Faithful to follow - Stepping into what God has called you to

It's funny how, when you step into the calling Jesus places over your life, the easier it is to do it. Sure there's spiritual attack for it, because the enemy DOES NOT want you to really know and be who you are called to be. (Fitting for Halloween yeah? But this isn't going to be a post about dressing up or not)




I wrote all the time as a kid. You name it, I probably did it: Diary entries, blogs, stories, poems, short stories. Then when I found Jesus, I wrote my prayers, hashed out bible studies (as in like responded to them, not created my own). Then when I had that falling away period, I never really got back into writing.




Just recently, as you may or may not know, I've partnered with Lindsay of The Faith Feast. Our first phone call together was Sunday September 23rd. And she prayed over me before we hung up the phone (Classy ladies we are :) ). She prayed over my writing. And since then, I've been itching to write, to blog again, to talk about what God is teaching me, what I've learned, to continue to share my story in hopes I can help other women who may be struggling.




So if you've been following along, there have been 4 weeks of consistent blogging. Week one was I'm back and how to work for the wonder, not drudge through for the weekend. Week two was being free and not a slave to my Fitbit. Last week was a retreat summary and today, is this one.


Wednesday I felt was a good day to put out content. It's the midweek hump between the rough Mondays and the quick Fridays. It's a little 'speed boost' to refresh you and keep you going through the rest of the week. It may change in the future, as I know Lindsay sends out her newsletters Wednesdays, and I think I'd rather my followers follow us both and get two shots of energy and revival throughout the week on different days, rather than two on the same day.


Anyway, I'm saying all this to say, God gave me creativity, a desire to write (type). My heart craves a novel, but my steps dictate a blog. Maybe in the future I'll summarize the blogs or elaborate and turn it into a book. It's all in God's hands.


My heart and hands also crave paint. I'm a believer in: if you're creative, your outlets and avenues are endless. I'm also a painter, which I guess is a different form of writing.


A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers approached me about being a vendor at an event she is coordinating/facilitating. She originally asked about my doTerra stuff, which I turned down as it wasn't something I'm actively pursuing (I've got quite a bit on my plate), but after a moment of thought, I suggested my art instead. So, I'll be branching out from just posting on Instagram and word of mouthing my business, and having my own table, and being in person out there with my work. What is it you ask? I paint journals and Bibles, even a canvas if you request. I'm in the workings of working with a designer to get a logo made, so stay tuned for that; then business cards made after. The opportunity was given and I believe it's God's will and timing to step forward and use Anchored Aesthetic for his glory.


Being able to translate a compilation of favorites to visual documentation on an item used daily, or as regularly as possible, is something my heart lives for. When it's God centered, I let Him dictate what I'm to paint. Even though I may have a great idea for an elaborate plant, He tells me to paint an ombre of color and the recipient gets chills when she gets. That's my jam, doing His work and making Him and His will visual.


So we'll see what the future holds and what is coming. But that's a little back story for why I'm back and what I'm up to. I'm just thankful that I've been given the gifts I have. I love them and am looking forward to growing them for His Kingdom.


Amen and Amen

Fit to a Bit: The day I took my Fitbit off

May of this year, I decided to really grasp onto my health. I decided I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was tired of aching. So I charged up my Fitbit HR and put it on my wrist and away I went. I re-downloaded MyFitnessPal and started logging my foods.

Each day I tried to reach my goal of 9,000 steps.
Each day I tried to make sure I was taking at least 250 steps per hour from 7:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m.
I participated in Workweek Hustles.
I participated in Weekend Warriors.

It was hard.

I work a 9-5 desk job (ok more like 730-5) and then go home and relax from that work day with my dogs who just want loves and snuggles.
There were a slew of days I slept in on weekends.
There were numerous days where I got knocked down (endo, migraine, sick).
There were days where I just didn't feel like moving.

I didn't always hit my 9000 steps per day.
I didn't always hit my 250 steps per hour.

I felt like a failure.

I counted steps like some count calories. I would push myself to sneak in as many steps on a bathroom trip by stepping in place trying to get the last of the 250 steps before the time changed to the next hour. I was a slave to technology.

So, on Saturday October 13, my Fitbit was low on battery, I took it off like normal to charge it. And haven't put it back on since.

I went dancing that night and didn't worry if I got more steps in than my friend dancing next to me. I slept in Sunday morning and didn't worry about the first 3 hours not having enough steps. Monday, I didn't worry if I made my 250 steps per hour of my desk job. I just worked and did my day. Tuesday was the same.

I didn't know how freeing that was, until I didn't choose to wear it.

