Time to Wake Up

    Forgive me for falling asleep, Lord. It has been a few busy weeks, and I have been on auto piolet. I have been going through the motions of going to work, feeding my family, attempting to clean my home, and walking Blessing. It's been an exhausting few weeks, Lord. I know now it's because I have been asleep in my faith. Forgive me for that Lord. I was reminded this morning in church that the Christian faith is the only religion where we pray to a relational God who desires to have a personal relationship with me. Thank you, Lord, for wanting me, Father. I have been exhausted these last few weeks and have been wondering why. I eat right, exercise, and sleep well.  I do all the "right" things and yet I forgot the most important thing. Time with you, Lord. Proper, intimate, relationship-building time with you, Lord. I have been doing everything right by the world's standards and yet forgot about your stands Lord. Forgive me, Father. Thank you for your message this morning in church. In Jesus' name, amen.

    This was my prayer after listening to my pastor's sermon this morning. The message was from Matthew 26:36-46, where Jesus wanted his disciples to stay away and keep watch while He went and prayed to The Father. It was a powerful message that I needed to hear. You see, lately, I have a) been on auto piolet, and b) my thoughts have been a little too consumed by the world, by covid-19 and the state of the government, and instead of praying over it all, I have been complaining.

    It occurred to me last night as I was falling asleep that I have not gotten my journal out in a month. I also realized that outside of our time in quarantine at the beginning of the month, I have barely read a book and besides a family photoshoot before Christmas, I cannot remember the last time I took my camera out.

    Needless to say, God has given me a wake-up call this morning that I am eternally grateful. Not only has He waken up my faith. He reminded me of the importance of enjoying my life and my hobbies. Because there is more to life than just working and paying bills, God wants us to enjoy our life.

    So this afternoon with a beautiful snowfall that God has blessed me with (first snowfall since November). Blessing and I went to the park behind our home, played on the playset, and ran around the adjoining enclosed field. She ran, I walked. We also enjoyed a photoshoot on the playset. She is my good little model.

    Once we returned home, I felt renewed and reenergized. Thank you, Lord, for a wonderful afternoon. I woke up this morning with little interest in engaging with life today until you woke me up.

    Friends, I do not know where you stand today, but I know that God wants us to have an intimate and personal relationship with Him and that can only happen when we are awake and engaging with Him. He is not simply the guy who delivers your Amazon package, where you simply smile and say thank you for your order. He wants to be yours and my best friend, whom we tell everything to.

I pray that this post blesses you where ever life finds you today.

God Bless

~Ruth

The Things You Have Now, You Prayed For.

    Over the last few days (two weeks ago now) I have been frustrated and grumbling over not hearing word yet over the apartment that my hubby and I applied to live in. Hubby tried to remind me to be patient and that we are on the top of the list for the apartment and that the superintendent already knows and likes our family so, therefore, there is no reason the company would not want to rent to us. Even with this reminder and information, I am still anxious to hear back and move our family into our new home. Even with this 99% chance, we will get the apartment, I do not count my eggs before the chicken lays them.

    Do not get me wrong, we are very grateful to my in-laws for letting us stay rent-free on their property while we get our life set up here in Wallaceburg. It has allowed us to put a good chunk of money onto our debt and start our journey to financial recovery. Non the less though, we are anxious to move into our own home.

    A few days later, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across a post that read, "Remember when you prayed for the things you have now?" You can also word it like this, "The things you have now, you prayed for." The latter is how my brain interpreted it. It felt like God was smacking me right between the eyes, in a good way, because it is true. My hubby started working down in Wallaceburg right before Easter 2021.

    I would drive him to London (halfway) on Sunday nights and then pick him up on Friday nights. That commute got old, real fast, for both our family and our car. We did it though, by the grace of God, we were able to save up and prepare to move down to Wallaceburg. Once we had our moving expenses, we started looking for an apartment and a new job for me. To no avail though. 

