Lifestyle Purge

So about every year around this time, I find myself reevaluating my life and my lifestyle, this year is the first year I am doing this as a married woman, and also as someone who is moved out of state and away from home. There were many new things this year for me and I have to admit I wished someone had told me not only is the first year of marriage hard, if your moving out of state, and elbows deep in ministry it's going to be even harder, there is going to be a lot of new things thrown at you at once. Personally I think when someone in my place in life get's married and moves away from home it should come with a free counselor for the year on call 24/7. I love my husband but it doesn't make it easy leaving.

Anyways, I have been dealing with alot of anxiety attacks and a few panic attacks even (yes there is a difference). The other night my husband worked from 2pm till midnight, not getting home to me till close to 1 am. In that time I made the huge mistake of looking through facebook and seeing all the negative posts, all the horrible news in the world and it overwelmed me and scared me. I went into a frenzy of an anxiety attack and had no one there to talk me down or to pray me through it, I was on my own for the first time. So I tried my best to breathe, and pray and say scripture over me, my favorite is "Though I fear, I trust in the Lord" and with time I eventually got to a normal breathing pattern. Then the Lord pressed upon me that I needed to look at my lifestyle and revealuate the choices I have been making, and take a personal inventory of my life, especially now as a married woman in ministry.

From that I gained alot of perspective, and I have to say these past four days have been amazing! Trying but for sure amazing!!! Here are some of the things I changed and my perspective on why I changed them, these are merely what I felt pressed upon me, each person is different though.

1. Remove Facebook and Messenger from my phone: Through praying and thought, I was brought to the realization that every time an axiety attack was triggered at night it was after checking and reading facebook, by removing the convience of it being on my phone to scroll through and read, I remove the negativity from being an hourly convience, and instead save it for times when I am on the laptop (which is a lot less than most would believe). From that I not only removed the urge to be on facebook when bored or unable to sleep, it also allowed me to stretch my brain more, read more in my books, talk to God more and really focus on Him. Social media can be fun but there needs to come a limit and a line drawn in the sand, if your picking up your phone to check facebook more than your Bible it's time to change!!!
2. Sort through and remove movies: This is a random one, I don't have many movies that would be deemed inappropriate by most, but I do have quite a few, and so I pulled them off the shelves, and I was surprised by how many still had wrappers on them, (over half) and most of them I literally held wondering "Why in the world do I have this movie?" So without thinking I pulled them off the movie shelf and threw them into a garbage bag.
3. TV Limitations: I have been finding having a smart tv that has netflix and amazon prime and on demand with regular tv that watching tv was to big of a convience, and I needed to cut some tv out of not just my life but my husband's life, we were getting so caught up in watching tv I couldn't remember the last time we had tea and just talked. So we made a few rules:
1. NO watching the news, yes we need to be informed however watching the news is purely panic driven and half the time repeated for a few days straight, we check the news on our phones each afternoon and that's it.
2. No watching tv from 9:30pm on: We sometimes will bend the rule if we both have off and will be up later but if it's a night where bed is going to happen at 10:00pm we try to cut off the tv as early as possible so we can focus on reading, each other, and just being content in the quiet. 
3. No tv before supper: We were letting what we watched dominate what we talked about when we ate, and sometimes even dictate when supper would be ready by removing tv we were able to enjoy our day better and not have as much being put into our minds. 
4. If one of us is uncomfortable with the show, it does't get watched
4. Fighting Fear with Peace: I read recently in a new book I started that in the scripture Jesus has conquered everything and that there was nothing to fear but God Himself. So with that I kept in mind that though I fear I need to put it aside and understand that Jesus lives within me and therefore I should have no reason to fear because the Lord who lives within me has already conquered all my fears. 
1. That being said I need it to be known yesterday I went out to eat with my husband and there were 2, not 1 but TWO seagulls two cars away from me and I got out of the car and walked into where we were eating without crying or screaming (I am terrified of sea gulls). this is a big moment for me, and probably for my husband to, there have been moments he had to leave a good parking spot solely cause of the birds.

So there you have it some new guidelines I have instilled and hopefully this inspires you to possibly take a life inventory, honestly we all have flaws so there is always something we should be working on! 

Marbeth's Amazing Choco Yogurt

So this past weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with Randy's aunt and she gave me a ton of healthy tidbits for recipes. One of which I decided to try today and it was AMAZING!!! This is a diabetic friendly recipe that fulfills everyone's sweet tooth and chocolate craving!!!!

What you'll need:
Activia yogurt: Your choice in flavor I chose Strawberry
Blueberries or strawberries: Dice the strawberries
Cocoa Powder: I used about 1 teaspoon


What you do:

1. I scooped the yogurt into a bowl to make stirring easier
2. sprinkle in the fruit of your choice (Aunt Marbeth freezes hers so its super cold) 
3. Stir in Cocoa Powder to your tasting
4. Eat and Enjoy!

