Ten Things to Know Before Starting a New Adventure

I am a lover of adventure, which works out well since this life is filled with it. I believe that adventure can be found in our everyday lives. It lies merely in our perception. Adventure can look like moving across the globe, starting a new career, or simply living with a new outlook. Whatever your adventure is, here are a few pointers that I have learned during the adventures that I have taken.

One. Beginning is half the battle.

When you have a dream or an idea, at some point, you need to simply start. Of course, it is good to wait for timing that works for your life, but I would hesitate to wait for the timing to be “perfect”. At some point you must stop talking about what you are going to do and just do it.

Two.  At times, you will want to quit.

Starting something new is always challenging, and most of us don’t enjoy being challenged. At times, the cost feels very high, particularly in moments that seemed discouraging. There are many reasons to quit something, but being “hard” is not a good reason. If it is truly an adventure that you wanted to start, don’t end it early. You must not quit.

Three. Prepare for people’s opinions to be a part of your journey.

Some people will be there to cheer you on and push you forward. Other people will be there to tell you that you should stop or that your adventure is a waste of time. They will tell you how you are doing things wrong. Some people will say nothing at all, and it will leave you guessing what they think. You must not get distracted by any of it. You see, you are not on this adventure for them. You are on this adventure for you. Keep your cheerleaders close though because you will need them when things get tough.

Four. Time will be your friend.

Don’t get overwhelmed by how difficult and time consuming things are in the beginning. With time, things will go smoother and be much simpler. Give yourself the time that you need to figure out how to master your quest.

Five. Breaks are necessary.

When you start something new, you need to allow time for breaks. Let yourself have time to rest whether it be for an hour, a day, a week or a month! Take a break, but don’t quit.

Six. Expect backlash.

This world has a way of hitting us hard, and that is never shown better than when we step out to start something new. Whether it be mean critics, poor timing, bad weather, relationship struggles or financial difficulty, it can feel like this world literally begins to revolt when we step foot on a new journey. Expect backlash. You didn’t start the journey because it was going to be easy. You started this journey because you felt the call for more. Don’t go back.

Seven. The key to your success will be in your expectations.

What are your expectations for your adventure? You must not expect quick success, overwhelming praise, or glorious riches. None of these things will be guaranteed. However, you can expect adventure. Your adventure will give you adventure. You can expect to grow. You can expect to learn about yourself. These things alone must be worth the adventure because nothing else is guaranteed. A true adventurer is driven merely with the desire to push for more out of this life and the desire to live this life to the fullest.  

Eight. Your adventure will make you feel vulnerable.

Starting something new is vulnerable. Always. When you begin to speak out into the world that you are starting a new voyage, the world will have something to say about it. You must be prepared for your journey to feel difficult and vulnerable. I say this not to discourage you, but to prepare you that the journey will most likely hit you where it hurts. The journey will challenge you not only in your strength, but especially in your weakness. The key here is not to lose your vulnerability. Do not allow the voyage to make you bitter or cynical. Vulnerability is one of your most treasured assets. Guard it with your life.

Nine. Your adventure is waiting on you.

No one is waiting to make your dream a reality. No one is going to do it for you. It won’t just fall in your lap and it won’t be served to you on a silver platter. If you want something out of this life, it is up to you and you alone will have to work for it.

Ten. Your adventure will not always feel like an adventure.

This is perhaps the most important thing to understand about adventure. There will be moments of your adventure that feel exhilarating and life changing, but the majority of your moments will feel quite mundane. Most of them will be simply about putting one foot in front of the other. Let’s not ever be under the impression that adventure is about mere excitement. Our adventure is about so much more than how we feel.

For us adventurers, life is simple. It is about getting off of our little behinds and choosing to go and live what is inside of us. We are not dictated by our fears. We are not motivated by others. We are not even driven by our destination.

We are driven by the desire to push ourselves. We are driven by the desire to explore the unknown and are not intimidated by the “what-ifs”.

Some people will love us for our adventure and some people will hate us, but it matters not, because we aren’t doing it for them. We are doing it for ourselves, so when we are at the end of our life, we won’t die with our life still inside of us. We are living it now. Leaving nothing left to be buried in our grave.

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Dear 2016, You Were Rough.

Dear 2016, you were rough.

There is no way I could have predicted everything that you brought to my life. I’m not going to lie, you kind of exhausted me. In many ways I feel like you were a year filled with the time of ten years. I can hardly believe everything that I experienced in your mere twelve months of time.

You are a year that tested me in a unique way. You were filled with both exquisite gain and surprising loss. You brought with you moments of abundant laughter and deep sorrow. You brought many challenges that I didn’t expect. I didn’t enjoy those, but of course, it is in our most challenging days that we are given the greatest opportunity to learn and to grow.

I owe you a debt of gratitude. For who I am today is not who I was before you came to me.

You took a great deal from me, but you also gave me some things of immeasurable value. You have given me a new appreciation for my life and those whom I love. Actually, you have given me a great appreciation for everything in my life.

You reminded me just how silly it is to be attached to “things” and how vital it is to value the people I have in my life.

I have learned in the deepest part of me to stop waiting for tomorrow to live.

You offered me many moments to show people grace, forgiveness and love.  

You brought with you opportunities to be blessed in ways that I never expected to need a blessing.

You have taught me that even with the hardest work and effort, things sometimes just don’t work out.

You once again reminded me that life is not fair, and it is silly to focus on what is “fair” anyways.

You have shown me that joy truly does come in the morning; however, you also reminded me that the night can be long and very dark.

You gave me many opportunities to choose things that I didn’t feel but I believe to be true. You gave me opportunity to choose faith over doubt, hope over despair, and love over hate.

When I think back on you, I will look back at you with appreciation. You will always be a defining year of my life. You gave me many opportunities to determine who I really want to be in my life.

