I planned, God laughed.

They say if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Well, I think God got a good kick out of my day.

My hubby and I discovered a new and unpleasant sound coming from our SUV. So I booked time off work and took our SUV to my husband's grandfather's mechanic shop and had my father-in-law fix it. Turns out our brakes were starting to die, so a quick brake change and a short visit and I was on my way home. My plan was to arrive back home in time to pick up my husband from work, maybe get some groceries done and then head to Youth group.

Well, if you think my day went according to plan then you are wrong. The first part went smoothly, got our SUV fixed and left the shop on time. Here comes the part where God starts giggling. After an hr of driving (two and a half hr car ride), with smooth traffic, we come to a halt and everyone turns their motors off for about thirty minutes. I looked at google maps to see what happened and how to get around it. Turns out there was an accident and the detour route is just past it. So I'm not going anywhere for a little while. By now my anxiety has kicked in and gone full tilt.

Traffic eventually started moving and we got onto the detour route and started heading home. Expect with all the traffic that needed the detour and the time spent waiting for the accident to clear, we ended up adding two hrs to the trip. Needless to say, I did not pick up my husband from work. He walked home, a solid thirty minutes. I am very proud of him for doing that. He is not a fan of exercise but he said that taking a taxi or an Uber was a waste of money. As you can imagine by the time I got home I had ten minutes to spare before leaving for Youth group, so I grabbed a Pogo and walked out the door.

When we stopped for the accident my anxiety shot up to the roof. I tried to calm down but it did not work. A few minutes later God stepped in and explained why we were stopping, besides the accident that is. He simply wanted me to slow down and stop trying to control everything, and that's when I started to gently cry, along with thanking and praising God for this unorthodox rest.

So that was my day. I hope you had a wonderful day and as always I hope that this encourages and challenges you to schedule rest because it is just as important as getting all of your work done.

Note*

I journaled this post on October 22nd and forgot to post it until now. I'm really good at writing a journal entry that God puts on my heart, but terrible for making a blog post out of it in a timely manner.

Counting my Blessings

Tonight I climbed into my truck after doing groceries and thought to myself, "I have a full tank of gas, groceries and a home to go to. I am blessed." Then proceded to tear up a little. It has been a difficult season with my husband being out of work and all the stress that comes with that, but tonight I choose to count my blessings. Because when we choose to count our blessings instead of all our problems our perspective changes. Our problems do not seem so big or bad anymore. It is at this time that you should also get into your Bible and see what God has in store for you (I am going to dig into mine once I post this). You and I are now in a place where we can properly hear God's voice in our hearts and can accept what He has for us because we know that He is a good God and wants nothing but the best for us.
For the first time in ages, I am at peace with all the junk in my life and I hope and expect that I will be able to properly hear God's voice in my heart, now that my perspective has been changed and my focus is back on Him.
First things first though, count your blessings. Even if you can only think of a few small everyday items that we normally take for granted, like our warm houses or food in the fridge. God will do the rest.
I pray that this blesses you as much as it blessed me tonight.

God Bless
~Ruth

Attending Church on Our Bad Days

Sometimes making it to church on a Sunday morning is a full out chore for me. There are some mornings that I just do not want to "people." I do not have the energy to put on a smile and pretend that everything is going wonderfully in my life. I missed church this past week because of this and then last night as I was falling asleep, God reminded me that those are the days where we most need to be in church and fellowship with the body of Christ. These are the days when we need prayer and encouragement from trusted fellow believers. You see, the church is not for the healthy, I mean they are welcomed with opened arms, but the church is really for those of us who are lost and in need of a savior. Which by the way is everyone, but that is for another day. God tells us in His Word, the Holy Bible in Romans 3:23-24 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

You see, it is easy to attend on our good das when everything is going well, but it is even more important to attend on those bad days  so that way you can be lifted up by the body of Christ in prayer and best of all, God will get the glory, which is the ultimate goal.
So after God and I had our little heart to heart last night, I look forward to attending on good days and on the bad days as well. Because I also now that the devil would love for me to stay home and isolate myself away from the body of Christ, letting Satan win, and last I checked, Satan is not allowed to win.

It is my hope and prayer that those of you who are reading this take courage in knowing that you are not the only one who has bad days and now we both understand just how important it is that we attend church and connect with the body of Christ on a regular basis.

