Just One Cup at a Time

Coffee date x 5

This has been such a busy crazy but amazing week.  I had 5 coffee dates this week Tuesday through Saturday which meant I didn't get home until after 11:00pm every night.  Coffee dates with old and new friends is the BEST.  Coffee dates with friends eating yummy desserts while I watch because I'm on my crazy strict eating plan is HARD.  But I did it and still managed to lose a good amount this week.

But this isn't about weight loss. 

These coffee dates were planned, not planned, unexpected, rescheduled but all meant to be.  In the same week.  It was awesome.  I was was encouraged and convicted and loved and challenged.  Made some hard decisions and questioned a few {grin} and laid my head down on my pillow each night knowing how blessed I am that God has surrounded me with some amazing woman!

Friends.  I need them.

Friends that spur me on.  I need them.

Friends that challenge me.  I need them.

Friends that pray and support me.  I need them.

Friends that laugh with me.  I need them.

Friends that are great examples to me.  I need them.

Friends that get me.  I need them.

Friends that don't get me.  I need them.

Friends I can be myself with.  I need them.

Friends that don't let me get away with myself.  I need them oh I need them.

Friends that point me to the cross and the truth.  I need them.

Friends that catch me when I fall.  I need them

Friends.  Love.  Cherish.  Joy.

Doubt

I doubt.  Alot.  If you asked me the question straight on I probably wouldn't say I'm a doubter.  But I am.  If things go my way then I'm all good and I have this thing called life all figured out but when they dont go my way...it's a completely different story.  I don't kick and scream and lay face down on the ground screaming...okay well maybe sometimes. 

It's more subtle than that and it starts out small.  It's like a little tiny doubt at the beginning and then I let it grow instead of trusting.  I let it go from something like the little shadow you see on your bedroom wall at night to all of a sudden that shadow (which is just your jeans lumped over a chair) you're now convinced someone is in your house and there's not much talking you down from there.  Ever been there when something grows out of control? 

 

When I don't choose to dwell on God's truths, my doubts creep in and sometimes they become a huge monster in my house keeping me scared and awake at night.  Fear. 

And then I read this and realize I have so much to learn:

            We want God to hand us what we want

            He says instead, "Take my hand and watch what we can do together."

            It may not be what we have in mind.

            But it's guaranteed to blow our minds.

            With goodness. With grace.

            With more than we ever thought possible.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory.  Eph 3:20-21

Are you looking for Him?  Are you on the edge of your seat knowing He can do more than you could ever ask and think.  I truly believe that we can live on the edge of our seat without living in anxiousness.  I don't always let this sink in as it should and I doubt, I let the shadow on my walls become a monster in my heart but He promises us that He will do even more for me.

Trust.

Dare to LIVE FULLY where you are and be THANKFUL!

"Dare to LIVE FULLY right where you are!"

I have looked at these words over and over and over again the past couple weeks.  Sorry it's taking me this long to share them with you.  I wasn't holding out on you I promise :).  This quote pretty much describes my life perfectly right now and where my heart is.  I'm so excited {and yes a tad bit scared too} to be walking here aniticpating the "FULLY" to happen. 

I didn't plan for one of my new year's resolutions to be living FULLY in this new year.  No this resolution found me - God sent it - and there is no denying it.  I sometimes want to walk away from it but I can't.

I told a friend the other day, when talking about some new avenues for me that have been stirred up in my heart from God:

"This is from Him, this hope that is being stirred in me is so from Him and am I going to do like I often do when something radical breaks through to the core of my intimate heart and let it simmer for a few days like a mountain-top experience only to fall into the same abyss of...I could never...it's not for me...I have debt...I am single...people will never believe I am serious....someone will question me...is this my flesh or my heart..."

This is scary.  And exciting all wrapped up into one.  My usual self wants to walk away and keep things simple.  It's easier so much easier.  But then this other side of me doesn't want to sit down and settle...settle for the mediocre.  My heart is being stirred big time.  What are you being stirred about in this new year?  Maybe this will stir your heart...

This quote "dare to LIVE FULLY right where you are" found its way to my heart through Ann Voskamp who I mentioned in my last post.  She wrote a book called One Thousand Gifts which I'm pouring through now and created this incredible app that you must download.  I got a few of my besties to do it and I challenge you to as well.  Can I dare you to...to live fully that is?

In walking through my recent broken heart I found this be such a nugget of encouragement.  So the first thing that is being stirred up in me is to live fully today - not looking back with regret or sorrow or questions and not looking forward and daydreaming what you hope will be or in sadness as if I've given up hoping altogether.

No, I want to press on where I am today and to do that...I first need to be thankful for everything in my life because I have SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL for.

Yes I may be single and still long for a husband, which is a journey in and of itself, but.....I have SO SO SO MUCH.  So I have started counting all the things I'm thankful for everyday...I'm on 51 and am excited for the next 950 things that I have in my life to be thankful for.

Will you join me on Ann's quest to be thankful for 1000 things this year?  Just 3 things per day this year?