I am proud of the steps I have taken. I have walked many new places and tried many new things. I took risks. I didn’t “play it safe”. You gave me those chances, thank-you.

At times, I was not sure if you were my enemy or my friend, but you gave me the opportunity to live. Can I ever repay you for that?

So, 2016, I thank you. I am thankful for you, but it is time for you to go. It is now time to look forward to a new day.

Good-bye my friend,

Haley.

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Stop Waiting. Live NOW. {Video}

What are your thoughts about the coming new year? Do you have any goals? It can be too easy to forget to do the things that are important to us, but there is no better time than now to live the life that we want to live!

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Behind on Life

So at what point in life will I actually feel like I am able to accomplish everything that needs to be done?

Because I feel behind… a lot.

The “to-do” list never ends. I feel like I should be doing more things, better. Even right now, I am typing this during the evening. I don’t usually like to write in the evening, but here I am behind.

Most of the time I wake up feeling like I should’ve woken up earlier and I go to bed feeling like I should have gotten more done.

It isn’t just one thing in my life that I feel like I may be falling short on...

I have insurance papers that need to be filled out, mail to sort, calls to make and texts to return.

I need to go grocery shopping and should be cooking at home more.

I am behind on cleaning, dishes and laundry.

I am tired, but who has time to be tired ? I long to rest, but if I spend the kids’ naptime resting and doing nothing, I feel like I wasted the afternoon.

The thought of working out doesn’t even cross my mind anymore, considering I don’t even give the time to wash my hair if I can get by another day.

I have so many thoughts on things I want to write, but sit down and struggle to complete an entire piece. I have vlogs I need to shoot and guest posts I need to edit.

Don’t even get me started on the things left to do before Christmas.

I am doing my best, but my best is not getting everything done.

To be honest, this usually brings me a lot of stress and shame; however, I have been vigilant in not allowing my shame to control me. If I allow it, shame will tell me every single day of my life that I am a failure. No matter how much I accomplish shame will always be there to tell me it wasn’t enough.  Right now, I am focused on this process.

I am committed to telling my shame to shut up.

Tonight, I am going to write this and let it be what it is. I’m not going to be ashamed that it isn’t better. It is what it is and that is enough. I am not going to focus on all of the things that I should have done differently today.

I am not going to focus on the fact that I fell short, but I will choose to focus on the fact that I did my best.

Parenthood has taught me that the "to-do" list is never finished. Ever. EVER. So I must no longer be driven by it.

I must be driven by my desire to live this life, not just get it done.

We have got to stop allowing ourselves to believe that we are failing. We have to stop being ashamed of our lives. We have to stop being ashamed of ourselves. We can’t keep going like this. I know that this life is intense, but we have to start holding our head up. We are doing our best. We are moving forward.

This life should not be defined by how much we have checked off of our “to-do” list, but by how well we can live our life as we accomplish the things that need to be done.

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When Choices Get You Down

The following is a guest post by my younger sister Chloe'. Chloe' is an amazing woman with an amazing perspective on life. Enjoy!

When Choices Get You Down

In life we will have many doors to walk through. We will make many decisions regarding the ones we open and the ones we close. We have the choice. This is where our free will comes in.

Oh, choices. These things have always been difficult for me.

Funny enough, choosing where to eat is one of the hardest decisions for me to make. Simple, yet so complex. My friends are always saying they're going to make me choose because I never do. Partially, because at times I genuinely just do not care. But to be honest, the main reason resonates within the fear of someone not liking the decision I make.

For whatever reason… Choices get me.

Have you ever had to make a choice and the fear of making the wrong one almost becomes crippling? Or perhaps others opinions of you "making the wrong choice" is enough to keep you from making any decision at all.

"What will they think of me if...?"

A question we all have asked ourselves, and a question that is dangerous to live by. We have given this question a position in our lives that it does not deserve. We have allowed it to be our filter, and direct our decision making, when we should never be asking for its two cents in the first place.

We must release others expectations of us. They are not ours to carry and they most definitely are not ours to use in order to operate our lives.

But it is not just others that I fear disappointing. I have also struggled with being afraid that I may disappoint my God. What if I make a choice different than the one He has planned for me?

Which job to pursue? Which boy to marry? Where to live? To have a kid or not have a kid? Quit the job or keep the job? We can see the doors opening yet we're hesitant to walk through them.

To be honest, the doors can seem more like an obstacle than an opportunity.

We start to think if we walk through Door 1 when we were supposed to walk through Door 2… The Lord is going to penalize us. Maybe He will be mad, maybe He will be disappointed in some way, maybe He will hold on to the blessings He was going to give us, or worse, He may punish us. Our thought process becomes skewed and we begin to make a decision (or not make a decision) out of fear. We pray and ask the Lord to give us a sign -- preferably a billboard with flashing lights or having something fall from the sky would suffice. Even if that sign must hit us in the head, as long as He lets us know if we're making the right decision. It's quite comical actually… In these moments we almost wish He would just make the decision for us, as if free will were not a thing at all.

We must not allow the weight of our choices to distract us from the faithfulness of our God.

What if it is not as much about the choice we make (destination), but the journey and what we learn in the process?

I do not believe my God turns his back on me when I might choose "wrong". I simply believe the Lord will meet me wherever I am! Praise God for his grace, am I right?

I firmly believe that the Lord has a plan for me, but I also firmly believe in the power of prayer. I do not want to disregard the significance of prayer and making decisions to align with God's will for my life. But what I do want to hit on is that my God is beside me through it all. And I most definitely don't think he is sitting around waiting to punish me the moment I walk through the "wrong" door. In the midst of my mistakes, in the midst of my wrong decisions, and in the midst of the highs and the lows... He holds me by his righteous right hand and He directs me with His peace.

I have walked through what some may consider "wrong doors" in my lifetime...

BUT THE LORD ALREADY KNEW I WAS GOING TO WALK THROUGH THOSE DOORs BEFORE I EVEN KNEW they were AN OPTION.

