Make Time for this Today

Lately I’ve noticed that my schedule keeps getting busier and the same seems to happen with those around me.  Suddenly I’ve caught myself scheduling time within my day to do simple things like call my friends or to catch up with my to-do list.  It’s funny to me that I am “scheduling” time to do things that on a normal basis I would have free time do.  This has become stressful as I feel the same feeling many people have: there are not enough hours in the day. 

            To-do lists are great and efficient, however no matter how many things you scratch off that list, there will always be a new thing to add to it.  They key factor to relieving that stress is to stop and take time for you.  I’ve noticed my stress has lowered during times when I take 5-10 minutes throughout the day for ME time. It is certainly not easy, but it can be done. 

            My favorite “me” time activities are: blogging, reading and watching (or listening when I am at work) at make-up & hair tutorials.  Currently I am working on some material for my blog (subscribe to see upcoming posts!).  I am currently reading a book titled: “Made to Crave” by Lysa Terkeurst. This book has helped me with motivation to reach my personal goals; you can visit Lysa’s website for more insight (http://madetocrave.org/).   Finally, my all-time favorite vlog make-up guru is Camila Coehlo (https://www.youtube.com/user/MakeUpByCamila2); she is amazing and has a great spirit. 

Find those things that you’ve been neglecting & make time for YOU! No better time than the present.  Have a blessed day!  

I Am Worthy!

We are all born into different circumstances and most times we feel as if we got the wrong end of the stick.  It is hard to know your own self-worth when your world seems so unstable. As children we depend on our parents to bring stability into our lives and as adults we seem to always be searching for our safe zone.  The only issue as an adult is that we often look in the wrong places for our safe zone and we find ourselves once again getting the wrong end of the stick.  Personally, I have made the wrong choices because I forgot what I truly deserve in my life.  Our worth is in our own hands and until we find out what our own life is valued, we will never be able to find our “safe zone.” 

       The worth of a hundred-dollar bill is found in the mind of who possesses it.  For some people, a hundred dollars is a fortune and for others it is chump change.  Nevertheless, it is still of value because it is the currency we use to make transactions.  The same applies to our self-worth, the value of it is found within yourself because you are the one who possesses it.  And just as money, to some people they are worth a fortune and to others their own worth is chump change. 

       As this New Year continues to grow on us, maybe it is time to examine what you are worth to yourself.  You see, no one else can tell you how much you are worth because they do not possess you.  I encourage you to write down what you believe your worth is and make a list to support the attributes that you are basing your worth on.  Examine your good attributes and re-evaluate the areas that you need work on.  Give yourself a good pat on the back for doing this because it is not easy to admit your short comings and sometimes it is not easy to give yourself praise for the good you are doing. 

       Remember that your worth is in your hands and it can be increased by the time you spend loving yourself.  Do not wait until tomorrow to start giving your life the worth it truly has.  Do something today to show yourself how valuable you are in this world or better yet, take a look at the list you made above and start working on it.  It is never too late to say, “I Am Worthy!”

      

TODAY

Happy New Year!  I have wanted to post a new blog for 2013 and my first thought was to write about my experiences in 2012, but it is too painful to do so.  It is finally a new year, which means new everything!  January is a fun month in the aspect that so many people have found new encouragement.  Sadly, by the second week in February, that encouragement tends to fly out of the window.  I use to think endlessly about the things that I was doing to take away my own motivation and I would try to fix it, but found myself in a rut.  As a matter of fact, for 9 months of 2012 I found myself in a rut. It was like someone threw me into a cistern and I had no strength to get out.  My whole being was in a rut, from my physical self to my mental self to my spiritual self.  Well, now that a new year has begun, I vowed to do things differently.  I am done over preparing for a day that will bring so many wonderful & unexpected circumstances.  Let’s face it, we can plan all we want, but God’s plan is always bigger & better than ours.  I sure learned that lesson last year. 

I have been doing a lot of reading with one particular book in which the unexpected events of life happen so often.  Events of sorrow and despair, joy and happiness, and of human compassion; it is helping me shift my thinking.  I try to do what makes ME happy today.  I try not to regret yesterday and not to worry about tomorrow.  Yes it is very cliché, but it is a freeing thing to start doing.  Please do not misunderstand my new found outlook, because life still throws its low blows and I still have my low days.  The best I can do for myself is enjoy this day called TODAY and forget the rest. 

My main priority for this New Year is to live each day to the fullest.  I did not set any goals or resolutions for myself this year, because in others years I put too much pressure on myself and by mid-February my goals were far away.  This does not mean that I don’t have any expectations of myself; on the contrary, I expect to accomplish many things.  As I live for TODAY, I try to work harder, be healthier, nourish my spiritual self and trust my life to the Lord.  In trust you find an unexplained freedom and I was created to be free, not to be tied down by things or people. 

