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

Quality vs. Quantity time with God

Since the beginning of the year of I have been reading three chapters of the Bible and my daily devotional and enjoying it. Not always taking in a whole lot though. Which I would argue is the point of spending time in God's word. Over the years people have suggested how much time we are to spend with God each day. So I've tried different timelines so see what worked best for me.

Recently I attended the Change Conference in Toronto for a class assignment. During one of the messages, I head that a lady would be speaking about hear the voice of God. I eagerly went to that session because (a) I felt the Lord lead me to it (little did I know what He had planned for me) and (b) I wanted some encouragement and verification that I, in fact, hear from God. Whenever the Holy Spirit talks to me I always say “I think God just told me...” I never wanted to take authority and say yes with certainty that God did and does talk to me. Along with realizing that I need to be more assertive in knowing that it is Him talking to me I was also reminded that our time with God is not about the quantity of time I spend with Him, it is about the quality of that time. Fifteen minutes can be much more beneficial then dragging yourself through forty-five minutes and watching the clock regularly. Yes, I am guilty of that. I do enjoy my time with the Lord and feel that my day is thrown way off when I do not start it with him but I will also admit that I have been a bit religious about how much time to spend with Him. 

When the speaker talked about quality verse quantity the Lord got my attention and said that I should just be doing my devotional. For half a second I thought, “But that will only take a few minutes, verse reading my Bible and doing the devotional.” The other part of me was happy that I didn't have to spend as much time in the Word when I really wasn't getting a whole lot of out it. (Yes, I know I sound sacrilegious, but at least I'm being honest). So I got home that night and because I did not have time early that morning to do my God time I did it when I got home and just did the devotional. For each day, my devotional has a theme, a verse/passage and then a description afterward. So I decided that I would read the passage in my Bible that the devotional instructed more carefully with a pen for marking when necessary and then reading the paragraph in the devotional book afterward, followed by prayer time. At first, it felt weird to only spend a few minutes in my devotional, but that soon changed.

Ever since that day God has been moving and teaching me so much. He is basically teaching me one new thing a week and I hear His voice so much more clearly now.

A side benefit to all this is that I do not have to get up as early now because I have gone from about thirty to forty-five minutes to fifteen to twenty minutes with Him in the morning.

Moral of the story, God is not impressed with the length of time you spend in His Word with Him, He just wants us to spend time with Him so that He can teach us the things He wants us to learn.

I also no longer feel bad about only giving God fifteen minutes of my day in the morning and a few minutes at bedtime because I know and have been reminded that He is not impressed with the amount of time as long as He comes first in our lives.

So, to those of you who have been dealing with the same issues I have been dealing with, take heart and know that you are not alone.

As always, I hope this blesses and encourages you.

God Bless

~Ruth

I'm a simple girl who loves pink.

I'm a simple girl who loves pink.

Since my mid-teen years, I have been wanting to change my wardrobe, to be prettier and not as simple and plain. Trying to create a new image, but too afraid to do anything about it and not knowing where to begin. The last few years since Pinterest has become a love of mine I have used it to try and create a new look for myself, all the while unknowingly fighting to stay the same. I like jeans and t-shirts or jeans and a tank top. I also like dresses and skirts and high heels, and as most people know I am obsessed with the colour pink. So after years of trying to create a new sophisticated look for myself and failing at it, I realized that I'm okay with how I dress. So I have come to the conclusion of this, so what if I don't dress up every day, so what if I like PJs and hoodies on cold days. I am me, and I like me. 

As I was writing a few thoughts down in my phone tonight about all this, before the rest of the post came together, this one sentence hit home and helped me accept myself, “I”m a simple girl who loves pink.”

It is relieving to know that I can finally start enjoying myself in the clothing that I like and be happy. This is how God made me.

So, to all those girls out there who are struggling with the same or similar issue just remember it's okay to be yourself. Stop trying to impress other people by how you dress. Only God's opinion matters and He says you are beautiful and loves you the way you are, if He did not he would not have made you the way he did.

For those who are trying to impress the world, I get it, but trying to please someone who will never be pleased is exhausting and a waste of time. Remember, the people who matter will love you and the way you dress and the ones who do not like how you dress, well their opinions do not have to matter. Each one of us decides who's opinions will matter to us. So pick and choose who's opinions really matter to you.