I can rest in the fact that His plan for my life is redemption and the journey is filled with grace, life lessons, and growth. It's up to me to accept His grace, make the effort to learn the lessons, and be willing to do whatever He asks of me to grow. Even when (not if-- but when) it's hard. 

It's our CHOICE and I pray that we decide to say "Yes, Lord" every single time.

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Dealing with Discouragement

Seriously, I have to do this again? I have to be here… again? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be disappointed. I want to move on. I want to not care. But I do. I do care.

I am tired of feeling disappointed in this life.

I am tired of resenting my hope.

It is easy to resent hope because it is only after hope that I find myself disappointed. And shortly after disappointment comes discouragement. But I hate discouragement more than I hate disappointment. I hate being discouraged. I hate being overwhelmed.

I am a handler. I like to handle things, not to be handled by them.

I like to have strength, knowledge, and wisdom to deal with every obstacle that comes my way. I like to have a plan to proceed forward with finding success. And I enjoy having my to-do list that I can check off my small victories.

I like victories.

I don’t like to feel like I am losing. I don’t like to feel like I am falling behind. Isn’t it so easy to feel like we are falling behind? In a moment we can be hit with the revelation that we are lagging. We should be farther. We should be more. We should be better.

I hate these moments.

I hate the moments that tell me I should be more than I am.

That my life should be more than it is.

I hate the seconds of my life that discouragement tells me how to feel… and I listen. I hate it. I don’t want to listen to my discouragement, but at times it feels like the only voice I can hear. I try to quiet the voice and speak firm to my discouragement. Sometimes it happens so subtly that I fail to realize what is even happening. I fail to realize who I am listening to.

You see, discouragement tries to get me to sit down and stop. Discouragement tells me that I will never catch up and that in the end, I will lose anyway.

Discouragement tells me to quit.

I was telling Carter the other day that it is funny because I wouldn’t call myself a quitter; (I actually can’t think of anything at the moment that I have actually quit) however, I think about quitting things a lot.

One example of this is when I thought about starting a blog for years. Finally, last June I began to force myself to take action toward my goal. Funny enough, I “quit” my blog about six times before I even launched it. Haha! Carter would come home and I would tell him about the new thing that I was trying to learn, but I was pretty sure it was too hard and I needed to just quit. I would give myself a week or two and then get back at it to try again. It didn’t happen overnight, but six months later I launched myself a blog!

Even now, I will call Carter and tell him that I need to work on a blog post, but have come to the realization that I have nothing to say and don’t know why I have a blog. I give myself a moment… or a day and then I get back at it. Suddenly, I have something to say again and I wonder how I could have ever felt voiceless.

Truth is, quitting is not my style. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I guess I like breaks.

I am all about taking a break when things get tough.

Let’s not discount the very necessary experience of rest. Rest is perfect. If you are discouraged today, step back, breathe and rest.

Give yourself rest, but don’t quit.

Funny enough, discouragement often comes right before our greatest breakthroughs! Let’s not listen to the voice that tells us to quit because that voice cannot be trusted!

Let’s keep our heads up. We can do this!

-Haley

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Shame Is the Name of the Game

Have you ever been overwhelmed with shame? Have you ever felt shame for a choice or a mistake that you made? Maybe you have felt shame for not being the same as someone else? Or felt ashamed for being “you”? Have you ever felt like you aren't enough?

Shame is interesting. When we are shaming someone else, we feel superior. We feel that we are better than them because “we would never do that” or “say that” or “be that”. When we experience shame within ourselves, it makes us feel inferior. “How can I struggle with this?” or “Why did I say that?” or “Why did I do that?”

Shame is woven into our culture. It is used in our marriages, friendships, parenting, religion, politics, workplaces… It is everywhere. I am particularly talking about how we use it to dishonor and disgrace people.

Shame has a strange way of connecting people together. Many people and cultures embrace the idea of shaming others. They value shame. Entire movements have been fueled by it. People love to join together and shame others for their choices.

Shame is one of the loudest voices in the world right now.

Why?

Because it works.

Shame is often used to manipulate people. It keeps people “in line” and is powerful enough to control behavior. When someone uses shame on us, it connects us to our deepest fear of being rejected.

 “If I am not good enough, they will leave me.”

 “If I don’t measure up, they will not love me.”

Shame is a mighty force, but shame can’t possibly compare to the power of love. Love gives grace and mercy to accept us in our current condition.

Love gives us security.

“I love you just as you are.”

Shame gives us a threat.

“If you don’t measure up, I will leave you.”

Shame is powerful, but let me warn you, it only has the power to put people in shackles. Shame loves to keep people enslaved with guilt. It keeps us afraid and confined. I wonder how many of us have been too afraid to be honest about our internal struggles because we are unsure if we will be loved once we are.  

Shame keeps us in bondage.

Love gives us freedom.

Even if we decide we don’t want to live a life of shame, other people will try to give it to us. Some people don’t want to live without it. We cannot control the choices they make, but we can control the ones we make.

We must stop allowing shame to dictate our lives.

I have yet to meet a person who has arrived to the destination of “Perfection”. We must stop believing that we only have value if we are perfect. We must find a way to love the fact that we are a work in progress. Our value must not come from our degree of perfection, but from the fact that we are a human being.

It is vital that we get rid of the sliding scale that we use to measure people’s worth… including our own.

We are all on a journey, and this journey should not be treated with shame, but with appreciation. We should be grateful for the continual opportunity to learn, grow and become even more beautiful than we were yesterday.

We must not let the shame of who we have been keep us from the glory of who we are becoming. 