This year I hope to blog more and to be able to interact with my readers a little more.  I wish you all a healthy, prosperous, freeing & adventurous 2013!

~2013, I dedicate you to my angels~

Ultimate Purpose

Lately all that has been lingering in my mind is what my ultimate purpose here is.  In other words, what was I created to do while I am here on earth?  For one, I know for a fact that I will not be here forever and only God knows when that day will come.  I also know that God did not put me here to merely exist every day.  I truly believe that God equipped me to live a life that not only follows His plan for me, but a life that glorifies Him exceedingly with the way I live.  Well, it is not an easy task for most people to figure out what their purpose is.  Some people choose their purpose in life through the career of their choice and others live each day wondering what they were destined to do.  It can be quite a
battle-field between your heart and your brain.  It also becomes a battle between your spiritual beliefs and what the norms of our society are.  Finding one’s purpose can be a life long struggle or it can be a piece of cake.  Everyone is different and everyone finds a distinct way of figuring out what they want to do for the rest of their lives. 

            Recently I decided that instead of thinking so much about what my purpose is, I would dive into a pool of inspiration and begin to live my purpose. There are so many tools to help us connect with our inner voice.  My inner voice is God directing my path and I can either choose to listen or to make my own way.  That inner voice is packed with dreams, goals and passions that I was once afraid to express.  The problem with us is that we often forget to nourish our purpose; we spend more time letting things magically plan out, instead of feeding our souls with the proper inspiration.  God has equipped each and every one of us with an inner voice and He continues to inspire that voice.  But are we listening to what our voice has to say?  Perhaps the reason we feel so lost is because we can’t hear that voice.  All that we are focused on hearing is our outer voice, other peoples’ opinions and what we “think” God wants us to do.  My point is quite simple, are we letting God guide us into our purpose?

            It is my wish that every day I can work a little harder towards truly listening to my inner voice.  I know that God gifted me with the life I have and He did the same for you.  So the first step to listening to your inner voice is to thank God for blessing you with what you have: the great, the bad, the awesome, the ugly, everything!  It is my experience that a thankful outlook helps project a positive attitude. 

Secondly, grab 2 pieces of paper and write down what you believe your purpose(s) is on one piece and on the other piece write down what your dreams & goals are.  Have fun with this!  Once you are done, thank God for giving you the chance to dream!  Quite often we find that God slowly but surely aligns your heart to the purpose He has for you. 

And lastly, find inspiration in this verse from Galatians 6:4: “…make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.” MSG   God is telling us to SINK IN!! Take a dive!  Go for it! 

            My prayer is that we find our purpose (s), sink into them, and reach up to heavens for encouragement!                         
Ready………set……………..GO!

INSANE

I LOVE MY BLOG!  It is nice to know that someday my grandchildren can look me up on the Internet and they can read the stories of my journey.  Any who, today my hubby and I started Insanity.  For those of you who do not know what it is: maybe you've heard of P90X.  Well Insanity is like ten steps above it; it is INSANE!  Just the warm-up alone is killer.  I thought I was having a heart attack.  Today's workout was pure cardio, with one minute non-stop intervals. And the video itself was like 25 minutes (stretching included).  It's so funny how your mind can play tricks on you, but this time I tricked my mind & pushed through the workout!

Lately, the theme of "inviting God into your daily life" has been jumping out at me.  It has been the main focus of my Women's Bible Study.  It simply relies on the fact that we cannot do anything on our own because it is beyond the human flesh & will to do so.  We are always looking for a motivating factor.  We always need a reason to forgive, to love, to work harder, to read our Bible, etc.  As Christians, GOD is our motivating factor.  First we need to grasp the concept that every day we need to invite God into our tasks.  When you wake up, thank God you are alive & you have breathing lungs.  Invite God as you prepare your morning meals.  Invite God to check your emails with you at work.  This idea of inviting God into your daily routine, will not only change your relationship with God, but it will also give you intense fuel to get through your day.  Better yet, it sets the pace of your attitude for the rest of your day. The only way I got through my workout today (Day 1 of Insanity) was because all day I invited God to help me be energized.  

