Intentional Living

So one of my favorite blogs is The Nesting Place.  Each October she does a challenge to post about something for 31 days.  This year, I'm joining in.

I love to write.  I also love this space to document our crazy live.

And crazy it is.  The last 20 months with 4 kids has put my writing and this blog on the back burner.  Instagram has maybe had a small part in that too:).  It's so easy!

Slowly, but surely I am learning to be more intentional with all aspects of my life that are important to me.  I want to share on this blog how the Lord is working in my heart to be more intentional in my home with clean eating, green/granola cleaning,  exercise, getting organized, ministry, craftiness, my kids, my husband, and my relationship with Him! Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed with so much and I hope that this little blog challenge will help me be more intentional in all these areas and then I will share them here (for accountability)...the joys and the failures!

So each day will probably be vastly different.  And I'm going to go ahead and say that I might miss a day or two...but I really want to take up this challenge!  Some days may just be me sharing some wonderful memories of my kids that I don't want to forget.  Some days may be me sharing recipes or how I'm slowly making over our home to be more green/clean/organized:). 

Student Story

Jeff has started off the semester at Cru teaching through the seven I AM statements of Jesus in the gospel of John.  We were blown away to receive the following email after his second talk of how Jesus is the Light of the world.  Stories like this are what grip our hearts and renew our calling to work with college students at Bama.  Satan is hard at work trying to destroy lives, but we serve a God who is greater and can use evil for good!  Be encouraged to know that our powerful and majestic Father is on the move.  He is working to change lives and we are blessed to be a small part of it...

     “I choose life. It has almost been a year since I was raped on October 5th.  To be completely honest, I am amazed that I have even made it to see today, because after I was raped I chose death. I decided that my life no longer had value and I as a person was now worthless.  Prior to October I was a virgin and had no sexual experience.  I grew up dreaming of my wedding night where I could give my one precious gift to my husband who I knew loved me for me. On October 5th I got that dream ripped away from me. I feel like often when people talk to rape victims, or survivors, as I like to call them, they try to comfort them by repeating that it is not the survivor’s fault but at least for me I wasn’t wrestling with guilt or who to blame, but rather the deep and painful shame for who I was as a person. I felt like I was damaged goods and therefore could not tell anyone what had happened to me.  I felt like I had to hide it, I didn’t deal with my feeling so I turned to other things to cope. So I drank and I had sex. I don’t know how many people I have slept with. There are many nights that I don’t remember, many nights I woke up not wearing clothes and many faces I have had sex with that I don’t know their name. I chose death.  I felt too unworthy to walk in the light with God, so I didn’t. But you can’t live in darkness. It’s strange but during this time of my life, during all the chaos and destruction is when God decided to call me.  Even in my darkest hours I heard God calling my name to serve him.  It took me a very long time to understand and to come to terms with God.  It’s in times when you are crying out to the Lord to save you from your suffering you realize that he never promised that you will be saved from your suffering but rather, He promises that when we are in our darkest of darks and lowest of lows that he will be there with us.  I guess what I am trying to say is, I am no longer ashamed.  I was raped, I was an alcoholic and I was ashamed of who I was but through all of this I never stopped being a child of God and I want to thank you for reminding me of that.  I choose life.”

Hurricane Creek

The last few weeks have been soooo busy and crazy.  It's been good stuff, but just so much that this labor day weekend was definitely a nice little breather.  We did mourn Jeff's grandfather yesterday as he passed from this earth to his heavenly home.  It was a nice time to come together as family and celebrate such a wonderful man even though we are sad he is gone.  

Today, we spent time together as a family and it was so needed. 

We went to a little gem of a place called Hurricane Creek.  It's a little state park and the kids just absolutely loved it! I'll let the pics speak for themselves...