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That Awkward Moment When... Someone Tells You They Don't Like You

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Counting My Blessings

“The following is a guest blog by my mom, Shelly. My mom is an extraordinary woman. She has taught me how to fight for my life. Literally, everything good in my life would not have been possible if it weren’t for the things that she has taught me. I felt it very fitting to ask her to be a guest on my blog. I couldn’t help but be moved with tears when I read it. She is an inspirational fighter and I consider it my absolute privilege to have been raised by her. Enjoy. ”

— Haley

"Counting My Blessings"

The past five years of my life have been very difficult. I've been evaluating and asking myself how we've gotten through some of the hardest trials we've experienced. (Of course, besides the deaths of people we love that is a whole other category!) If I look over the past few years and focus on my disappointments I could come to the conclusion that life has really sucked. But the truth is, it hasn't.

Let me give you just a little background of where we've been...

I would consider us very blessed. I got married at 18 and my husband was 19. He stepped into a company that was started with family and it was very successful. Over the years, we acquired a lot… a lot of house, a lot of possessions and a lot of children. We had new cars and nice furniture, expensive clothes and a lifestyle of travel and fun. I never really had a budget… but probably should have!

I was able to be a stay at home mom and live the life of my dreams as I mothered my seven kids. We loved God, we were big givers and we were good people. I took care of my kids and we often opened up our home and took in other kids that needed a safe place.

Of course, in life there are many twist and turns so I will make this very long story short. Through many circumstances of life, family member deaths and a bad economy in February 2013 we lost pretty much everything we had acquired over 30 years of hard work and marriage.

Boom it was gone.

Our house, our company, our salary, our lifestyle was all taken from us. Our very hard fought fight to stay afloat had ended and we sat dumbfounded at what in the world was going to happen to us.

As I look back over that time I honestly don't know how we made it… but we did. It was absolutely overwhelming. I felt totally and completely unequipped to live this life with nothing. We felt too old to start over, but we actually had no other choice.

We live in a small town and everywhere I went I felt like literally all eyes were on me. It's quite the feeling when you are at your most vulnerable and you feel like everyone, real or imagined, is talking about your financial failures. 

Though, I didn't have much time to worry about that because my family was either going to sink or swim.

We still had a senior and sophomore in high school and a fourth grader living at home. My husband was exhausted and broken. There were days I felt like I was having to give him CPR on the boat deck while my kids were in deep water barely keeping their heads afloat. As I would breathe one breath into my husband on deck I would smile and yell overboard to my kids, "Don't worry, we're going to be fine, keep paddling, you're doing great!"

I felt gripped with panic and fear of what was going to happen to us.

I felt great pressure for me to be the stabilizing factor to all my family who looked to me to tell them everything was going to be ok. I had always played that roll in our family, but this time the stakes seemed really high. The truth is there were many times I was scared to death. It felt like the whole ship of this family would sink to the depths if I didn't keep myself together.

What do you do when you need to look brave, calm and in control, but you feel you are so ill-equipped and in the most uncharted territory of your lifetime?

For me, I only knew one thing to do. Pray. It wasn't like this was a new lifestyle for me. I am a praying woman, but it was a desperate kind of prayer.

 It was the kind of prayers that are whispered in the middle of the night and all through the day.

As always, my God was faithful to comfort me. In the beginning days I heard simple things like, "Breathe". I would simply stop and take a deep breath in. I would imagine I was breathing in peace and exhaling worry and fear. In the stillness of the night I would hear God say, "Everything is going to be all right".

I wrote the things that I had found out to be complete truths of God in my life.

1. God will never leave me or forsake me.

2. All things work together for good to those who love the Lord.

3. God has a plan for myself and my family.

4. God is faithful.

5. God loves us. (Even when we don't feel like circumstances are saying that.)

There were days I would have to read this list over and over just to get through the day. Each time, as I did this I found myself back at peace. It was the firm foundation I could come back to when I felt shaky. I felt like I had to be very diligent to do this daily and sometimes hourly.

Through this time, I learned some things from God and life that I believe are very foundational to help through times of crisis. After I became more stabilized I felt like I could begin to take some actions. These are some that helped me.

1. I had to purposely live in the moment.

Not just one day at a time, but literally one second at a time. No matter how hard it was I could not let myself be dragged from the moment I was living.  I could find peace there. There was no peace in the past of why or how this had happened. There was certainly no peace in the thinking of the future. How were we going to live with no income? Where were we going to live? How will we provide for our children? How will we get health insurance for our handicapped daughter? You know… those kind of “little” nagging questions that can weigh heavy on your mind!

2. I counted my blessings.

Every day I wrote down our blessings. That old hymn I was made to sing over and over in church came rushing back. "Please turn to hymn number 237, Count Your Blessings". So I did. Every single day I read over what blessing I had written down the day before. Then, I wrote down the new blessings that had come. Some days my blessings were big, miraculous and awe inspiring. Other days they were barely there… like, we were still alive!!

3. Lastly, I made an absolute choice to not feel sorry for myself. I would not allow myself to play the victim.

As I look back, I stand in amazement that we have always had what we needed as we needed it. We've had our needs met which is miraculous in itself, but more amazing to me is that we have not just survived we have thrived. It doesn't make sense, but that is just how God works!

 I have experienced joy on levels I have never experienced before. Peace is my companion in new ways that I have never had. Thankfulness and gratitude comes much more effortlessly.

Don't get me wrong, there are days when I call my close friends who have walked faithfully by my side through this dark, hard journey and I say overly dramatic statements that they know I don't mean.  I question how long this "blessed teaching moment" will continue and are tempted to throw a little temper tantrum.

Don't we all love these character building moments in this journey we call life? Not really.....except when I look at the person I've become and realize that God's plan really might be better than mine.

Who knew??

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Thriving Through Difficulty

I used to spend my life trying to stay on top of my problems. I used to try to avoid pain and difficulty. I used to find myself striving for perfection. Striving for happiness. No longer. I have now realized that this life is not about striving for perfection either within me or within my circumstances.