God Bless
~Ruth

Making Your Dreams a Reality

What is holding you back from your goals and dreams? Are you scared of the unknown like me? I have a few hobbies that I am trying to pursue and yet I am terrified. You see others around you working towards their goals and yet you cannot make yours a reality. For just over a year now my husband has been working hard at making his Youtube channel success and for a while, I was jealous that he was pursuing his hobbies and I was not. You have made commitments to yourself and are challenging yourself to take the first step and yet it feels impossible. All you can do is make excuses as to why you are not making your dreams or hobbies a reality. So what do we do?

First, find a friend to talk to and then get someone willing to be an accountability partner for our, someone who will gently push you and encourage you through the rough start.

You may also struggle with mental health like I, if you do then this is likely what is holding you back from your goals and dreams. If this is the case then seek help and then work towards your goals. But, before you do anything, talk to the Lord. Ask Him for strength and guidance. Philippians 4:13 comes to mind; I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God wants the very best for you. You may feel all alone, but I assure you that you are not. He is with you.

Then when it is time to start practicing your hobbies, dreams, and goals it does not have to happen in one day. It will take time. Start small, like 10 minutes a week and build from there. By starting small you will feel successful, accomplished and proud of your self for having done the activity. This even I took my puppy out to play fetch and brought my camera along. The first five minutes or so I took pictures of her and then the rest of the time was focused on fetch. But even though it was only a few minutes and a handful of pictures I feel accomplished and excited to go out again soon. Maybe even tomorrow.

All in all, it is a process and a journey and yours might look a little different than mine or someone else's but that is okay. That's how God planned it. All you need to do is figure out what you want to do, seek God and our friends for help. It's going to be scary and hard at first but in the long run, it will be worth it, and you will have discovered new dreams and experiences you never knew you wanted to experience or needed to experience. There will also be days when you want to give up or you will stumble along the way and have to start from the beginning again, and that is okay. As they say, Rome was not built in a day. It takes time, but it will be worth it in the end.

I pray that today's post and the posts that will be coming in the next few weeks will be encouraging, challenging and a blessing you to all.

God Bless

~Ruth

Putting Down My Phone

*This post is from August and I am now posting it.

I want to write but I do not know what to write about. I do not want to make up stories, I want to write about real things, just not sure what about yet.

I want to be a whole person, I'm tired of being addicted to my screens. To Facebook, Netflix, etc. I'm tired of being distracted from the important things in my life. Plus what I have realized since I started this post back in August is that social media is a huge waste of time, at least the amount of time that I was spending on it.

Yes, I have a rather full life, I work full time, have a wonderful hubby, a six-month-old puppy, attend and volunteer in my church, an apartment to maintain and the like. As embarrassing, as it is to admit something, is still running my life, my screen and it is now time to take back the control, or better yet, give it up to God. It is time to pursue the hobbies that I wish to put time into but keep getting put on the back burner, like reading, writing, and photography. It is time to start enjoying the people and things that God has blessed me with. He has given me an amazing life and it is time that I stop wasting it.

You see, I do not get out much, so social media has been my way of "getting out" and seeing what everyone is up to and "socializing." Yes, social media is helpful for keeping in touch for friends and family who are not close enough to visit on a regular basis but it is time to significantly cut down on the amount of time that I spend on it.

But it is time, it is time to put down my phone, pick up my book, pen and camera and enjoy God's creation. I'm not sure exactly what it will look like but as I write this I already feel free, excited and lighter. I suspect it will also help with my anxiety and depression. In fact, I wonder of there is a connection between screen time and mental health. I suspect there is and maybe I will look into it down the road. For now, its time to greatly reduce my screen time and increase my time to spend enjoying my other hobbies and see what happens. I suspect I will be a happier and healthier individual. It will be interesting to see if my hubby sees any difference over the next few weeks as well.

As always I pray that God uses my writing to encourage and bless you all. As you may have already figured out my writing is very real and raw. I do not plan or script it in any way. I simply get out my journal and let God do the rest. I pray that my posts will never be anything less.