I know I average 5000 steps per day with this job. I know abs are made in the kitchen. and I know without that Fitbit, it's been the most freeing time since I decided to take it off. Now I know that some people really need the help of the Fitbit to get them moving and to lose weight. But I am not one of them.  I'm going to keep it, in case I decide to wear it again (I wonder how many steps I'd get at Disneyland or Disney World...) but I think for the most part, I'm not going to need it.

How many other things in my life am I a "slave" to without realizing it? My phone, I realize that. Food? Perhaps. Friends? Perhaps. I'm interested now to pursue breaking chains and being freed of unconscious slavery.

What are you a slave to? What do you need to be freed of? Comment down below and let me pray for you.


Amen and Amen.

Working for the Weekend or Working for the Wonder

Are you just getting through the hum drum of the day? Or are you working for your maker?

Are you counting down the minutes until you're free from the workday? Or are you cherishing the moments to minister where you are?

I've had a number of jobs prior to the current career I'm in.

1. First job I had was babysitting, which I think is a job we all have. I babysat mostly prior to finding Jesus, so I can't use that as an example.
2. My first real job, with all the W-2 paperwork goodness was working for Hallmark (no, they did not invent Valentines day). I worked there for 3 months in Las Vegas, then when I went back to college I was able to transfer to a store in Reno.  I had Jesus in my life back then, but didn't fully know the extent of what He could do, or what I could do as a believer. I was still very self focused at the time. I ended up  leaving that job because I think I couldn't get time off to go see my family in Las Vegas for Christmas.
3. My second real job was working as a Resident Assistant in the dorms. Oh how many lives I could have impacted if I prayed for all my residents. There were a few I'd pray for here and there, but over the 2.5 years I was an RA, that could have been 30+ students who had another stepping stone. (We could also talk about all the kids in my classes too, but that's for another time)
4. The third job, after I said goodbye to ResLife was a brief summer job in Vegas working at a photography studio (school pictures). It was a small downstairs staff of 5ish people. Again, how self centered was I to just think about me and my circumstance, rather than those around me I could have been praying for! This summer though, I was starting to fall away from Jesus and do my own thing. This was the start of my not so great few years walking independently of Jesus.
5. Following that was working at Ann Taylor (Job 4). It was there I met a friend who later calls me out on my lifestyle choices. There, I really got to see humanity. There I developed an appreciation for leaving clothes better (or as best I could) than I found them. There, God began to work on me. There, he provided a temp job which turned full time. There he provided me the foot in the door to where I am now.
6. After a year in retail, and the last couple months working that part time and the new full time job, I said goodbye to that and fully embraced the full time career where I've been for 5 years now.
7. Once summer hit however, I itched somewhere to work retail again, so for about a month I worked at a Coach outlet store.
8. A short time later, while still working the fifth job, my seventh job was working as a Daisy Duke line dancer, which I did for 2 years and quit this past June.

All that to say, look how many lives I've interacted with,  whether one time customers or repeat ones, talking Jesus (when I could), acting like Jesus...


Romans 12:2 states, "Do not be confirmed to this world". We are called to be different. Let us stand out from being the complainers and the gripers, from posting about how much Monday sucks and how the weekend is gone too soon. We are where we are for how long we are became God put us there. Let him use you.


Do not worry...there are many verses that address this, so pick your fave, but do not worry about your job/your career (also preaching to myself here). You're where you're at to serve a purpose.


I'm learning to embrace where I am and show Jesus when I can. I'm not in a place where I can necessarily talk about Jesus all day everyday to anyone I come in contact with, but I can read my Bible on my breaks or Lunch in the break room. I've left my bible on my desk between those times.


Work for the Wonder, don't necessarily work for the weekend. There have been so many times at my current job where I've hated every minute of every day. I've wallowed in the slowness, felt frantic and crazy in the busy times, gossiped, talked behind people's back. And after the first couple years, I wanted out. I also did not like nor get along with my supervisor for 2ish of those years. I looked for other jobs, somewhere I could be more free, wear jeans rather than business casual. But something kept me there.

God. 

There never was another job posting I saw that I liked. I never got interested enough to set up a job interview. I just stuck it out here, wallowing to myself "At least the pay and benefits are worth it." Man, what kind of life and perspective was that?

I have a purpose here, and in the past 2 years, I've worked real hard to change the way I talk to and about my coworkers. I've really tried to bring Jesus with me into the work environment. I'm still not great at counting down the minutes to the end of the day. I'm still not great at taking upsets and frustrations and looking for the good. But I've been more conscientious of thinking, "If someone didn't know, would they figure out I'm a Christian, would they figure out by my actions I love Jesus?" In a customer service field where most of your interactions are "scripted" so to speak, it's hard to talk about the day to day, especially when my time with the public is more limited these days, as I don't interact with the public like I use to.