I believe that so many of us are missing our full potential of this life because our goal is to “be happy and avoid pain”. The problem with avoiding pain is that there are parts of the healing process that feel painful. Growing and learning will never be easy. If we try to avoid pain, we will deny ourselves the opportunity to truly heal.

Our problems aren’t the problem. Our problem is that we allow our problems to dictate our happiness. If our contentment is based on our circumstances, our contentment will always be at risk of being taken.

Our circumstances should not be given the power to take our peace.

We must not view our circumstances as the problem. We can easily spend days, weeks, months and years of our life striving to rid ourselves of problems. The issue with living like this is that no matter how hard we try, there will always be another problem at our door. Always.

We must stop viewing our difficulties as our enemy.

Our difficulties are not what keeps us stuck, our inability to grow is.

We must begin to understand that healing in this life will come at a cost. It will cost us something to grow. It will cost us to let go of our expectations and choose to enjoy the life we do have.

There is such beauty in difficulty. Our difficulty gives us the opportunity to heal. Our difficulty gives us an opportunity to choose beauty even when we don’t see it.

Our challenges give us the opportunity to choose grace.

Our fears gives us the opportunity to choose faith.

Our discouragement gives us the opportunity to choose hope.

When we struggle we are given the opportunity to choose things that we don’t feel. We cannot underestimate the value of this experience. In a world that says we should never deny our feelings, it is a very powerful moment when we realize the best thing we can do at times is to deny our emotions.

We must go on the journey to find peace. A peace that passes understanding and is not blown to and fro by every wind. We must become strong and find a firm place to stand. We must not allow ourselves to be controlled by our outward circumstances, but our inward strength.

We must find a way to soar above the storm. We must find a way to thrive during difficulty. We must. Our life depends on it.

Finding peace is what this life is about. If you haven’t found it…

keep searching.

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That Awkward Moment When... You Have a Breakdown at Walmart

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"Ithaka" by Constantine P. Cafavy

Do you ever feel like you are waiting to "arrive" in this life? I have often lived with an “arrival” mentality.

A few years ago, I found myself arriving somewhere I had desired to be for a long time. I had waited and waited and finally my waiting had come to an end. I had arrived exactly where I hoped to. But... now I had new places I wanted to go. Once again, I found myself discontent. I realized that “arriving” may not be the solution.

Life should be less about “arriving” to where we want to go and more about “thriving” exactly where we are.

During this time, I came across a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy that really resonated with me. I love it and wanted to share it with you today!

“When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.”

-Constantine P. Cavafy

It Doesn't Hurt Us to Wait

During the first few days after our house fire I could not quite pin-point what I was most upset about. Before this, I always thought the most difficult part of a house fire (without injuries) was the loss of “stuff”, but for me the hardest part wasn’t the stuff. The stuff was just stuff.

Two weeks before it happened we had decided we would officially finish being in “remodel” mode. We had a long list of projects still to-do, but we knew it was time to settle in and begin to live life again. One more “big” project and then we would be done with the biggest parts of our remodel.

Like most of us, we have had to wait for many things in our lives. For us, this house represented so many of our dreams finally coming true. We have long desired to have a house in the country, with a little bit of land, the kids and the pets. In many ways, we felt like we had “arrived” somewhere we had been trying to get for the past ten years. Finally.

It was time to rest.

When our house went up in smoke I felt like more was taken from us than our stuff. I felt like I was watching both my future and my past go up in flames. This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wanted to be in my house. I wanted to be living my dream. I didn’t want to wait anymore.

 I wanted my dream now… not later.

 I felt like we had arrived at the finish line and someone was asking us to start the race back from the beginning. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do it all again. Did I even have it in me? Honestly, at first, I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know.

I knew that eventually everything would work out. I knew we would regain everything we had lost, but I knew it wouldn’t be today. It was the time that I felt we had lost and the time I felt we had to wait that seemed more than I could bear.

“It doesn’t hurt us to wait.”

I have probably said this a hundred times to my kids. But truthfully, at times, I am telling myself just as much as I am telling them. Why in the world is waiting so damn hard?

Waiting is simply being. Waiting gives us an opportunity to rest. But often times we don’t choose to rest, we choose to become restless. In the world we live in, waiting and resting are under-rated. Many of us don’t know how to rest and we don’t understand the value of it.

It is funny because I was looking forward to a season of rest and now I am in one. Of course, it’s not like I expected it to look.

Welcome to life, Haley, it is full of surprises.

Sure, my home is completely gutted… well… besides the room of ash. But hey, we have been given a wonderful place to live while we wait. We have had every single need met and more. We have been reminded that we have the most amazing people in our lives that have been here to support us through every step. We have each other. We are doing great.

I will now use this time as an opportunity to learn how to wait better and rest deeper. I am reminded again that my happiness in this life has little to do with my desires being fulfilled and everything to do with my willingness to appreciate what I have been given.

Sure, I have lost my house for now. But I’ll get it back.

Let me tell you though, I will not be waiting until then to

“live the dream”.

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Beauty from Ashes

“Well… our house is on fire.”

Carter isn’t one for jokes and the statement seemed surprisingly calm. Too calm.

I heard him clearly, but still felt puzzled. Instinctively I replied,

“What? What did you say?”

 “Our house is on fire.”

Again calm, but a bit shakier. He didn’t have to explain. Somewhere in my gut I just knew… it was serious.

“Did you call 911?”

“Yes.” He stated.

“I’m coming.”

I was in my brothers’ bathroom trying on some jeans at a rummage sale. It had been an uneventful day… until now.

I ran outside and told my brother “I need you to drive me home. Now. Our house is on fire.”

It took me less than a minute to be on my way.  As we drove on the back country road I saw the fire trucks a couple of miles behind. It was then that I realized we would beat them to our house. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was going to see when I arrived.

My thoughts were interrupted by my brother’s statement,

“Oh shit.”

I looked up and saw it…

The smoke.

It was a lot of smoke.