    Meanwhile, we were getting very tired of driving and living separately. It was time for our family (hubby, Blessing, and I) to be under the same roof again. We were all feeling the strain. There was one night in particular where Blessing was missing her daddy and could not settle down for bed, I went to his t-shirt drawer, took two t-shirts out, one for her to lay on and one to wrap around her. Minutes later, she was asleep. The whole ordeal was very cute.

    We had talked about temporarily living where my hubby was staying during the week. It would not be a perfect setup, meaning it would not be "home" but it would get our family under one roof in the right town. Hubby shared his reservations with me about the idea and explained why it would not work. Later the idea came up in conversation with my in-laws, we shared our concerns about the idea and discussed if there was a way to make it work for everyone. We then prayed over it, and God said yes, it would be our temporary home. Praise the Lord! It had been five long months at this point and we were done.

    We quickly packed up our apartment, said as many good buys as we were able, and headed to our new home. An answered prayer. Yes, there have been adjustments, but even more blessings.

    While I sit here on my couch writing, I am thankful for this blessing. Yes, I am anxious about our new place, which I do not believe is wrong. It is wrong to be anxious and upset and frustrated about it. It is not wrong to be excited and anxious in the sense that we are waiting for an answer. Yes, I was frustrated and anxious about it at the beginning of the week and then hubby lovingly corrected me.

    God is always right. We did pray for our living situation. Ever since I saw the post on Instagram, whenever I start to grumble about not having answers for the apartment, God reminds me that not only did I pray for this, but if God wanted me to have the answer for the apartment, then we would have it. Waiting sucks. Guess He is also working on growing my patience.

    Friends, what things, people, or places are in your life right now that you are complaining about that you prayed and asked God for a few days, months, or even a year ago? It may surprise you. It is also a reminder to be careful of what you wish.

    

    I pray this post finds you well as you enter into the new year.

    God Bless

    ~Ruth

Today's photo was taken by my father-in-law the day we walked out our answered prayer and moved our family back under one roof.

Time to Declutter

    This past week I decided that my life is too cluttered. From the amount of stuff I have around my home all the way to how many apps I have on the cell phone and everything in between. I decided my first task would be to clean up my "phone time" and stop aimlessly scrolling on Facebook when I need to "kill time" or just need a few minutes to myself to chill. When in reality screen time is not relaxing, it contributes to your "fight or flight" response. No, I have no research to back up this claim. I just know that for myself and a few other people I have spoken to that the less screen time they have the less stressed and overreact/ get triggered less.

    So instead of scrolling on Facebook I started using my time a little more wisely and decided to start "scheduling" my Facebook time. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous, but this way I can still go on and post my blog, connect with friends and family but not spend so much time that I end up aimlessly scrolling. It's all about moderation.

    The first few days were great and I accomplished a lot. It went a little downhill though when I replaced 20 minutes of scrolling with an episode of a TV show on Netflix. Netflix is not bad either though, but this was not the point of the exercise. That being said, I watch very little V.

    Anyways, before I got distracted though I was making good progress, and of course we all know that growth is not linear, there will be up and downs, so I am not going to be hard on myself, simply learning as I go.

    The next area that I wanted to start decluttering was my phone, so I looked through all my apps, notes in my memo pad, and my gallery (mainly my screenshot album) and started cleaning out all the things I no longer need, use or want. I was pleasantly surprised by how much stuff I had on my phone that I no longer needed.

    After that, I wanted to tackle my purse, which took just a few minutes though because I regularly clean it out. I would like to clean out my wallet as well and see how many cards I have that I have no need for or use.

    I have started making mental notes of all the "stuff" that we have in our home and how once we move in the new year I want to decorate our new apartment and anything that does not find a home gets donated or sold instead of simply putting it into storage with the mindset that "someday I will use that." No, I am not a hoarder, we simply have lived in small spaces since day one and thus never have the room to use all the things that have been lovingly gifted to us or we have purchased over the years and I am now ready to make decisions about the items that have been sitting in storage for years.  We are hoping for a bigger apartment for the new year and are just waiting to hear back from the company, so with a bigger place, we can decorate with more things and thus figure out what stuff is in storage we want to keep. I am also tired of dusting and maintaining all the things we have on display currently, but I want to see how they will fit in our new home.