This has been one of the most eye-opening nights of my life. God has healed my heart and I pray you will allow Him to heal yours as well. I honestly feel so relaxed and relieved now that I can enjoy being the simple girl God created me to be.

So enjoy the days where you want to wear a dress, but also enjoy the days when you want to wear your hair in a ponytail or wear little to no makeup. Enjoy every outfit because God made you this way.

God Bless

~Ruth

Ps. This morning Chase and I had a few errands to run, so I put my hair in a ponytail, did my makeup, put on a pair of capri pants, a pink t-shirt, and sandals and for the first time in a long time I felt beautiful wearing a simple outfit.

Priorities.

Recently my mom told me that my great aunt moved into seniors home. Which is a good thing for a number of reasons. As mom was telling me about the whole ordeal, she mentioned that my great aunt can only have 40 things in her room. Now I'm not sure what all that includes but either way it got me thinking about what 40 things I would bring assuming that the list is about our personal stuff and not clothing, furniture, and other basic necessities. After talking to mom, I decided to write down a list of the 40 things I would take with me. My list included my Bible, devotional book, and journal. Then it went on to my electronics and some sentimental decorations from our wedding and family heirlooms.

Thinking through my list really made me examine my priorities and what matters most to me. My first priority being God, then my family, and finally school and my personal fitness. It's a list like this that makes us take a step back and examine our priorities, for better or worse.

I would like to challenge each one of you who is reading this to make a list of the top 40 things that you would want to take with you, on your next trip or move, or anywhere you are going that has a limited packing list.

Regardless of what you put your faith and trust in, for me, it is God and I hope and pray that it is the same for you as well if you are not following God then you have no idea what you are missing out on. Life with the Lord in the driver's seat is never a dull moment.

Matthew 6:19-21 NKJV "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 'but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 'For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be'"

God Bless
~Ruth

Home.

Home

(From Google) Noun. The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

The other night I was fixing a decoration called “Stairway to Heaven.” It has been passed down to me from my sister at my wedding. She got it from my mother and mom got it from my grandmother. As I was finishing putting the final piece back on it I was thinking about the spot on the wall that it would stick to. Once I decided on the right spot I sat at my dining room table and look around my apartment at our furniture and decorations (its open concept from the kitchen, dining, and living room) and felt like I was at home. It has been just over a year and a half since I have felt like I had a home. Home for me was at my parent's place until I got married and moved out. After getting married my hubby and I lived with his grandparents for the summer and then we moved into our own place that September. We lived in that apartment for a year before moving to Cambridge to where we are now. Living with his grandparents was not home, don't get me wrong. I love them dearly and I am so grateful for them opening up their home to us that summer but it was not home. Our next apartment was not home either. We knew from the moment we signed the lease that it was going to be a temporary home until we could save up and move to Cambridge so I could return to school. God also had other plans for us while we were in our first apartment, but that will be for a different day. Never once did I call that place “home” I always referred to it as “our place.” We only put one decoration on the wall that whole year and simply arranged our furniture to work for us. Finally, after a year we were blessed to move to Cambridge and God gave us the apartment that we have now. Our very first day in our apartment we were unloading the Uhaul and unpacking boxes and I was excited to start decorating and I called it “home.” I started decorating right away and starting making it into our first home. Our apartment has its downsides, but what apartment doesn't? Yes, we do plan on moving at the end of our lease, but for now, it is home.

I never asked people what the atmosphere of our last place felt like but I have asked what our new place feels like and their response was “home”. I hope that this apartment continues to feel like home and that every other place we live in will also feel like home.

They say home is where the heart is. I believe that a) home is where the heart is and b) home is where my hubby is. As a couple we believe that God called us to move to Cambridge for my educational purposes and to start our family (in a few years). So my heart has been in Cambridge for quite some time now and now I am here with my hubby. So in every respect of the word “home”, I am now “home.” What a beautiful thing to be able to say “I'm home.”

I hope that all you who are reading this are either in your home or are working towards it. It doesn't have to be big or fancy. We live a simple life. It's all about where your heart is and who is in it.

Here is a picture of the wall decoration all finished and on display for all to see.

God Bless

~Ruth