Imperfect And Wonderfully Made

  I had told myself that I would only do one blog post a week, but I’ve had something that has really been stirring in my soul this week. It involves standing up for what my core principles and values are in my life and to not let someone feel they have the right to try and sway what I hold true to myself. I’m very open to what my belief system is and I don’t impose those beliefs on anyone unless they want to engage in conversation with me about them. But there is one thing I will definitely not tolerate. When you have a difference of opinion with someone and you see it going that direction, you immediately change the subject or ask the person to cease to talk about it as we can agree to disagree, but then when they continue droning on about what they think and trying to convince you to set aside your values and then get personal, because you don’t want to engage in what they have to say anymore it becomes offensive. This week I had to stand up for my faith. It’s no secret that I’v...

I’ve gotten to an age where I just love feeling contentment. I’ve had enough drama in my lifetime that now I’m at a point where I just want to surround myself with contentment and serenity. So how do I do that you may ask? I’ve learned that being content first of all happens with a lot of prayer — at least in my life. I let God handle any anxiousness that I may have, because He told me to unload my burdens on Him, so after all these years of fighting within my own thoughts of anxiousness, I’ve finally learned to do that. Another way I find contentment is to read. I remember as a young girl I had a hard time reading, because I had a hard time with comprehension. I still have a hard time with retaining what I read, but I select books that are inspiring and up lifting.  I adore devotionals or books that have short chapters. I really like reading biographies of people who have overcome huge obstacles in their lives and are living testimonies as to how their lives were changed by God an...

I had the privilege of visiting my daughter in Southern California as it was my gift to her for her birthday. That is the only thing she asked of me for this birthday — her 36th one. As the result of spending time down south with her and her family, I was able to see friends and other family members. One of my greatest joys was to be able to spend some one on one time with my two grandchildren who are 11 and 13 now. They stayed with me for two nights in my hotel room. They also attended church with me on Sunday and Harvest Christian Fellowship. The overall visit was amazing, although when I got home, my poor old body had to recuperate from sore muscles as we were constantly moving and in traveling, I had to lift my heavy luggage across airports. As I was visiting, I had made it a priority to not neglect my devotional time and Bible studies. In doing so, I was reminded how sometimes God takes us into different areas in our lives for His purpose. I have to share that organically and with...

  I remember when I was younger, I always dreaded Valentine’s Day. I was always fearful that my Valentine’s Day bag at school would not be filled with Valentines and that no one would give me a card. However, I think teachers pretty much took care of kids not being discriminated against. I remember right before the “Valentine’s Day” party, the teacher would remind each of us of the number of kids in class and to make sure that you brought enough Valentine’s Day cards to share. Sometimes the teacher would provide us a list of children’s names so we could put their names on the card envelope. When you get to middle school this is a little more complicated, because then it was a popularity thing. I know booster clubs or whatever would sell Valentine’s Day flowers or candies that would be distributed on the special day to students who received those things from other classmates. I usually was not one of those to receive a token gift. You knew though, who was popular and well liked on t...

Since deciding to only do one post in a week, coming up with a topic comes much easier to me. Especially, because it is Sunday and my day starts off with watching the streamed services of Harvest Christian Fellowship with Pastor Greg Laurie. Today’s message was about the characteristics of the disciples, prayer and how Jesus takes a mess and makes them messengers. Quite a bit of food for thought for today. As I’m starting to carry out my responsibilities for the day, I had to redo my priorities for the day. Sometimes I think that I have to get everything I have listed done in one day — that’s just not true. Then it puts a little bit of pressure on me, because I have to strategize how to get things done. Sometimes, I just want to turn everything off and just concentrate on one thing instead of feeling the need to multitask. I quite often ask myself, Cindy, why are you trying to accomplish everything in one day? So then I step back and think about what “really” needs to be accomplished a...