    I have read that mental clutter is a result of physical clutter. There are lots of quotes on the internet that state that sentence with more eloquence and sound more poetic, but the meaning stays the same. The more stuff, the more stress. At least that is how I am feeling these days. I am tired of having to schedule a time to clean and tidy my home when I would rather be reading a book or spending time with my family. Do not get me wrong though, our home is clean and tidy, but I suspect with less stuff it will take less time to keep clean. I once heard someone say that their goal was to have 80% of their home clean 80% of the time. I love this idea and want to start implementing it. You see, I am an all-or-nothing kind of person. If the dishes are not done but the counter, table, and floor are clean, the kitchen is still not clean. If the bathtub is not scrubbed, but the rest of the bathroom is clean, it is still not cleaned in my book. So not only am I going to reduce the amount of stuff I have I also want to start giving myself more grace if my home is not 100% spotless 100% of the time.

    This next part is my favorite. I am excited to clean out my closet. Said no women ever right? I have started making a mental list and now a partial physical pile of clothing that I either no longer like or simply never wear. I am going through my closet with the Marie Kondo method and weeding out the clothing that I no longer love and blessing others with it. The part that makes me excited about this part of my cleaning is because I am going, to be honest with myself and decide what clothing items bring me joy and confidence versus what I think other people want to see me wear or expect me to wear or clothing I am wearing trying to be someone else. No, clothing does not define a person, but it does tell the world around you and yourself who you are.

    The final step in my declutter, or at least for now, is my daily schedule and routine. For about a week I have been waking up early every morning about thirty minutes before I have to get up. A couple of mornings I went back to sleep and a couple of mornings I simply got up. I did not give much thought to my new wake times at first until one evening Blessing and I were out for our evening walk and was processing my daily schedule and praying through my frustration about my daily routine. During my prayer, I told God that I am tired of how my evenings run and how at best I have thirty minutes to myself before showing and climbing into bed. God then told me to get up at 4:30 am instead of 5 am and then explained what tasks that are normally in the evening or sometimes get skipped all together can be done in the mornings. I instantly felt relief and excitement to alter my routine in the coming days to alter my morning and evening routine giving me more downtown for both myself and my family. There are still lots of tweaking to do, but it is a start. It is funny how a few days ago I was a little annoyed because I wept waking up early, now I know God had a plan all along. God was simply preparing the way and then prepared me for it.

    I find it funny though that I have spent just over a week doing a lot of mental work in prep for this declutter, and yet only now, a week later I have finally found the time to write in my journal at 7 am on a Saturday, in my kitchen while a batch of cookies baking in the oven. Yes, you read that right. I am up and baking at 7 am on a Saturday. Actually, I was up at 4:30 this morning, got myself ready for the day, and then headed to the kitchen at 6 am to start baking cookies for all the family gatherings to attend over the next few weeks. I feel a little like Betty Crocker at the moment. In my kitchen at 6 am with my hair and makeup done for the day and dressed for this evening's activities while baking in prep for it.

    I pray friends that as we navigate through this busy time of year we can all take an inventory of our time, energy, "stuff", and resources and see if it does not only represent who we are but more importantly who God is and what He has done for us. I once saw a quote that said, "If you are too busy to pray, you are busier than God intended." Not exactly what we are talking about today, but if you spend all your time dusting your knickknacks and leave little to no time to spend with God, then it's kind of the same thing. We have too much stuff friends.

    I pray this post blesses and encourages you where ever it finds you today.

    God Bless

    ~Ruth

    Today's picture was taken when my hubby and I first got our camera a couple years ago. Taken down the road from my now late grandparent's cottage. This picture depicts a beautiful open field and open space and that is what I am working on making in my home and life. Open space and time.