I had seen this sight a hundred times before, a pillar of smoke in the distance. I can never help but wonder what is causing it. I didn’t wonder this time.

I knew.

This was my house.

This was the house that we bought only five months ago.

This was the house that I had spent every weekend and many weeknights of the past 20 weeks working on. This was the house that we had just painted… and trimmed… and replaced doors… countertops… fans… lighting… and flooring. I had finally chosen my curtains and bedding and was finalizing room décor. This was our fixer upper… that we were almost done with.

As soon as I saw the smoke, I put my face in my hands and began to sob.

How can this be happening?

This can’t be happening.

But it was.

As we arrived to our home I saw my husband and three sweet babies in our front yard watching our house burn. The flames were pouring out of our children’s play room.  

As my brother pulled into our front yard, I opened my door and had my foot to the ground before the truck had even stopped.

My babies. I needed to hold my babies.

I ran up to them, hugged them and thanked God for their safety.

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The firefighters pulled in and we said a quick prayer for them as they began to work. We watched as they quickly got the flames under control and made sure the fire was extinguished. It all happened so fast and quickly it was over.

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The fire was out.

I had never been in a house that had been on fire before. From the outside, I thought the loss would be isolated to one room... but I was wrong. I have heard the term “smoke damage”, but could not have imagined the extent of destruction it caused so quickly.

Our house was destroyed.

As I walked through the house, I couldn’t even process what I saw. There is no way this could be my house. My house was filled with natural light, light colored walls and white trim.

It was like I had walked into a nightmare version of my home.

Our normally bright house was a pit of darkness. Even with a flashlight I could hardly see. The air burned my throat and I had to leave after only a few minutes inside.

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We all stood around for a bit and talked about how thankful we were that everyone was safe and how we all knew everything would work out.

Then one by one everyone said their goodbye’s and wished us the best.

Carter and I didn’t know what to do.

What are you supposed to do?

So we just sat in our front yard on a stump, baffled, at what had just happened.

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What had just happened?

This fire had just demolished the last five months of our lives. And we weren’t just starting over, we were starting farther back than ever before.  

How did we get here? We have never been those people that wanted a “fixer upper”; in fact, because of our lack of skills we tried to avoid it. But after two years of looking we decided this house had the greatest potential to give us what we dreamed of.

We bought our house hoping we could handle the adventure of a remodel. We had almost done it. It was far from perfect, but we were proud of it. We were proud of it because we had put so much time and effort into it. Of course we still had a ton of projects to do, but we had our final *big* project scheduled for the following week.

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We have never worked so hard on anything.

All of our hard work, wiped away in about 20 minutes. 

...

The next morning, I was lying in bed and a scripture I grew up hearing came to my mind.

“To give them beauty for ashes…”

I have always loved the sound of these words. Very poetic and they paint a beautiful picture of the redemptive process. It got me thinking… redemption is beautiful, but to be truthful, the process to bring beauty out of ashes is not easy.

 I find myself today with a giant opportunity, I get to bring beauty from ashes… literally.

This process will not just happen. It will cost me. I have had, and will continue to have, many opportunities to not bring beauty from this situation.

I can choose not to make the most of it.

But I won’t.

I will not allow this situation to steal any more from me than it already has

I am headed to Redemption.

I do not worry about the destination, but the journey overwhelms me at times. I know how costly it is to go on this journey. It is not fun, but it is worth it. Even though I would not have chosen this. I can do this.

I will do this.

I will release my expectations.

I will stand on my faith.

I will hold on to my hope.

And I will choose to love.

And then I will wait. I will wait and watch it all unfold.

Beauty is coming.

Just wait and see.

Do you know of anyone who is also in an overwhelming time of their life? Forward this to them and let us make beauty together!

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The Words That Echo

I believe that words have great power, but unfortunately, people don’t always use this power wisely… or kindly. It is shocking how much pain can be caused by words. When is the last time that someone said something hurtful to you?

I am amazed at how well I can remember some of the hurtful things that have been said to me. I can play them on repeat, word for word… for years.

We have all had hurtful things said to us. Painful words can echo in our lives for quite some time. It seems natural to remember the worst things that have been said to us while the kind things are all too easily forgotten. We often focus on the negative and hold onto the hurt.

In this life, it is inevitable that people will try to define us. Some people will define us kindly, while others will define us cruelly. Sadly, we often give too much thought to the harshest definitions.

People will define us, but we have the final say on who we believe ourselves to be.

We must not give too much focus to other people’s opinions. Merely because someone says something about who we are, does not make it right. Opinions change by the day. They are filtered through moods, personalities, experiences and perceptions. Someone may fully believe what they say is true, but that doesn’t make it truth.

Unkind things are said in this life. Sometimes they are said with the intention to hurt us and sometimes hurt is not the intent. Either way, we must learn how to process painful words.

We can’t change how people speak to us, but we can change how much we allow their words to dictate our life. It can be hard for us to move past the cutting words, but we should not live with the open wound of hurt for too long.

We need to quit entertaining the words that came into our life to tear us down. At some point, we must know who we are and not worry about who others believe us to be.

We must move on.

There will be people in this life who love us and people who hate us. Some people will agree with us and others will disagree. We will have people who will support us and people who won’t.  This is not always fair, but this is life.

I am sorry for the words that have haunted you, but it is time to let them go.

Let’s decide together to no longer relive the hate and let's move forward. Let’s draw a line in the sand, forgive and move on. Let’s release them. Let’s release ourselves.

stop QUESTIONING HOW OTHERS PERCEIVE YOU AND JUST YOU. because you are enough.

When Others "Cause" My Problems

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When I have frustrations in my life, my first instinct is to look around and find the source of my frustration. This usually ends in me finding the person responsible. Someone must be at fault, right? (And it isn’t me.) I then put my frustration on that person, whether in secret or to their face.