God Bless

~Ruth

Stop Comparing Yourself

Like most people today, I struggle with comparing my self to others. In how I dress, how I did my hair and makeup that day, what I eat, how I spend my free time, and a whole host of other topics. Am I preaching to the choir yet? Thought so. God created us perfect in His image and then sin entered the world and our relationship with others in our lives along with our relationship with ourselves broke. Sounds funny doesn't it? Having a broken relationship with ourselves. To me this means that we do not see our selves the way that God sees us. I'll be the first to admit, I have never seen myself the way that God sees me.
Just recently God told me in my heart to "Stop Comparing Yourself." You see, we live in a society run by Satan who spends his every waking moment trying to tell us that we are not good enough. The good news though is that if we tune our ears to God and listen to what He has to say about us we will learn that we are perfect just the way we are. My fast metabolism and low appetite which keeps me very small is the way God made me, even though I would love to have an extra five pounds on or the fact that I do not like my hair texture (still working on accepting this quality). The thing is that we will never be happy while we are constantly comparing ourselves to those around us. You will spend your whole life trying to change yourself into who you think you should be instead of who God has created you to be. For myself I spend the last eleven years changing my hair length and style because I kept thinking that some other style would make me happy, but it never did. Thankfully God has done some work in me and I think I now know how I want to style my hair and I understand why I was so indecisive about it all those years.
I do not know what areas of your life you compare yourself to others, and it does not matter. The only thing that matters is that you know that you are loved by and made in the image of God and that God does not make any mistakes, He is perfect, He made you just the way you are, flaws and all. Of course, your flaws are not flaws in His eyes, they are really gifts that He has given to us to a) learn to love ourselves and b) for our personal ministries. Meaning that as we accept ourselves for who God has made us and we get to tell those around us what God has done in our lives and lead others into a relationship with Him.
You, like myself, might also compare yourself in what stage of life you are in now versus where you wish you were. I know for myself I wish I had a house, a dog, kids, and my degree finished. So far, I have a small apartment, a husband, and this summer we are finally getting a dog. I am "ahead" of some of my friends and "behind" others. The best part is that recently God reminded me that it does not matter what age you are at when you accomplish these things. Age is just a number, it's not a deadline for getting your "to-do list" finished. God has a plan for all of our lives, and whether we like it or not we are exactly where He wants you to be right now.
I also know that with social media these days and the challenge to have more likes, followers, comments, and of course all the filters we can use to make our pictures nicer than someone else's has driven our need to compete with friends and the rest of the world that much more, but that's not how we should be running our lives. We need to stop living for the next comment on our new profile picture and get into the Word of God, get back to what really matters.
So, turn off your social media accounts and pick up your Bible and ask God who He says you are. I guarantee you will love His answer.
As always I hope you are blessed by this post and if you do not yet know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior ask myself or someone else who does and we would be thrilled to journey with you as you enter the best relationship of your life.
God Bless
~Ruth

The Signs of a Good Wife

For years I have believed that the signs of a good wife are her ability to keep her home clean and cook good meals for her family. Unfortunately, I have never been very good at either. Sure, I can clean our apartment and do a good professional job, in fact, I worked as a cleaning lady over the years, of course, the clean home doesn't last long and I have never been a fan of cooking. As you can imagine this has not helped my self-esteem or my mental health issues. Thankfully for me as a Christian wife who also works full time there are a lot of other qualities that make a good wife, such as my love and respect for my husband, my ability to submit to him, the fact that I am a hard worker and last but not least my love for a and my relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins and gave me my husband.
I also figured at one point that as a good wife I needed to take up cooking and baking as a hobby. One small problem though, I'de rather not. I figured from a financial and practical perspective that they would be great hobbies for a wife. Except I have no interest in spending hrs in the kitchen. For those of you who do, I praise your name and those around you who are benefiting from your love of the kitchen are blessed because of you.
Thankfully the sparkling reflection of the tub or the three-course meal with dessert included are not the only signs of a good wife. They are just two of the many signs of a good wife. They are two physical signs, but there are many other physical, mental, emotional, and physiological signs of a good wife. Some of those signs include being a good listener and cheering my hubby on when he has a bad day at work.
So just because you would rather watch tv than make a cooking show worthy meal every night is not a sign of being a bad wife. It shows that you are human and that there are many signs of being a good wife, including sending your hubby out for takeout because you had a long day at work and have no energy to cook.
God has given us each our own gifts, talents, and strengths and by his grace, we all are wonderful wives blessed with amazing husbands.

I pray that you are as blessed by reading this as I am to write it.
God Bless
~Ruth

The Importance of Hobbies

I've never been one for hobbies., until now. For most of my life, I spent my time focusing on school and extracurricular activities (which I guess you could call them hobbies, I do not personally). Then I got married and like any good wife, my focus was on my husband and school.

I'm slowly getting into hobbies now, I have been getting better at taking our camera out and enjoying nature and God's creation. That being said though it was rough finding the time, energy, and until recently an activity that I wish to do. You see, my life is currently focused on my husband, job, serving God, and paying off debt. It was not until recently when my dad came over to help with our income taxes that I realized just how important having hobbies/activities outside of your vocation really are. While filing my husband's and my taxes dad and I was talking about how he is coming up to retirement age soon and realizing that all my father has done his adult life is work. He is a hard worker and a driven man, two qualities of which I admire him for and also inherited from him as well. All my life dad went to work and then on the weekends he would spend his well deserved restful weekend reading a good book. Which is wonderful, but how much can one really read when they retire? I too may enjoy a good book but I would not be able to read all day for the rest of my life.