Mind over body: God has the Power to help you shift your thoughts to positive ones.  However, God will not do this unless you invite Him to!  God knows exactly what you need to push through your day.  God knew exactly what I needed today to do my workout & to eat healthy.  The only way that you will be able to retain the ability to have mind over body, is if you find the inner motivation that God has sowed in each & everyone of us.  Yes, non-Christians are successful & they do Insanity & obtain awesome results, but my God gives me a purpose to do what I need to do.  God makes me love everything I do because I do it all for His glory, not to say: "I" accomplished something, but rather say "God" accomplished something & much more! 

At the end of the day, I look for my Eternal Life with God in His Glory, where someday I can see my loved ones once again!  That is INSANE!     

Stay posted for my progress with Insanity! 

For Our Angels

Usually I am pretty good at expressing my emotions through writing, but for the first time in my life I have been speechless.  I was listening to music this morning and I heard Kenny Chesney's "Who You'd Be Today" and it describes my feelings right now.  I wrote a blog when Shawn, Grms & Amy passed away, but it is too hard to publish.  So I will let these lyrics speak for me.  ~Always in my heart~

"Who You'd be Today"

Sunny days seem to hurt the most
Wear the pain like a heavy coat
I feel you everywhere I go
I see your smile, I see your face
I hear you laughing in the rain
Still can't believe you're gone
It ain't fair you died too young
Like a story that had just begun The death tore the pages all away
God knows how I miss you
All the hell that I've been through
Just knowing no one could take your *place*
Sometimes I wonder who you'd be today
Would you see the world?
Would you chase your dreams?
Settle down with a family?
I wonder, what would you name your babies?
Some days the sky's so blue
I feel like I can talk to you
And I know it might sound crazy
Sunny days seem to hurt the most
I wear the pain like a heavy coat
The only thing that gives me hope
Is I know I'll see you again someday

In Excess

My friend Sammy wrote a blog titled “Find Your Spot.”  I always say that he manages to use absolutely every life situation to write a blog, inspire a thought, or does a bible study.  Well this particular blog he wrote (Which you SHOULD go read, right NOW: www.holycrossnm.com/blog) inspired me to write the continuation of it. “Find Your Spot” speaks about finding your balance through God.  I can recall all of the times that I continually prayed, read my bible, went to bible study & those were the times that I felt more joyous.  At the time I didn’t notice that keeping my focus on God helped me have a thorough balance in my life.  It felt like nothing bad could happen and if it did, God snapped his right fingers & just like that my problems melted away.  I still feel that way today, but now I am fully aware of the ways God is working in my life.

The integral part of one’s faith and life is to find a “healthy” balance in everything you do.  This ensures positivity, productivity and success.  By “healthy”, I am referring to knowing your own limits, weaknesses and always keep in mind that everything in excess is not good.  Well, the only thing that you can never go over on is your relationship with Christ!  Everything else is of the flesh and will derail the path that was destined for you to follow. 

Eating in excess will lead to obesity and that will cause many medical conditions.  Drinking in excess will cloud your judgment and you can become an alcoholic.  Spending money in excess may leave you broke.  I could go on and turn this blog into a book of “Things in Excess.”  Personally, I don’t care if my sin leads me to being fat, diseased, addicted, or broke, but what I do care about is that my relationship with God would be forever dampened because I decided that a life of excess was what I wanted.  Ok, so I hope everyone knows that I do not lead a life of excess and I don’t do it because having God be my Father is more important to me.  However, there are people that are already leading a sinful life and they seem to not be able to turn away from it.  Maybe they have no clue as to how awesome being part of God’s family is.  Maybe they feel like the only way to cope with the road blocks in life is to live a life in excess.  Whatever the reason, I can guarantee that if you could hand people a magic wand to fix their lives, they would run with it and “fix” everything. 

The only problem with this magic wand is that as soon as the problem has been “fixed” another problem will arise.  Life is not perfect, that is the beauty of it; but our God is and that is even better.  Now, if we focused our lives to God our creator, He would take care of all the problems in the past, present & future.  We wouldn’t need a magic wand and the good news is that we don’t need that magic wand.  You see, when you put all your energy into making God be “your spot”, you won’t need anything else.  You will not need everything the flesh craves in excess because God is here to quench the thirst of the flesh. 

1 Peter 2:11 reads: “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”  Peter knew that when you focus on “sinful desires”, instead of on God, there will be an unbearable war between your flesh and your soul.  Let’s keep our focus on God and on His Kingdom because He will take care of everything for us.  Abstain from excess gossiping, eating, drinking, shopping, etc.  You may think that what you are currently doing is not so bad, but when your focus is on everything, except for God, your balance in life will be completely thrown off.  Remember that God loves us infinitely and if you let Him, He will start to work on your heart and He will finally end that war between your flesh & your soul.

Feeling unbalanced? Addicted to excess?  Open your Bible right now.