Soul

Okay, so I’m a few weeks late with this post … but it’s still January so I think it is timely! For the past several years, somewhere in the last week of the year or the first week of the new year, I intentionally carve out a day to reflect and plan. Each year it seems to evolve a little more which has made it more meaningful as the years go by. I used to only look forward to plan my upcoming year. But when I added reflecting on the past year as well, it was a game changer. As Holley Gerth writes in her book, The Powerful Purpose of Introverts “Reflection leaves us clearer, stronger, and calmer. It also gives us treasures we take back to the rest of our lives. Reflection is invisible but often even more valuable [than productivity].” If you’re like me when I read a

Most of us are probably familiar with the first four lines of the Serenity Prayer. But how many of us are familiar with the last eight? When I read the remainder of this prayer that was written almost 80+ years ago by Reinhold Niebuhr, it caught my attention and has stayed with me whenever I found myself in a time of crisis. I would say America, which means all of us, is currently in a time of crisis, wouldn’t you? The Serenity Prayer has been used by Alcoholics Anonymous and many other 12-step programs for decades. I’m sure you’ve seen it printed on greeting cards, bookmarks, and throughout social media. But for the most part, it stops after the first four lines. I wonder why? Here is the entire prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and

Dreaming big dreams can be … scary, exhilarating, trigger insecurities, and offer hope all at the same time! Do you ever have the feeling that you were made for more than your current life circumstances? Day-to-day just seems to be so fast paced, the routine so ingrained, the demands so overwhelming, that even the idea of dreaming big dreams seems so unrealistic. And do they even make sense?  Am I being selfish because I want more? I mean, shouldn’t I be content with this life God has given me? Then why is there this longing in my soul for something more? Several years ago I had this big “ah-ha” moment, although it was really a season instead of a moment because it took me quite some time to process and figure out what was going on in my head. The previous 10 years of my life had been a wild

I grew up my entire life believing in God. However, as a child it was the faith of my parents. As a teen, it was a faith put on the back burner until I started “adulting.” As a college-aged young person, it became my faith and my direction and my purpose in life. But life in those late teens/early 20s had many distractions—boys, career choices, boys, friends, boys … you get the picture! Enter in “The Boy” and you have wedding planning and eventually merging two lives into one. Early years of marriage were very challenging for both of us – I had always been a Princess, in my mind anyway, and couldn’t figure out why my Prince didn’t just know how to make me happy (like worship the ground I walk on, duh!) My Prince, on the other hand, was trying to figure out his role in this new

  There have been a number of times in my life when I felt what I call a “holy nudge” and knew I had to act or change the course of my direction. Many were insignificant long-term but they still required a response on my part. However, there are three times where that “nudge” took me in a direction and path that changed the course of my life and others as well. The first was when I was expecting our second child. I had been working full-time after our first child’s arrival with the plan to be a stay-at-home mom when the second arrived and also begin homeschooling our oldest. I knew I would need some supplemental income but wasn’t sure exactly where or how that would come about. I was presented with a business opportunity in a direct sales company, and for SOME reason, I knew that was what