Now.

It amazes me how beautiful life has the potential to be... 

I have this vivid vision of life imprinted on my heart. Well to call it a vision implies I know what it looks like... I don't, but I know what it feels like. It's like God left an impression of what reality could be on my heart. I can feel it, I can sense it. It's like burning in my heart that there is more. More to life, more to love, more to relationships. More. And I'm on a relentless pursuit to find it.

Sometimes I feel like I live in a partial reality. Where relationships are shallow, words are empty & promises come a dime- a- dozen. Where dreams never leave the pillow & "to do's" find a permanent home on sticky notes. 

I know it's not by ill intention that things look this way... It's just that, this is all we know. It's all we've ever known & it will be all we ever know if something doesn't change soon. 

It's my hearts biggest hope and desire to trade the superficial for the supernatural. 

I want to live life in the fullest capacity possible. I want that vague sense of greatness to become my reality. I want to see life lived out to the fullest. I want my list of hopes and dreams to become my list of accomplishments. I don't want to spend my entire life sensing there is something greater yet never seeking to find the greatness. 

Today starts a new day. 

Today is a new opportunity. 

I can continue to be disabled by excuses or allow myself to be inabled by my passion. 

It's time to be set apart.

Apart from what was, in order to see all that there is. 

It's time to move forward. 

With boldness. 

With confidence. 

It's time to live a life that creates greatness all around us. 

It's time to make every dream a reality. 

Why not? 

Who said it can't happen? 

Who said it would never work? 

Who said give up? 

Who said you're not good enough?

Who said you'd never make it? 

I will not let idol words about my destiny become active in my present. 

The time is now. 

It's time for greatness. 

It's time to move on. 

It's time to move up. 

It's time to move forward. 

Not later. NOW. 

Not tomorrow. NOW. 

Not when you have more time. NOW. 

Not when the kids are older. NOW. 

Not when you have more money. NOW. 

Not when your family supports you. NOW. 

Not when things get better. NOW. 

Not when your friends understand. NOW. 

Not when people believe in you. NOW. 

Not when the time is right. NOW. 

The time is right. The time is NOW. 

Take it or leave it

I am no work out guru and in fact, I’m probably not even active enough to be considered someone who “works out”. However, over the past few weeks I’ve developed this deep desire to be strong and this desire has motivated me to get moving! I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing, but I know something is better than nothing right now. This mindset may seem silly to you, but for me this is huge! You see, I’m a weakling. My body frame is small, I have no muscle mass and it’s likely I could not do a pushup in correct form if my life depended on it.  I’ve never been one to work out and I’ve never been “in shape”, I’ve basically gotten through life being slim thanks to good genes.

Having my daughter however has left me with a new found appreciation for my body. Going through the process has increased my awareness of just how much I can handle as well as how much more I am capable of doing. With this new revelation, I’m determined to not only lose my baby weight, but get strong. Really strong. I know this is no small feat for someone like me, starting from nothing, but I’m willing to put in the work to get it done!

One of my most recent adventures involves Title Boxing Gym in Milford. This place is amazing. If you want to get strong, this is the place to go! I’ve attended two weeks in a row with a good friend of mine, first for a kickboxing class and then today for a boxing class.

Today during our boxing class, Ben (our trainer) was bouncing around the gym yelling out commands.
“Drop! Give me 20 push ups! Lets go! Let’s go! Let’s go! You came here to work?! You’re gonna work!! Let’s go! Right gab, left gab, right body, left hook!!” (His voice still haunts my thoughts!) Now as I said, I’m a small girl, but don’t get me confused with fit!! I’m what I like to call, skinny fat. Nothing about me is toned, lean or cut! I’m just skin, bones and fat so needless to say, this workout was KILLING ME. Ben would bounce around the gym coaching us on and making sure we did what he said. As the work out intensified and my body began to give, I found myself trying to copout. When he was looking at me, I would punch as hard as I could, my squats would be in perfect form and my knees would always come up to my chest for high steps. However, when he turned around, that was a different story. Once his back was to me, it was like the green light to rest, relax and take a breath or drink of water. I knew if he wasn’t looking, I wasn’t going to get reprimanded.

Smart right?! Umm.. Not so much…  There was one point in today’s class when Ben was across the room,  back towards me and I just stopped, dead dog tired and I just stared straight at the back of his head thinking, “Is he Satan? Has he come to destroy me? Right here and right now?! Am I going to die?” and then he said these words that I will never forget. “WORK! If you came here to work, WORK! You have a goal to reach? You’re only gonna get it by working hard! WORK! Don’t cheat yourself!! WORK!!”

At that moment, it hit me. Like a pound of bricks! I went there with a goal, I could slack off when he wasn’t looking, but who would that inevitably effect? Not him…  I would only be cheating myself.

That statement made we really stop and think. How often do we do the right thing when someone is looking, yet once they turn around, we’re back to the same old…? It was like God whispered to me, “It’s not what you do in public that will make a difference, it’s what you practice in private that will set you apart.”

Only a small fraction of our life is lived in the public eye. Whether it is the oversight of a trainer, teacher, leader or boss, we spend more time in our life without anyone over our shoulder holding us accountable, then we do with accountability. That being said, it can become easy to live a double life, one way when people are watching and another when they aren’t.