Only recently have I realized how truly unproductive this process actually is. This way of handling things is focused primarily on one thing and that is…

blame.

You see, I don’t like to be frustrated. I don’t like it if things don’t go the way that I thought they would or should. I don’t like it if someone is mean to me or rude to me. I don’t like it when people disappoint me. And I don’t like it when I feel that I have been “wronged”.

“They made me mad.”

“They hurt my feelings.”

“They made me frustrated.”

If only they would change, I wouldn’t have these problems because... well... 

they are the problem.

I’m sure some of you are thinking… "Gosh, this girl has issues." (Which is totally true.)

I naturally think I am right all the time. I understand myself and my opinions make sense to me. It is not natural for me to question my emotions.

But what if my frustration wasn’t all about them?

What if the reason I was mad had more to do with my history than our present? What if the reason that I was so hurt had more to do with my insecurities than their actions? What if I was so frustrated because somewhere within myself is a child that believes I should get everything I want when I want it?

When we are feeling upset, instead of placing blame on someone else, we should sit down in front of the mirror and look at the reflection in front of us. We should not avoid this person. We should try to understand this person.

This person matters.

Our most frustrated, broken moments often reveal the most precious, vulnerable, interesting, and difficult things about ourselves.

It is vital that we look at ourselves during the times that we feel upset. If we don't, we will miss out on so many opportunities to learn who we are.

Many times, my feelings have little to do with the current situation I am in, and I find myself surprised by what is really upsetting me. It is often my undealt with hurt from a situation in my past. I can be surprised by my hate, anger, hurts, emotions, opinions, and frustration. Instead of making it all about them, I now ask, “What does this say about me?”

I learn more about myself when I am upset than I ever could when I am not.

My life is no longer a battle to prove to anyone that I am right. Being right is no longer my goal. My goal now is to be in peace. I am now living my life to grow, to heal, and to change. I am living this life to learn.

I am no longer scared of my brokenness. I no longer run from it. I embrace it. I want to know who I am, I want to know why I act the way I do and why I feel the way I do. I am getting to know myself, in all of my strength and all of my weakness.

My frustrations in life are no longer a “problem”.

They are an opportunity.

Next time you find yourself upset, hurt or angry. I invite you to do something that feels really wrong. I invite you to pause. I invite you to resist the urge to blame others for your emotions. I invite you to get to know yourself in a new way. I invite you to learn.

I invite you, my friend, to heal.

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The High Cost of Hope

Why couldn’t it just have gone as planned? It was all supposed to be so simple. So straightforward. I’m so disappointed that things haven’t gone as smooth as I hoped they would.

Why must it be so damn hard?

I don’t understand.

I weep today over the obstacles of life. I weep over the deep disappointment of the dream that is still a dream.

I am continually amazed at how much this life can hurt. The depth of disappointment that we can experience is surprisingly deep. Long roads that seem to have no end are beyond discouraging.

I am here. Broken.

I am here because I dreamed. I am here because I believed. I am here because I hoped.

What do I do now?

Do I run?

Do I hide?

Do I try to find a way to never be here again?

No.

I absolutely will not run from my heartache. I will not hide from my pain. I will stand here. I will be still. I will face it. I will challenge it.

I will soak in my pain, embrace my brokenness and I will do something that feels like a very stupid thing to do right now.

I will hope.

I will hope even though my hope has cost me in the past. I will hope even though I have no guarantees. I will hope because I refuse to be a person who lives without hope. I will hope because I believe in redemption. I will hope because I believe that hope is one of the most powerful forces in this world.

Hope is a rare commodity that many people come to believe is too costly to possess.

This world has a way of betraying us, but I will hope still. I will cry. I will scream. I will curse.

But I will stand.

And I will hope.

I don't think we will ever fully understand the role that disappointment has in our lives. The path we expected and the path that we have lived are far from the same. The amount of pain that this world brings to our doorstep can seem unfair. At times, it feels like we are being run over by our disappointment.

Disappointments are tough, but I will not allow my disappointment to control my future. I will march on, with more passion than ever and I will not fear the risk to hope.

Because to live a life without hope is to live no life at all.

Fear tells me that my hope is too costly to possess, but I will challenge my fears. I will have the final say.

Watch me.

Even when my outstanding dreams seem more than I can bear, I will press forward, forging a way to a new place. I will not look back. I will embrace where I am, but fully expect to be somewhere new soon.

I will stand here until my disappointment turns into one of the most precious commodities in the world.

I will stay in this place until my disappointment turns to hope.

And when I am once again armed with hope. I will be ready and expecting to bring change to this world. Because through the eyes of my hope, I can see not what is, but what could be.

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A Letter to the Broken-hearted

You find yourself today in a place that you never thought you would be. You never saw it coming. You weren’t prepared for this. Sure, you knew this life would have its challenges, but you never imagined it would look like this or feel like this.

You have discovered a whole new layer of pain that you didn’t know existed… and you wish you could go back. You didn’t ask for this and it has changed you in a way that you never wanted.

I know you are overwhelmed with your feelings. You feel like an empty shell and can hardly imagine your life before… without the pain. No matter how much sleep you have, it never seems to be enough. Exhausted would be an understatement.

I know you don’t want to be here, but here you are.

I am sorry.

Maybe no one knows what you’ve been through… or maybe everyone knows. It matters not. No one can fully understand. No one can feel what you feel.

Even in a crowd, loneliness seems to be all around you.

You feel alone because in many ways you are. Not that you don’t have people who will support you, you do. But words can’t possibly define the pain you feel… and only you have walked the journey to where you are today.

I wish that all the pain would just *magically* disappear, but it won’t.

And for that I am sorry.

Going back to who you were before is impossible because you are not the same person. The person you once were, no longer exists. You have been permanently changed through this painful experience and it is scary… and confusing… and overwhelming.

Now I want to tell you something that is very important…

 It matters.

It matters that you are here. It matters where you have been. It matters where you are going.

