Spiritual Warfare for Dummies

This means WAR!

These were the lyrics to a 90s Christian rock band song that my dad and I used to listen to as I was growing up. Fun song if you don't listen to the lyrics much past the hard beat.

Spiritual warfare meant nothing to me growing up. The Holy Spirit was the only spirit I ever heard of and didn't really know what to make of Him... but I had two other persons in the Trinity to focus on, so I didn't let it get to me.

After 6 weeks in Taiwan where spiritual warfare is much more real for people, I thought I understood it, and I knew that the demons and spirits people saw and battled with were real and terrifying. But when I came back to my life in America, where spirits are ignored and laughed about, I forgot again. I never consciously made the distinction of how I would be more aware of spiritual warfare in my life.

I think I finally am getting the hang of it though, as my husband and I had an uncharacteristically bad few weeks. We thought it was odd that every time we would make a resolution of any type, some major struggles would cloud our path and set us off course. This week was a perfect example.

We had our business conference this past weekend and it was awesome. I think I always say they are awesome, but I also realized this time that the awesomeness is really dependent on taking the content and applying it quickly before momentum is lost. So we came out of the weekend swinging! We built our business Monday night after a full day of reading and audios and affirmations. Then we started Tuesday early with a workout, more readings, audios, and affirmations. Then Wednesday I allowed myself to slack because I was focused on going to see my grandma in the hospital. Then Thursday, I was cold and tired and let myself put off a workout until after work... but then let everything run late and didnt get it in or do any business calls before people arrived for our briefing. Then because I had been running late the day before and eaten some unhealthy foods, I felt pretty terrible Friday morning and skipped everything, including my readings, affirmations and audios... and let myself fall into more unhealthy eating with a bunch of chocolate. See how quickly my week, led unintentionally, went right into Satan's hands?! And not that I can blame him and not take credit, but I can actually think back and see his work. Yesterday at my worst, I remember telling myself, "I need to speak life, I need to speak positive." And somehow before I could even get an affirmation out of my mental mouth, he had put another distraction in my way. This happened 4 times, at least, yesterday.

All in all, looking back, God had given me a choice, strength and control, but I forfeited it. I could have punched the morning in the face, right from the 5am alarm... and that is the lessons learned.

This is a short entry in my overall compilation of "How to be Exactly Awesomely You for Dummies." ;-)

G is for Godly husbands!

So, people... I am going to use this medium to rant and rave about my husband for once. It deserves to be done. I may have one of the most fantastic husbands ever, being formed daily, by our Lord.

If you know Nick, you may know his personality, but you may not. I'm pretty sure it's only been revealed to a few people in his life. He keeps to himself for the most part, but when he opens up, he lights up a room.

The best part about my husband, which caused me to recently take inventory of my appreciation for him, is that he is constantly growing himself. He reads both the Bible and personal development books daily. He is very self aware and forces himself to answer for his every action.  Because of this, he is constantly challenging me to improve myself.

He has grown into a man that I am extremely proud to call my own.

Have we actually Turned Over that proverbial New Leaf?

This weekend was probably the most tiring and amazing weekend of my life. I can't think of another time I have been so blessed, excited, or completely exhausted. Here's a little overview... Nick and I now officially each work full time jobs and we now own 2 businesses. Plus... this weekend, during our first participation in the grueling 54 hour sprint of Pittsburgh Startup Weekend, we moved, to what, God willing, will be the last place we live until we buy our own house. After all that... I am feeling an interesting sense of peace and overwhelm-ment. I made up that word, thank you.
But listen to the amazing blessings of this weekend. I had an idea back in midst of planning my best friend's wedding last year. I was the maid of honor and really wanted an app that would help me organize my planning, and specifically allow me to really track the gifts on the day off the bridal shower. Not only did this not exist, but there were no bridesmaid apps at all worth using. So I began thinking and chatting about the idea to people I trusted and thought would be honest about the viability of the app.
My good friend Mandy, familiar with both the app building process and the business startup scene gave me the low down. To build this would cost me over $20,000 easy, and it wasn't exactly clear how it works make money. But then again, she said it sounded good and I might have a chance at this startup weekend if I was willing to pitch.