What we do in private is our character and what we do in public is our performance.

No one will ever know you ate that cheeseburger on your lunch break while you were fasting, no one will ever know that you walked the second lap when you should have been running, no one will ever know you skimmed through the last 4 chapters of you book instead of reading it through, no one will ever know you didn’t do the pushups when the trainer turned around.. It’s true, no one may ever know, but YOU’LL know the truth, and your character will prove it.

What kind of person do you want to be? One that puts on a good performance for the crowd or a person of genuine character, who is able to stand before any person, even oneself, and say: this is me!

I don’t want to put on a good performance for anyone, doing what people want to see when they are around but acting completely different when they are not. I want to be a woman with genuine character, authentic and unwavering. I don’t want to do what looks good when people are watching, but then cheat myself when no one is looking. I want to be consistent and confident; I want that when I look in the mirror I can unapologetically say, this is me. Take it or leave it…

 

More than just mulch

My husband and I bought our home last March and moved in shortly after we finished some updating and work around the house. Amongst many other cosmetic things, one of our projects was yard work. (And when I say “our” project I really mean HIS project, I just cheered him on from the side lines. Yard work isn’t really my thing!) 

Although we have a very nice size yard, it needed A LOT of TLC. After lots of leaf removal, grass seeds and tree trimming, we got to the final piece, THE MULCH.

I never knew how many options there were for mulch! After looking at all the possibilities Reuben and I (well mostly Reuben, he's a little more into this stuff then I am!) decided on getting the red, plastic mulch. (Yep, PLASTIC!) Reuben sold me on the plastic mulch even though it was way more expensive for two really good reasons. First, it looks better; the plastic keeps its color longer and you're able to use it year after year without that faded look to it and second it's plastic so it won't attract bugs the way wood mulch would. Once that dilemma was settled, we bought a ton of plastic mulch, fixed up the front yard, laid it out and it looked FAB. We couldn’t be happier. Now, fast forward just one year and guess what we're doing, you guessed it! Shopping for mulch….

Why you ask? Good question, I asked the same thing!! Well you see, when the spring came, up through all the mulch grass started to grow and weeds began to sprout. Now all of our bright, colorful mulch was tainted by weeds. We realized (a little late) that before putting down the mulch, the proper procedure would have been to pull up any weeds we could, then put down this plastic barrier that would stop and kill any new sprouting weeds, THEN lay the mulch. The plastic would serve as a barrier to keep any new weed growth from sprouting and as a foundation to lay down the new mulch.

It makes a lot of sense, and for the most part it’s a very straight forward process. It likely wouldn’t have taken all that much more time to do it the right way to begin with but now that we did it the wrong way, our time and effort (not to mention money spent) would all be doubled, at the least.

Now as you’re reading this one of two things is happening. One, you’re wondering why I would blog about mulch or two you’re realizing this is about more than just mulch.

How similar is this mulch scenario to many of our life struggles? We have great intentions, but in a rush to finish the job and make things “look nice” we often skip over the process completely. We have a tendency to deal with the immediate and visible exterior, skipping over the deeper, bigger issue that lies below. At first glance everything will seem ok, and typically we are left with something nice to look at (initially anyways) but it’s just a matter of time before all the old issues, problems and feelings creep back up and show their ugly face again.

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve likely been in this situation, possibly more than once. An eager desire to see immediate change leaves us with unresolved, underlying issues that will later surface and cause us double the work and effort to rectify.

In my own life I’ve seen this happen in relationships, finances, obligations or responsibilities, even emotional hurts and offenses I’ve encountered.

I thought I dealt with the situation, I thought I was over it, I thought it was rectified, but in the end I realize, I thought wrong and what I really did was place a nice cover over an ugly issue. We all know that looks can be deceiving and it’s only a matter of time before the weeds of life begin to creep back up and roar their ugly heads again.

Why is it that we are so eager to skip the process? Why is it we tend to be more concerned with the visible evidence of the issue rather than the actual source of the problem? Could it be a subconscious fear of finding out what really lies beneath? Or maybe in our own impatience we want a quick fix rather than a lasting change?

I realized something through this all, something I knew but suddenly because that much more tangible in my life. Jesus did not intend to suppress our offenses; pushing them deep down under, far enough that they wouldn’t been seen or even sensed by those around us, rather His desire is to supplement those things, removing them completely and replacing them with HIM.

I wonder how much time I could have saved, how much energy wouldn’t have been wasted or better yet, how many more seasons my “change” would have lasted had I gone to the root of the problem rather than try to quickly cover it up.

Thankfully it’s never too late to get it right, it’s never too late to stop, dig up the dirt and start the process (the complete process) all over again. It may seem difficult to face, it may seem like more work than you’re willing to commit to, but in the end you’ll be glad you did it.

No matter how bright the mulch was or how nice it looked, its beauty was eclipsed by the protruding weeds. Don’t let protrusions from your past eclipse the beauty of your present.

Find the problem, get to the root, dig it up and then place Jesus, your protective barrier, between what was and what is. He is able to be the barrier you need to seperate you from what once was and what is, as well as the foundation you need to build a new beginning.    

It’s never too late.