Your pain matters.

You matter.

The road before you looks long and hard because it is. There are many obstacles ahead that will be difficult to get through.  The journey ahead is long, yes. The journey ahead is hard, yes. But the journey ahead of you is worth it.

You are worth it.

You didn’t choose this, but you have choices now. You get to choose what your future holds. You can’t change your past, but you can define it. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and begin to walk again. Begin to move forward.

Please, choose to heal. Choose to hope. Choose to love.

Don’t allow yourself to give up. You are too valuable to this world. This world needs you.

This world needs you to hope.

This world needs you to heal.

This world needs you to live.

I beg you with everything that I have, fight for your healing. Don’t stop until you can stand tall once again. Don’t stop until you have your peace. Reach out to those who can help you heal. Be wise in how you spend the small amount of energy you have. Take the time that you need to rest, but don’t allow yourself to quit.

And if you choose the path to heal, there will be a surprise for you at the end of it…

The path before you leads to beauty.

It may take weeks, months or years, but beauty is ahead of you.

A person who has been healed of a broken heart is an extremely beautiful soul.

It is a soul filled with strength, courage and compassion. A soul that has known the darkness, but chose the light. It is a soul that has experienced the risk of vulnerability, but chooses it still.

If you choose, there is beauty ahead of you. A beauty that is more real and tangible than anything you have experienced in your life thus far.

I beg you… don’t let yourself die with a broken heart.

For a broken heart that is left unhealed will become a bitter heart, but a broken heart that is given the opportunity to heal will become the most beautiful of hearts. I promise.

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Finding Happiness in Our Lives

Most of us have things that we want to happen in our lives. We have our plans. We have our goals. We have our hopes.

What about right now? Are you enjoying your life? Are you content? Are you happy? If not, why? At times, it can feel like the reason we aren’t happy is because we don’t have everything we want.

“If I only had this or that, I would be content.”

“If only this would happen, I would be happy.”

Once I finish school… or get a better job… or get married… or have kids… or get a bigger house… or a different spouse… or get more vacation time… or a new boss… or a nicer car… or more money… or… Once ____ happens I will finally be happy.

So is that how it works? Is happiness found in us getting everything that we want?

I don’t think so.

How often have we thought something would make us happy, but then it came and it didn’t satisfy us? Or, it made us happy for a while, but then we found ourselves no longer content and needing more. I wonder how many moments of our life we have missed because we were waiting for the next thing… the “better” thing.

Happiness is not found in getting what we want.

Happiness is found in being appreciative for what we have.

We must find a way to be content with what we have today. If we never find a way to be content in our “today’s” we will never be able to be content with our “tomorrow’s”.

I am afraid that too many of us have an idea in our mind that we will one day *arrive* to our happy place and then life will be wonderful.

We don’t *arrive* to our happiness.

We choose it.

We must stop believing the lie that our circumstances must change for us to be happy. True happiness comes when we can find a way to be appreciative, despite the fact that our circumstances are not perfect.

I have come to realize that perfection in life is a fleeting condition.

I am all for having goals and dreams, but these are things that should give us hope, not discouragement. We must find a way to live peacefully with both, our desires for the future and the reality of our present life.

We can't always get what we want, but we can choose to be appreciative for what we have.

Our discontentment is in our perception, but thankfully, we hold the keys to changing that.

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My Search for Approval

Taken by Studio 951

After Carter and I got married, I remember being a tad disappointed. I thought that once we got married, it would be my final step in my journey of feeling love, acceptance and approval. But even after we got married, I still had plenty of days that I felt like I wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t pretty enough, funny enough, sexy enough… so on and so forth.

I remember talking to him and telling him that I needed him to tell me more often how beautiful I was or how great of a wife I was. Funny thing about Carter, he just doesn’t think like that. Don’t get me wrong. My husband is a wonderfully kind man, but he isn’t super “talkative” about how he feels all of the time.

He would try, but I began to have the realization that it was never going to be enough.

If he told me that I looked beautiful, I thought “why didn’t he say sexy?” If he told me in the morning, by the evening I wondered why he hadn’t said it again. If he told me twice, I needed to hear it three times.

The point is that no matter how many times he affirmed his love and attraction for me, I still questioned it.

I felt like I needed more from him.

One day I woke up and decided I was not going to depend on my husband (or anyone else) to give me my confidence. It wasn’t good for my marriage, and it wasn’t working anyway.

Since that day, I have been on a journey of realizing that no one else can give me love for myself. We, alone, hold the keys to appreciating who we are and what we look like. No one can give us self-confidence. We must choose to take that journey for ourselves.

Have you ever noticed that if someone tells you “great job” or “you are looking great today”, it feels so great? In that moment, you feel confident and happy with yourself. But then the next day comes and you feel like crap because no one has said anything positive about you? (OR, heaven forbid, they have said something NEGATIVE!)

No matter how wonderful our husband is, or our girlfriend, or our parents, or our friends, or our children, their words will never be enough to make us confident. Of course, it is wonderful to hear kind words spoken about who we are. But no matter how many kind words are spoken to us, it is never enough to give us lasting confidence.

I am a firm believer that this is because we are searching for outward words to cure an inward condition.

I am still on this journey of fully understanding and appreciating myself, but I am not where I once was and for that I am thankful. It has been so good for ALL of my relationships since I have released them from the responsibility of making me a confident person.

 It is not anyone else’s job to walk me on the journey to appreciating who I am. It is not fair (to any of us) to put my confidence in others’ hands. That’s not how it is supposed to work.

If you are still relying on others to give you confidence, I invite you to begin your own journey to confidence. We must choose to embrace who we are and move forward regardless of what others say, positive or negative.

We are not born with an unconditional love for our personality or our looks.

We must choose it.

Maybe you will be surprised to find that the love and appreciation you have been searching for begins with the person who has been there all along… yourself.

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