Just Trying to find My Way

I started writing this post two other times and I'm hoping that the third time is the charm!!! I picked the topic Life is Hard and the first time I started thinking about it was while on vacation in Florida. I found myself standing on the shores of Cocoa Beach staring out at the ocean. Sometimes life feels as overwhelming as the waves crashing on the shore...it can knock you off your feet when you aren't paying attention and even take you out to sea where you feel like you're drowning. Why does life have to be so hard? I started to remember the times in my own life when I would ask myself the same question. I have to be honest, at the time of my questioning I became more and more angry, cynical, and negative. I was focusing on my circumstances and not on the God who could use those circumstances for His glory. I wasn't letting Him. (Let me say that again,,,I wasn't LETTING Him!!!) Here's the thing that I think happens a lot of the time in this life. I think th

I am joining my friend Meagen Chellin of  "The Girl With The Naturally Curly Hair" in writing about speaking the truth into each others lives as we all just try and find our way. It's so easy to focus on the negative in our lives. So easy to get distracted from what the real truth is about ourselves. I have a number of people in my life that I have been blessed with who give me perspective when I focus on the wrong things. One of those people is Meagen. We have had the honor of speaking truth into each others lives and I am honored to be writing these posts with her!!! Meagen has already written about being worthy and being beautiful. If you haven't gotten to read them yet please check them out....lightonmyface.blogspot.com. I have chosen to write about being significant. Not too long ago I was able to speak to a small group of women at church. We were discussing who God says we are and I was given the word significant. As I was preparing what I was going to say I f

It's been a while since my last post. If I'm truly honest it's because I have been working through a season of disillusionment. Big word that translates in my simple mind to questioning everything that has come my way. I learned a long time ago that this life is hard and I also learned not so long ago to stop asking why things have to be so hard. I truly believe that God is always at work even when we can't wrap our human minds around our circumstance. I also believe that if I spend too much time focusing on the circumstance instead of on Him I fall into disillusionment really quickly. I need to read my Bible when I don't necessarily feel like it so I can refocus on things like.... Psalms 94:19-"When doubts fill my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer!" & I Corinthians 13:12 "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and

I am REALLY good at self pity!!!! I found out just how good I am at it this weekend.....which is actually really hard for me to admit. It continues to amaze me how one thought in my head can snowball into flat out self pity. I'm in a weird place in my life. I'm not in the little kid phase anymore where my kids need me for everything. They are 15 and 10 and can do most everything for themselves so I find that a lot of times I'm just hanging out waiting for the times they need rides, things at the store, or to go cheer them on at an event, which is what happened this weekend. Actually there were two things this weekend which is where the beginning of the pity party came in---there was this big women's event at church and for the first time in a long, long time I wasn't asked to help with anything. That was really hard for me because like most people I want to feel needed. But instead of enjoying the break and going to enjoy myself at the event I found myself on the

It was Sunday afternoon and I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor having myself a good cry. There was a day when I would have felt guilty about that. I'm the kind of girl who used to think that I had to carry the world on my shoulders. I had to, in the world's eyes, keep it all together. It had been a week of people just needing a part of me. Seemed like everyday someone "needed" help with something and normally it isn't a problem, but this particular day I had come to the end of myself.  It's the little things that seem to chip away at you and slowly tire you out. So, there I sat. I found myself remembering the verse in Psalms "Be still and know that I am God!" and next came remembering that one of the names of Jesus is Wonderful Counselor. That struck me that day because I needed to call out to Him and tell Him I was done struggling to keep all the plates spinning. I needed to let go, but letting go of control is not my strong point!! To a

There are moments in our lives that can cut so deep we start to think it's who we are. That somehow that one moment defines who we are. But if we know Jesus and the price that was paid for our healing and freedom we can know "it" (whatever "it" might be for you) does not define who we are. That is why this is my favorite part of this story....I believe satan is at his best when he is able to keep us wrapped up in our pain and focused on the bad that has been done to us. He had me believing that just because I had remembered this horrible thing that had been done to me I didn't really have to deal with the consequences of it. I could just pick up and go on like normal. I remember when I was little and I would fall and skin a knee or an elbow the worst part of it was when my mom had to wipe it off before the band aid went on otherwise the wound would soon get infected and not heal. Emotional wounds are the same. I soon came to realize that I had a lot of unw

This is a part of my story that I don't get to talk about much anymore. Maybe because I've worked all the way through it to a place of healing or maybe because I've been saving it for writing it out here where there just may be more healing, It's a hard story to tell, but one that may help someone else out there going through something similar. That's what I believe Jesus does with stories like mine...He uses it for good...nothing is wasted in His view! I pray you might be blessed...... It happened when I was 5 years old. My mom had taken my sister and I to the same babysitters house that we had been to for a long time. Everything was normal except that the babysitter's father in law was there to visit....he would be the man I would soon refer to as "the old man" for the rest of my life. To this day I don't remember his face, just that he sat by the big picture window in a big recliner and that he changed me for the rest of my life. No one knew,

It's not my anniversary. It's not a special occasion. It's just an ordinary day. So why am I writing about marriage? My husband has been gone on a trip for work for only two days and I'm realizing how much he does for me on a daily basis and how much I take him for granted. This man of mine had no idea what he was getting into when he married me 18+ years ago. We really didn't do so well the first 3 years and we both take responsibility for it. We ended the whole marriage and then God stepped in....I'll maybe write more about that someday....for now I can tell you this--I've learned that marriage is much less about me and more about what I can do for my sweet husband. I used to fight him every chance I got and yes, I still sometimes do because old habits die hard, but for the most part I try to back him up in all he does. Not gonna lie, sometimes it's really hard, but that's when I have to go back to what Jesus says...          " you must clot

College...I loved it. It's where I finally started to find out who Shelly was. Interesting how that happens when you leave home. It was 4 years of also finding out who God really was too. He became alive, real, and my best friend!!! I found myself growing like I never had in my whole short life. I knew, at the time, that I would never doubt...never turn away...and never ever walk away from what I believed!!!! The last week of my senior year the Dean of Students gathered up all of us seniors and gave a talk that at the time really rubbed me the wrong way. He talked about how we had been blessed being able to attend a christian college, but he was very blunt about how it was a stark difference to "the real world". He said that a percentage of us (that I now can't remember, but know it was high) would, in fact, walk away from Jesus because of what this world could throw at you. He talked about the importance of making sure your roots went down really deep so that this wo