So, no sooner had I signed up for startup weekend, did we get a notice from our landlord that they would like us to move out in 60 days. So last weekend, we moved into our new home and started a business in about 80 hours. Unfortunately it ended on me getting sick... but that was bound to happen.

E is for Everything

I decided to pick back up on my alphabetical journey last week and wrote the title of this post with no idea what I was going to say. So I left the"E is for Everything" post black. Then today I made a decision and opened up my blog to document it... and unbelievably it fits perfectly into the title I had pre-created.

So I have a lot of personal struggles, one of the worst being a lack of self control... in many areas of my life. So I made a decision today while reading the story of Daniel and how he decided to show God's power by only eating vegetables and water. No... I am not going to only eat that or even attempt the Daniel fast program. But I did realize how being mediocre is never glorifying to God. Yes, God is able to show His strength in our weakness... but I don't think we should hide behind that to rationalize living in weakness.

So what I decided was I need to start cutting things out of my life that are definitely not God glorifying. As far as food goes, I am going to really try (because I have been faking it for weeks) to follow the Paleo diet that my healthy husband is convinced is best for our family. That means mostly cutting out the junk that I waste money on. Money management will be a by product (gold star for me!). Also I wanted to cut out some time and productivity wasters. Nick always says that you should take action on a goal within 24 hours if you want to succeed... so I uninstalled both Facebook and Pintrest from my phone immediately.

I will try to be on the look out for other little things I can cut out... because I really want to give Everything to God. That's almost a funny statement, considering everything is God's, and He gives it to us as a gift. So what the heck are we sing with it!?

Every time I have an urge to break this goal, I will remember both God's grace, and his expectation of obedience. This will be a war with many battles and I covet your prayers and partnership.

The Fabric Of Freedom

Wow! I haven't posted in over a year. Well, time is up. I wrote a little blog on my phone at work the other day and I believe it is worthy of sharing.

Ok, so I'm at work and I'm supposed to be working and I'm listening to my favorite "hippy" music and thinking about all the things I want to do in life. Life passes far too quickly to not do what you're passionate about. I was taking to an older lady at work about how another lady was retiring early because she was going to be laid off because of health issues after putting in so many years. The lady was telling me about her dreams, to start an art school of sorts with her daughter, where they taught drawing, painting, and sewing. Then there was a cool twist that I won't give away, but it would give them an awesome edge. I was so impressed with the idea and asked her what was holding her back. The Risk.

It's insane how paralyzing our fears are. But I would go out on a limb and say most people don't fear death, falling, spiders, or snakes as much as they fear failure. But failure makes us stronger.

People used to say when Nick and I were engaged, if you're not fighting, then you're not talking things through enough. And I'm not sure that's accurate... but the idea follows through that if you're not failing, you're not trying enough things. We can convince kids to try new things and we coach them through learning and getting better at stuff even if they're not pros right away. But we can't convince ourselves, and no one else can either, that we need to fail at stuff as adults too. We just want to stick to the comfortable. But where is comfortable going to get us?

And honestly as I write this, almost every hippy song that comes on, is telling me to make the most of life, have no regrets, never forget about what's important, and so on it encourages my free-thinking spirit.  So why not?

And on a similar tangent, we complain so much about our circumstances (worst offender right here), but what about our complaints is not in our control to some degree? And for the rest of it... I believe it would make it so much easier to get through if we had a positive attitude.

Ok, so here's my last thought. A friend told me over coffee this week that her pastor laid down some deep thoughts on her recently. Here it is, and I want to simmer on it a bit.

"Joy is waking up with the knowledge that God will act on your behalf."

If I woke up knowing and expecting to see God acting for me in great ways, what amazing things will He do for us!? Yeah, wow.