NOT had a perfect life, though at one time I was striving to. I suffered from anorexia for around 3