As of today, I'm switching my mindset. I'm letting each day be a renewal for my mind to work for the wonder, "Jesus, I can't wait to see what you'll do today". I still get excited for the weekend for other reasons, but at least now it isn't, "I can't wait to leave this cruddy place."

What are you struggling with in the day to day? Comment and let me pray for you <3

God is so good and faithful to answer. Go into the rest of this work week asking God how you can work for the wonder instead of working for the weekend.

Well Watered Women

Recently I've been a huge fan of LifeLivedBeautifully. It's an amazing ministry for God's Glory. One of their mottos is to be Well Watered Women.
 
That's rad. We're gonna be watered by the word. Like flowers. Without the water we die. I got it.
Until today.
 
I was listening to Christy Nockels' podcast, Glorious in the Mundane. She and her guest Rebekah Lyons in Episode 12 were talking about wells, to go deep, be deeply rooted.  (Side note, this podcast is AMAZING and I'm sure I'll be blogging about it more)
 
Suddenly "well watered women" took on a new meaning for me. We are to be watered not just by the word but by a well. Wells aren't shallow. They're deep in the ground. They're full of delicious pure water. If they get tainted, you need to find a new well. (Maybe, I'm not quite sure how well water works)  Well water is free, it's not owned by the city. Well water is your own. You must go to the well to get your water. It's not just gonna appear.
 
Whoa.
 
So I'm just gonna soak in that today.
 
I'm going to the well and converse with Jesus, like the woman in the bible whom Jesus describes her lifestyle and just fyi, that's the longest recorded conversation in the bible. How amazing and poignant must that story be? How significant is a well then?
 
Amen and amen indeed
 
- - - -
 
Sorry for the long-ish absence. Life has been relatively busy the last few weeks. Inspiration hasn't hit as heavily as this well did today. So enjoy :)

It's a Gift: Art for the King

I’ve always had a love for the arts. As a kid, I would come home from school, or in my free time on the weekends or at lunch, and I would write. I would write stories and illustrate them. I’d color in coloring books, I’d draw tons of doodles. And once, I picked up a thin (on cardboard like) canvas and I painted it with watercolors. It was a house, and I was in elementary school.

I’d like to think I got it from my mom. She took art classes at the community college when she was in her early 20s, working full time and having a social life as well. She painted this beautiful mural like piece, gosh it has to be like 30”x50” or something ginormous (I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, so it might be smaller). And it was amazing. It hung up in my grandparents house. After they died, she got it back, and now it’s at their house in Las Vegas. It was of a roadrunner and a cactus. Oh how I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be artsy and create the next amazing painting, or write the next Great American Novel.

But instead, “Good grades, Hygiene” in high school. “Good grades, hygiene” in college. It was straight from one set of schooling to the next, so I could make it with a good paying stable job in the adult world.

I wasn’t really allowed or encouraged to pursue arts, or I just changed my mind too much with what I wanted to do that my parents didn't want to "waste money" on a hobby I wouldn't keep up with. Sure, I could join National Honor Society, Book club and cheerleading. I think now, of course, hindsight is 20/20, if I had really pushed to be creative and really go for that artsy line, I could have made it work. I could have learned a lot and maybe been the next Picasso. But I didn’t.

Now, however, my artsy drive is resurfacing. I have a new fire burning in my body to make art, to paint, to write stories, to create poems, to do what I loved to do growing up. Where did this rekindled passion come from?

I’d like to think it rekindled at Picasso and Wine, a local paint and sip place here in Reno. You show up, and they walk you through step by step how to paint with acrylic paint on a canvas. You can enjoy wine and Mimosas with your friends as you take 3 hours of your day to paint. I went to 2 of them here in Reno. And Summer 2016, my husband (fiancé at the time) and I went to visit my parents in Kansas City and my mom and I went to a paint and sip there.


But here's the real story: God blesses us with gifts and talents that just come naturally to us. And artsy creativity is where one of my gifts takes root. There are times I wish I was musically inclined, because who doesn't want a set of awesome pipes? Or Furious Fingers on the piano or guitar? But that's not where God's called me to be. I didn't "Got it from my mama" I got it from my Father, my Heavenly Father.


He's called me to the creative: the writing and the painting, and perhaps the drawing. I've taken one step to let Him be the director of my art. Our Family Bible Study/Home Group had a Prophetic Paint night at the end of January this year. And it was amazing. God moved in so many ways that night. He spoke to me through my painting and my second mother (mother-in-law). It was so cool.


So if you have a God given talent, use it. Pursue it. Take means and measures to make sure it gets done. Listen to that quiet whisper in your heart and mind to lead you in your gifts.


I'm looking into taking some classes at the community college and maybe get an Associates Degree in Painting or the Arts. We'll see where life takes me. But either way, I'm making art for my King for His Glory, to spread His Gospel, to spread His Light.


