Have you ever found yourself so distracted by the clutter in your life? 

That is me almost everyday I am home. There is always a room to clean, laundry to wash or fold, stacks of paper to sort. It's exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that I have often pondered what it might look like to rid myself of everything in my home and move into a tiny home or RV. Maybe that would help me to be less distracted.

I doubt it.

I use to think that having less stuff would be less distracting. (Use to as in like right before I started writing this blog.) But what is a distraction?

dis·trac·tion/dəˈstrakSH(ə)n/noun: a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.

Well, if I am constantly saying that my life is full of distractions, what do I feel like I am being distracted from? Or should I say who? I always feel like i have some many other things going on in my life, maybe I will miss what it is God is trying to show me. I suppose that is a direct reflect of my heart. 

God, let me hear You today. Help me to stop seeing my life and everything in it as distractions. Lord, guide me and direct me throughout my day to use the resources that I have to further Your kingdom. I'm not sure what that means and what that fully looks like but You get me. Amen.

I don't know if there are any guidelines to being a blogger but I've most likely broken them if there are. I am terrible at blogging consistently. Good thing God does not measure us by how good or bad we are at a job. 

I use to battle with that within my faith. I'd read my Bible for a few days and then I'd miss a couple days and think I was a total failure. I couldn't complete the daily reading challenge that some people I knew where able to complete. Did that mean I was less of a Christian? 

Life is full of so many things that demand of us. From being a parent, or a child, a worker, a manager, an athlete, even being a Christian can feel like we are being demanded of.

Christianity is not about a bunch of rules and check boxes. I use to think that it was. I use to think that if I didn't pray enough or I didn't read the Bible enough I was falling short, I was failing God. God wants us to come to Him as we are. To seek Him, to love Him. The more I realize this the more freedom I feel. I'm less focused about trying to achieve perfection and more focused on loving, respecting, and honoring my Love, my God.

It makes a huge difference.

Where are you feeling like you're falling short? Is God telling you that you are or are you seeking and receiving the wrong kind of advice?

God, help us to seek you. Help us to ask of you with pure hearts with Godly intentions. Not for our own gain but to further Your kingdom and Your will. Amen

I have a sister-in-law that is pregnant and due any day now. A few weeks ago, I found out that my other sister-in-law is pregnant. I was excited for my brother and his wife, then I was excited for my other brother and his wife. 

But soon the whispers began to fill the quiet spaces of my mind. This is a little bit of how that played out in my life, maybe you can relate.

Whispers: You cannot physically have any more children.

Me: No, I've decided to close that chapter of my life, no more babies coming from me.

Whispers: By choosing this you've let your husband down. He will never get to experience the joy of having a daughter.

Me (feeling a bitter sting. We have three boys, no girls, could this be true?): Well, we both said three kids was enough. We wanted to ensure we were engaged in their lives and also neither one of us likes the demanding diaper stage very much.

Whispers: But God created you to bring life into this world.

That's the one that I've been wrestling off and on with for the past few days and then this morning I decided to try out some of that 'boldly go before the throne' business that the author of Hebrews talks about in 4:16. I asked God what He thought. This is how that went.

Me: God, have I chosen to be less of a woman because I do not want to have any more children.

God: Do you know women who cannot have children? Do they bring life into this world?

I began to think about women in my life that I know that can no longer have children or have never been able to have children. To me, these women brought so much life to the world around them. Not being able to physically bring life into this world did not make them less of a woman. In my eyes, it actually made them women as God created them. These women did not act bitter because of their physically limitations (at least not to my knowledge). Instead they brought life into the world through their words of encouragement, their acts of compassion, and the lives that they chose to live.

Hello, Christian Whore, we meet again. I see you're trying to suggest I should find my worth in my body's physical capabilities.

Goodbye, Christian Whore! God created me, as a woman, to bring life into this world. While I can no longer achieve this physically, I can still bring SO much life into this world through my words and actions. I chose to seek after His heart and His plans in my life. To seek after His love instead of finding fulfillment or dissatisfaction in my physical capabilities. I do not choose to love myself and what I can do.
I choose to love God, my Father, my Creator, my Savior. He fills me with Life to speak out into the world around me. He impregnates my soul with a Truth that this world needs to see birthed, with a Love that this world longs for, and a peace that the hurting hope for. 

​I am a woman. Not because of what I feel or what I can do but because that is who my God choose to make me. I AM created in His image. Beautiful. Life-giving.    

Here it is, another day.
Another day to dread or another day to embrace?
Every moment we wake up is another chance to say Here I am what's on the agenda for today?
Maybe you are like me and there have been many days that you dreaded getting out of bed, of leaving the warmth the blankets that embraced you so cozy. Babies like to be snuggled up, wrapped up in warmth. It is safe, it is warm, it is comforting. 
But eventually, we must grow up. We must move on. We must stand with boldness and say "This day is my day come what may"
I am tired of feeling defeated. I am tired of feeling alone. I am tired of feeling lost.
I am not defeated because my God has already won the war! I don't need to feel alone because my God is with me always. I don't need to feel lost because I have been found and made new through Christ!

It is so very easy to lose sight of who we were created to be. We were created with purpose- to live and move and breath. To explore and tumble across this world like children playing in a field. To enjoy every moment of it. To respect the storms that roll in and stare with wonder at the painted sunset in the sky. 

This is not just another day, it is today.

To Day,
I am awake, I am here, let's get this party started.

Your Conquer,
​Nicole

This is not to say that God created the hole in my heart. God created the whole of my heart, the fall of humanity cracked a hole in His creation. It bleeds and longs to be restored to it's wholeness. The bleeding and hemorrhaging of my heart is painful. It longs to be made well. It longs to be made whole once more. 
 God is the missing piece to make my heart whole once more. Every time that I try to stop the bleeding with other things it just makes a mess, it just hurts even more. 
I seek others to stop this bleeding of my soul but their actions do very little to console. 
I run farther, I strive harder, I seek more. I give up, I retract, I withdraw. 
Nothing that I do will stop this bleeding of my heart. 

This hole in my heart is GOD-shaped, nothing in this world can heal the ache I feel. Nothing in this world is capable of covering that hole and making my heart whole once more. 

What do I do with this knowledge? Surely, my heart will soon empty, surely my life will soon end. If there is nothing I can use to to stop the bleeding of my soul I suppose there is only one thing that I can do.

I climb upon the alter and give my heart to You. God, of all the universe, of everything I know, I ask this simple thing. My heart's a bloody mess but when my heart is fully emptied, when there's nothing left of me. Will you fill it up, will you make it whole and beautiful to see?

Have you ever had those days where you just feel lost? One day every thing is fine and you feel like you could take on the world, the next day you feel like you might as well just roll over and die. What's the point of existing? Are you even making an impact on the world around you? Would anybody even notice you were gone?

Life is hard. 

Someone asked me the other day how I deal with deal with stressful situations. I replied, "Sometimes I call out to God and sometimes I lose my cool." 

At one time in my life I don't think I could have answered that so honestly. I would have answered with something very religious like a scripture or something and then told them to keep on keeping on. 

Sometimes people need our honesty, they need to know life sucks sometimes but you can't stay there.

Yesterday started off as a horrible awful day. I was just in a rotten, awful mood and I didn't even want to be around me. But then I realized I had to cry out to someone better than me, someone stronger than me, and I cried out to God to help me lose the attitude. I didn't instantly feel joyous and happy. But I did feel better knowing that God was there and He was right by me despite my poor mood.

​The day turned around and got better.