Some fun facts about the ingrediants listed above:

Cocoa Powder: The dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular disease, 1 tablespoon only has 1/10th of a gram of sugar. 

Activia Yogurt: High in Probiotics helps with digestion, Helps in preventing bone density loss, pumped with LOW FAT protein. 

*As far as fruit goes each fruit has its own benefits! 

Chaos that has Peace

**Before I start my usual long post of a thought, I thought I would give insight to the inspiration to this post. I was listening to "Whatever You're Doing (something Heavenly)" by Sanctus Real and "Break Every Chain" by Will Reagan. I recommend listening to these songs, especially if you've never heard them. **


     Recently there has been alot of peace that has been taken from us and from myself personally and especially from this world. I don't think I need to go in great lengths to say that there is a disruption of peace and an attempt to disrupt what is God's will for our lives. With the news, social media, and terrible attacks on peace throughout the world at our finger tips it is easy to wonder where God may be, it is easy to point the finger at the christians, or the muslims or the jews, or the buddhists, but in reality we need to turn our finger to ourselves and see what we have done. Look into ourselves and focus on what we have done to our personal relationship with God, what have we done to the honor of the Bible and the peace, love and joy that God explains as examples of love.
     I was going to write about my personal walk and my personal struggles I have been facing but I felt a prompting from the Lord instead to speak to each and every person who reads this about something that is far more important than myself and that is your personal walk, your personal life, your personal choices, your most intamet parts of your life, mind, and home. As I type this I am praying that God reaches you through your computer screens, cellphones, tablets, and touches your heart, and tugs on your heart so hard that by the time you reach the bottom of this post you have fallen to your knees and reached out to Him. There is no need for fancy words or setting the scene, no need to get dolled up and go to a church to do this.

Where you are, I am asking you, God is pushing and asking you, the person reading this screen to pray. Not to let out all the woes you are facing but to come to Him with a child's heart and just in your way express your deepest love, your deepest need for Him in your life, not just so you can have the things you want, but so you can change your heart and your mind and your way of life to serve Him and want what He wants.

I used to think that you needed to have eloquent words, or live a "perfect" christian life to come to Him and then I realized if I was perfect, if I did everything right, then I would not need Him, God isn't for the 'perfect' He's for the imperfect. If you've done something wrong, if you have strayed away these past few days, weeks, months or even years I want you to know God doesn't care, all He cares about is loving you and that your there now and your wanting to make things right. The best part: All you have to do is ask and He will take care of the rest.

For my strong willed christians: Stop judging others, stop comparing others to what the Bible says about the standard of living, now don't get this twisted. I am not saying to abandon the Bible and it's instruction for the way of life, what I am saying however is it's not your job to personally take call out each person and their issues that is the Holy Spirit's job and last time I checked you are not even close to being the Holy Spirit. I love your fire and your commitment but what this world needs is not us shaking our fists and throwing stones, but instead drop your stone that you have in your hand and look at yourself in the mirror you surely are not the one with a spotless heart. You yourself have made mistakes in your past some terrible and some very little but either way your not perfect.

For the ones who are on the fence: JUMP OFF THE FENCE!! I am here writing to you to tell you the plunge into your relationship with God will be so well worth it!!! The things your clinging to you and I both know are far less important and they will be hard to let go of but when you empty your full hands of useless things God bestows great and mighty things that far surpass it so let them go and grasp onto God and what He has planned for your life.

For the ones who hate the faith that I love so much: I pray for you, not for any harm, not for you to fall off the face of the Earth but that the hate that someone put in your life for my faith will be demolished and your chains will be set free so that you can experience what true happiness is, I pray that you fall on your face praising the Lord and when you finally look up you see His face and all of His splendor.

For the ones wondering where God is: He is here, He is with you, yes the world is scary and yes there are alot of terrifying things going on in the world but it's important you remember that fear is NOT of the Lord so if the things going on the world is scaring you keep in mind it's not of God, the things that are occurring is not God abandoning us, There is a free will that comes with God, God has a will but each person has to be willing to accept it, and if they choose not to then they are turning to their own devices of evil and they are turning to their own life, and as much as we may want to question it and fight it, that is God's will to allow each person to have the opportunity to CHOOSE Him and for that we must be respectful and know that when it comes down to it God has your back.

Lastly,
I pray that we take the stones and drop them, we open our arms and start embracing our neighbors, we start to pray unceasing not for destruction, not for a war but for a spiritual awakening of the Lord amongst our entire little big world. Please take the time to look inward and see what you have done within your own spiritual relationship with God. Have you tried to take over the Holy Spirit's job judging others and have you taken it upon yourself to decide who is worthy and who is not worthy to the Lord? Have you thought critically and ill of someone? Let it go and Let God handle not just them but you.