    When I took this picture I gave very little though to it, we were simply walking down the road to the cemetery to visit the gave of some of my relatives. In fact the light and quality of this picture is not what I would choose today, which just goes to show my growth as a photographer, but more importantly it is no longer a "poor quality picture", it is a memory of the home and life that my grandparents build and a reminder to not take anything for granted.

Jesus loves me, this I know.

     All my life I have struggled with knowing and accepting God's love for me. Yes, I know the Sunday school songs and John 3:16 but, it has never been heart knowledge for me. For years I have thought of Him as my Lord and Savior along with my provider and protector but never someone who loves me.

    Because I have never experienced His love for me or at least not in a way that spoke to my heart, I went to other sources for that love. Mainly my hubby. One problem though, my hubby, as amazing as he is, is not able to give me the love that I need from God, nor is he supposed to be able to give me that kind of love. As you can imagine that has put stress on our marriage over the years.

    Recently my hubby reminded me that I need to go to God for love, as he has many times before. This time though, it clicked in my mind and heart. Later that day I'm in the shower, crying, both literally and crying out to God asking Him to show me His love.

    He so clearly spoke to my heart and told me that He put Jesus on the cross because of how much He loves me.

    It finally started to hit me. Love is an action. God sending Jesus to the cross was and is the greatest act of love that mankind has ever seen and it is finally hitting home for me.

    I let the news settle for a few days with the intention of digging more into this new revelation. Unfortunately, a few days passed and I forgot. Then a week later I was in my journal and saw what I had written the day God first gave me the revelation and started praying over this new knowledge. I asked God to show me a scripture that started in plain English that He loves me. Outside of John 3:16 that is. Simply because I have taken that verse for granted for years and needed to see a "new" verse in a fresh way. He reminded me of 1st Corinthians 13:4-7. A passage that lists the actions and characteristics of someone who loves you. The first two are patience and kindness. That stopped me in my tracks. God has shown me patience and kindness countless times throughout my entire life. As the truth of this passage started to sink in over the next few days I started to notice a change in my spirit. I feel more confident in who I am and less of a need to prove myself to both those around me and to myself. All because I now know and understand just how much God loves me and knowing that someone thinks you are with dying for is a pretty big confidence builder. I feel calmer and find myself resting in my new self-esteem. What a joy these last few days have been. I'm excited to learn more about God's love for me and then show that love to those around me.

    Friends, I pray that you either know this truth already or are like me and are in the process of learning about God's amazing love for us. I also pray that we both continue to learn about God and deepen our relationships with Him.

    I pray this post finds you well this Sunday afternoon and blesses you.

    God Bless

    ~Ruth

Today's Photo is simply a photo that I love and am proud of.

My Rings

    It's been six and a half years since we said "I do" and my hubby put my wedding ring on my finger, completing my set with my engagement ring. Then three years into our marriage I started a physically involved job that damaged my ring. I probably should not have been wearing it in the first place, but I did. So it went into my jewelry box until we could fix it. It then sat there for three years. Between not having the income to fix it and working a job that either did not allow it or was simply a bad idea, I have not touched it in years.

    Well, we are now finally in a much better financial position and my new job is significantly safer and involves less machinery than my previous jobs. So I took it to the local jeweler and had them fix it. The arms that hold the pink rock and one of the smaller white rocks on the engagement ring needed tightening. A week later I had my ring set on my finger, all shiny and new.

    I have been wearing cheap Walmart rings for years and missing my real one. Not anymore though. My rings are fixed and back on my finger where they belong. It is hard to believe that they are finally back. I have been waiting years, half of our married life to be exact and now they are back. It is hard to believe that it finally happened. Every now and then I look down to double-check that it was not all just a dream. At one point I started to wonder if we would ever be able to fix them.