As you can imagine this whole exchange made me realize that a) my husband is very blessed to have a hobby that he will enjoy when he retires, and b) that I need a hobby.

I had already started to take our camera out to the local parks and play with the different settings and so on. So I challenged myself and started getting out more often to take pictures and really explore what I enjoy taking pictures of. I even took our camera to a baby shower recently and enjoying capturing all the fun that was had. I have really enjoyed connecting with God through His creation and learning how different angles, lighting, and other such settings can really make or break a great picture. It has been a joy to look at my pictures of my computer after an afternoon out and see what I was able to capture. I have also started learning how to do my watermark and sign my photographs like the professionals do.

At the end of the day, my thoughts through this season and this post is that our jobs are not everything. Yes, they provide a way for us to get out of the house and create a regular routine which for myself is essential (I thrive on routine), it also brings in money and allows us to maintain our lifestyle choices, but at the end of the day though, regardless of how much you like your job, and for me, I love my job and the people I would with. God has blessed me with some amazing co-workers that I love with all my heart and blessed me with the best management team that I have ever worked with, but no matter how much you love your job, you still need to have some fun activities outside of work, or else when you enter into retirement you will have nothing to do.

So, to all who are reading this, I hope that I have encouraged you to find activities that you enjoy doing outside of work. You may have to go through a season of trial and error before you figure out what you are passionate about which may be frustrating, but hang in there. Get through the growing pains and you will find all kinds of new activities that you enjoy doing and bring your life joy. As always I hope this post blessed you and challenged you like it has for me.

God Bless

~Ruth

Letting Go and Letting God.

*I wrote this post in my journal months ago and forgot to post it.

Many people do not know this but I struggle with control issues. I feel the need to control every aspect of my life and when something does not go my way, which it often does because let's face it, we cannot control every single aspect of our life, I lose it. I get angry, stressed and anxious. As you can see this is a very personal issue that is hard to share. Only a few people know about it because of how personal it is. But as I was journaling this evening and trying to control and fix things, and as usual, failing at it, God got a hold of me, like He has many times before and I'm sure He will many more times in the future. He told me that I cannot control everything or fix everything and then shortly after that He put this post on my heart and the words started flowing. So despite how personal this is, I know He has a reason for this.

What he showed me tonight is that because I try to control every detail of my life, right down to the very minute He showed me that with my control issues there is no room left for God. There is no room to trust Him in the unknown.

That being said please hear me, I am a Christian, I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and I love Him and my relationship with Him, but as you can see, I am still a flawed human being who has been saved by the grace of God.

I do trust God and He has done some amazing things in my life to which I am so grateful for.

He showed me tonight that by giving Him the control issues that  I will no longer be stressed out or have an anxiety attack when things do not go according to my plan. He showed me that I am safe in Him and can let go and let Him take the reigns. I've been praying that He would show me how to heal/walk away from my control issues like I have for many other things in my life, and tonight He did just that. And now, I am free.

You see, I do not like my control issues, they stress me out and hurt the ones I love the most but as we all figure out one way or another we cannot do life on our own, we need God. Of course, those who are not believers have not yet figured this truth out, and that is okay. God had a time and a place for everything and I pray one day they will come to know this truth.

Back to the point though. Tonight God showed me that I cannot have both Him and control, and tonight He showed me how I can have Him that much more.

To those who are reading this and do not know me or my walk with Christ very well probably think I journal like a wobbly Christian, I am not. I have been a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ for many years and love growing and learning more about Him. But like you all know life is hard at times and just because I am a believer I still struggle with the same problems that everyone else struggles and thankfully I have my heavenly Father to walk through the good and the bad times with.

So for those of you who struggle with control or whatever other issues you love, God is with you and want to help you, just like He helped me tonight. of course, I do not know what your journey will look like. All I know is that if you are willing, God can do amazing things in your life if you will let Him.

I do not know what the next few days, weeks or months will look like as I follow God through and away from my control issue, but I do know this, I can already feel the stress and anxiety melt away as I let go and let God.

I am blessed to serve such an amazing heavenly Father who wants the very best for me and is willing to work with me as I continue to learn and practice walking by faith and not by sight. I pray that reading this post has been a blessing to you as much as writing it was for me.

God Bless
~Ruth