Amen & Amen.  

Time to answer the phone: Jesus Calling

I love being able to hear other people speak life into people. I love it when they say "I feel God is saying {insert message} to you". It's so cool for me to see people's "Aha!" moments and the little lightbulbs lighting up as things click and register. Sometimes tears are involved, because God is so so good.


But it's recently been cool, because I've been that people, that person? It's been me hearing truths from God through other people. Apparently I haven't listened to His whispers, or have put them off. And He's ready for me to step up, and fully come into what he's called me to.


My sister (well in-law technically, but either you're family or you're not, and she's family twice over, sister by marriage and sister in Christ) Leslie is pretty dang prophetic. The last few times I've talked to her, alone and in a group setting she's had some great revelations about my life. And I'm pretty stoked to put them into action. Same thing with what the Bethel students have spoken into my life. (Side note, they're coming again this weekend, weather permitting, and I'm pretty stoked)


I'm really excited to see what God's going to do with these revelations. Like the home group I'm part of, we are all worshippers and prophetic. Some are both, like my sister Leslie (boy can she sing!). I've been told I've got the calling of prophetic and that it is big in my life. I'm learning to hone that skill and listen to what God is revealing for me to reveal to others.


And last night, Leslie reaffirmed my skills in writing. Writing is what I'm called to do. Writing is a passion. Writing lights me up and I can go for days. I grew up writing stories and illustrating them (with what little talent I had); I grew into poetry in high school and had some work published in an anthology. And then in college and after, it all kind of died off. The intensity of the adult workforce may have jaded me to the creative outlet of hobbies and Godly callings.


So restarting this blog with a new direction and a new focus is going to be my Step 1 into tapping into the gifting God has called me to. I'll be documenting and just revealing how He's growing my testimony. So if you're interested in following along, please do. :) Until the next post...


Amen & Amen.

With Love from Bethel, part 2

What an amazing experience hosting the Bethel students was. We hosted 3: 2 girls and a boy. The diversity made for amazing conversation, and a great revelation from God. It's so cool how he uses other people to speak into your life. I was completely blown away by Him, and the love that the Bethel students had.

One of the ladies was from Ecuador, and the other from New Zealand, they both seemed late 20s-30s. The boy was 19 and from Oregon. The insight they provided into my husband's and my life and marriage is something only God could have spoken to them, how else would a 19 year old boy know deep wisdom on marriage? There was no way they could have known my husband was hard on himself, scolding himself for this or that, I didn't even know. They spoke wisdom and encouragement into a "bible study of sorts" being held at our house, there's no way they could have known I'm going to start hosting a Jesus centered book club at my house 2 times a month. They spoke a bunch of other things a little too personal to share at this point. It's times like these I cannot deny God exists. It's times like these I want to go and share what happened to prove to people God exists that there's no way to deny or disprove what happened.

God's been leading me through a new season where He wants deep rooted intimacy and relationship with me. And it's been so cool to see it through and the Bethel students even spoke to this as well. I can't wait to see what else I can do for the kingdom, and how I can use the gifts God has given me to help further His kingdom.

I'm definitely hoping this blog becomes one of those mediums I can use to reach the masses and share the love God has for all of us.

Stay tuned :)

With Love, From Bethel

A while ago, some students from Bethel (maybe Bethel, CA? maybe the church is called Bethel? I’m not 100% sure) were suppose to come in to Reno and help serve and minister to the city. A brutal storm came through the pass and delayed their trip. Before we knew about the storm, my husband and I volunteered to host these students. Hosting just means we pick them up when they come in to Reno late on a Friday evening, take them back to our home, let them sleep and then in the morning feed them breakfast and take them back so they can go forth and share the gospel.

They came into town a couple weeks ago, but my husband and I were so busy we couldn’t host them. But this weekend, they’re back again. This time, my husband and I aren’t busy. I’m so excited to be able to serve them by offering up space in our home to sleep and rest before they serve the city of Reno. I’m excited to be able to fellowship with fellow children of the Most High. I’m excited to see what God is going to do having them In the City, For the City.

And, I’m also really excited to cook a nice breakfast for more than just me. My husband is a night owl; he hates mornings and rarely eats breakfast. So when I wake up on the weekends, I usually quietly slip out of bed, tend to the fur babies, and then make a small breakfast for myself. I love him so very much; it’s just been a change of pace for me to not have someone who loves to see the sunrise. I end up usually making toast and coffee, sometimes eggs, sometimes a protein drink. So tomorrow morning, I’ve got plans for waffles, eggs, toast, coffee, fresh fruit and yogurt. So excited to be able to prepare and serve a meal in the morning.

I can't wait to post an update with what goes on in the short amount of time we get to spend with the Bethel students :)