    As I started writing this journal entry, I started to question myself. I thought, "Who cares that I fixed my wedding ring set. No one will want to read that blog post." Then I reminded myself that I care and that is all the reason I need to write it. I want to write more and practice my skills. I often think that I do not have a whole lot to write about, but it is time to stop listening to that lie and start writing. So here it is, and to those who also feel insecure about their writing or other skill, remember that you are, I care and most importantly God cares. God gave you your craft and skill set for a reason. So use it and bring Him glory, after all, that is why He put us on earth.

    So go. Go, get a pen and piece of paper, a cup of your favorite drink, and a cozy chair and let your imagination run free. Be blessed my friends and enjoy your God-given skills and talents.

    Ps. If you are like me and spelling and grammar are not your best friend. Use grammerly.

Today's photo is my ring set, back from the jeweler. I love how beautifully it sits on the cushion of late grandfather's rocking chair. I tried to use a point background but it was not working. I guess you can have too much pink.😉 Who would have thought. 💁

High Standards

    The other day I was working on a task with someone. When we arrived at the point where they felt that it was complete, they wanted to leave. It upset me because, to me, it was not. This landed us in an argument. The person left, and I finished the task to my standards. Now, in no way is this story about blaming the other person. I am intentionally not saying who they are because it is not about them. It's about me and God. I debated not sharing this post in case anyone figures out who this person is and develops ill feelings towards this person on my behalf. I decided to post it though because I wanted to share with you all what God has been doing in my heart and life recently. So where we go.

    After they walked away, I prayed through my frustration and asked God to convict me of my sin and show me where I was wrong. I was not sure if I was wrong, so I figured I would let God be the judge of that. After I calmed down, I went to the person, they were angry. I asked why. They said that my standards were too high.

    I pondered their anger for a minute with the desire to make it right. I felt bad that I had hurt them, but I did not feel bad for having high standards. After another minute of pondering I said to the person that I was sorry for hurting them with my high standards. I was not sorry for having high standards, I believe they are God-given, but I was sorry for hurting them. They forgave me, and we moved on.

    The next day, a friend and fellow believer asked me if God had been teaching me anything new recently. I pondered for a minute and recounted the above story and said that God was teaching me that it is okay to have high standards, good even. I cannot put them on others though or expect others to live up to my standards. I was amazed at the timing of their question because I had not thought of the previous day's experiences as God teaching me something. It was an amazing "God moment."

    God has made each one of us different, different likes and dislikes, and so on. He also gave us different standards. This is good because if we all had the same standards the world would be a very different place.

    So now God is teaching me that He did give me high standards, but I am not allowed to push them on others or get mad when someone does not live up to mine.

This whole new learning curve has been a breath of fresh air and has stopped me from getting upset when those around me do not do things the way I think they should be done. Yes, I know I sound like a control freak because I am one. That is something else I am working on. One thing at a time though. Because I am no longer frustrated when people do not do things to my standards, I am now able to live with more peace and harmony with myself and those around me. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

You see, by getting upset that someone does not have the same standards or do things the way you do it, we are telling God that He did not create that person properly. I do not know about you, but I have no intention of telling God, the creator of heaven and earth that He messed up when He created someone. So the next time you get frustrated that someone does not do a task the way you want it done, remember that God created them that way. Now, maybe they do have some growing to do in that area, but that is not up to us. It is up to God. So I am going to God with my frustrations and say, "here, you deal with this."

So, friends, it has been a big week for me as I walk in this new lesson from God and not impose my standards on others.

I pray that this post finds you well and blesses you.

God Bless

~Ruth

I  chose this photo today because when I originally took the picture it did not turn out the way I wanted. So I did a bit of editing to bring it up to my high standards, and this beauty is now the end result. Enjoy. 😊

I am so grateful.