Go!

With more purpose

Last year I didn't visit here very much.  Looking back I see why now but I didn't see it then.  I was in a different place at the beginning of last year and pursuing things in life that took me off my usual course.  I didn't know it at the time but it ultimately wasn't where I wanted to belong, where my hearts desires really are and now, now that God has circled me back, opened my eyes a little more, I see that this is where I want to be.  I missed this place too.

I love connecting with people through blogs and writing and have noticed even more so over the past few weeks how much I miss each of them and how I've missed the chance of meeting some of the new friends I have made.  I love to write even though I'm not all that great at it and even though I'm usually one big run-on sentence I like it.  I think I like the expression of my heart in writing more than the actual art of writing but it's me and I like that part of me...for the most part anyway :).

I have realized that when I read, when I write or when I'm designing, I feel the most at home and it's when the noise of life truly goes silent.  I can hear my heart whisper.  I can hear God's still quiet voice.  I like the whisper.  It's refreshing, it refuels me and I walk away with my cup overflowing once again.

But to write here and be real and true and purposeful - that is my desire and also my struggle at times.  I have recently discovered Ann Voskamp.  Do you know her?  Now she's an incredible writer, incredible heart and story.  She has this great bloggers prayer on her website that I loved and can relate to.  This moved my heart to blog with a different purpose so this is now why I'm here (thank you Ann):

        May I write not for subscribers...but only for Thine smile,

        May my daily affirmation be in the surety of my atonement,

        not the size of my audience,

        May my identity be in the innumerable graces of Christ,

        never, God forbid, the numbers of my comments,

        May the only words that matter in my life not be the ones I write on a screen

        but the ones I live with my skin.

                                    Ann Voskamp

Love being back and excited to see where this goes.  I pray when you glance across these pages that your heart is somehow blessed, encouraged and maybe even a little chuckle or smile.  Grab a latte and join me sometime.  A. xo

 

Blow my Mind Jesus! I'm so ready!

It's Saturday and I'm getting some awesome downtime right now reading and writing then I get to have a hair appointment (love seeing my Cynthia) then football with friends.  It's going to be a great day.  Tomorrow I get to plan what I'm going to do in Feb in Belize, Cozumel and the Cayman Islands...far too blessed for this girl right here!

This week has been an incredible heart journey for me and I'm bursting at the seams to share.  Share my purpose for this blog and why I must write this year this twenty 12 and visit this here blog often and I'm beyond excited.  I have been digging deep into His word and have been reading many stories and about lives that have broken my heart, peeled away my selfishness, told me not to look at myself in the same way, encouraged my heart to leap forward with no fear, to be ever so THANKFUL, to love people without worrying about the end, to give it all...oh so much God has been giving me this week.

Hope is more than just a word, it’s a state of being. It’s a firm belief that even if you don’t know how, even if you don’t know when, God will come through and better days are up ahead. Life sends rain… Hope dances in the puddles until the sun comes out again….. Holley Gerth

This pictures just screams hope to me and I so badly want to dance in the puddles of life!!!!

I'm so darn blessed and God is truly "blowing my mind".  Listen to this song and I pray it makes your arm hairs stand up on their end.

I'm praying and loving the life that God has blessed me with.  So today I'm embracing it all fully - will you?  And in the very eloquent yet succinct words of one of my favorite blog writers....."GO"!

A hedge of fog

Today is a new day.  Not new as in things from yesterday are forever gone replaced with what is here today - no today is just new.  Different.  Some things from yesterday still linger.  I was reminded of this early this morning when at that very instance that you wake up and things are just beginning to come into focus and you realize...yes it's still me I'm still here, this is the same place I was last night and oh yes that little part of my heart that has some extra stirring...yes it's still there.

I wish this picture could fully capture what the moon looked like Saturday night on my little Santa Barbara escape this past weekend.  The sunset was changing colors and for a few brief moments was casting shades of pink towards the East.  I walked to the other side of the wharf to see this view and there was the full moon hung in all its glory.  The valet had already pulled my car around but I asked them to hold it so I could run over and catch a picture of it.

Sadly it doesn't do it justice.  It was gorgeous in it's brief but seemingly long existence.

The fog rolled into the crevices of the trees and hills that were lining the coast as if they were sitting in the 2nd row allowing a hedge to form around them to protect.  It was safe.  I kind of feel like the fog right now, I'm content just to settle in the 2nd row, protected by a hedge and let God and others take the stage.  Kind of like how Job wanted a hedge around him to protect him.  It feels safer here right now.  Oh I'll be back in the front row soon enough you know me :) but for now this is good.  This is peaceful.  This is trust.  I know God is guiding me in His perfect timing to His perfect place...I just know it. 

Today I am trying to see deep - see deep beyond what's right in front of me and look for Him in all things.  I want to be thankful, yes oh so thankful.  "The art of deep seeing makes gratitude possible.  And it's the art of gratitude that makes joy possible.  Isn't joy the art of God".

Joy.