    Grateful has been my word for the last few weeks. At the beginning of November, God blessed my hubby and I with a new job for me. We moved at the end of September and I spent October making our temporary living space a home while looking for work. It was a difficult month because a lot of my self-worth is tied to my ability to bring in a paycheck. I applied for lots of jobs and had a few interviews but nothing was happening. I finally applied to a factory that happened to be one kilometer from where we are currently staying. Hello, quick commute. So I applied. I did not know anything about the business let alone have the job experience to put on my resume, but I went anyway. I walked into the visitor entrance and told the receptionist that I wanted to hand in my resume and she replied with "I want to give you an interview." I walked out of the office a minute later with an interview set up for the following morning. Praise the Lord.

    The next morning God blessed me with a great interview. Whereby the time I walked out of it, the man conducting the interview had to hold back from hiring me on the spot. I could see the wheels turning in his head and he was trying not to hire me on the spot. Most of the time when you walk out of an interview you have no idea what the person thought. This time I knew and I was relatively certain that I would get a call with an offer of employment.

    I am so grateful.

    Two days later I received a phone call with an offer of employment and that orientation would start the following Monday, the phone call occurred at 12:30 pm on Friday. Two days later I would be an employee. I applied on October 26th and one week later, on November 1st I had a job.

    I am so grateful.

    I did not know what shift I was going to be on. There was a day shift and an afternoon shift. Not only am I a morning person, but I have also worked on the afternoon shift for a different company and was miserable. The shift time was not the only reason for my misery, but it was a good chunk of it. Plus my husband works from 8 till 5 pm, so if I got the days shift we would be able to have dinner together and share our evenings, versus only seeing each other on the weekends. So I spent the next three days praying for the day shift. When I attended orientation I was informed that I was on the day shift. Praise the Lord. An answer to our prayers.

    I am so grateful.

    So now I work in a local factory, making good money and in six months we will have benefits.

    I am so grateful.

    It is not a glamorous job. It is a dusty factory. I wear work boots and I come home dusty and sometimes dirty, but I have a job. For the last few years, I have been wanting to work somewhere I could dress nicely and put myself together. For now, though God has been putting me in businesses where I wear steel-toe shoes and generally do not want to sit down on my furniture before I have showered and changed. That is okay though because I like my work boots and I do not mind coming home dusty or dirty. You see, the last few weeks have taught me that I can enjoy both sides of my personality, the girly girl on the weekends and the work boot wearing general labor during the week. I also struggled a little with the idea of working in a "dead end job" of a factory, but then I remembered that someone has to do it because we do need products that are made in factories, and therefore it is an important job. It may not always look like an important job, but it is. Because God has given it to me to help take care of my family.

    I am so grateful.

    Maybe someday I will work in an office setting and get to wear high heels to work and curl my hair, but for now, I am going to embrace my work boots and my french braid. Because God has blessed my family with a second income. An income that we need, but God has brought it to us. I spent a lot of time praying for this job in October and God did some work in my hard in regards to my mindset about why I wanted the job. In the beginning, my reasons were a whole lot more selfish, mixed in with a few good reasons for wanting a job.

    Then one day, God, Blessing, and I were on a walk and God explained to me that I needed to change my desire for having a job from want to "contribute" to my family finances to "being a helpmate" Genesis 2:20, to my husband and helping pay our bills. Boy, was that ever a gamechanger in my thought process.

    I am so grateful.

    Now we are blessed with two incomes and are able to not only pay our bills but are also able to take some of the financial goals we have had for a few years now and start putting them into action. No, money is not everything, and yes, I do struggle with putting money on a high shelf closer to God than I should and I am working on it. It is, however, a tool that God has given to us to use for His glory and our pleasure.

    So every time someone has asked me over the last few weeks how I like my job, I simply say that I am grateful to have a job. God is protecting me in this factory, (another story for another day) and providing for my family. We serve a great and mighty God friends.

    I am so grateful.

I pray that this post blesses you today in your walk with Christ.

God Bless

~Ruth

After my orientation on the Monday morning, my hubby and I had an apt, I saw these trees on our drive that day and decided after words I would return for a photo shoot. I am so grateful for how this picture turned out. 😉