Can I tell you a secret?!?

I have a secret to tell you. I doubt that you've heard it before, it goes against everything that the world tries to tell us. It goes against how as a woman I was raised. My secret is that love isn't just a feeling, but that its a choice. I'm not one of those women who says that Disney lied to me...I don't believe that is true, they just didn't tell you the whole story of the Princess' lives. They left out the best part. They left out how hard the Princess' and Prince's had to fight to keep their love and their marriage strong. They left out the greatest love of all...the love of our Savior, who demonstrated love in its purest form when He gave His life up on the cross that we might spend eternity with Him. It is a secret that should have never been. I lived 26 years without fully grasping how to love a man. I thought so many different times and even through 2 failed engagements that I knew how to love and that I was in love...and yet, I had no clue. I thought that if it got hard and I stopped having that warm fuzzy feeling, then it wasn't really love. I thought if he didn't change to my "perfect" ways then he wasn't "the one" for me. I'm not going to tell you that you don't have a soul mate, or that there isn't somewhere in this world "the one" out there for you...what I'm going to tell you is that your soul mate, "the one" for you, is the same "the one" for me. He is your Creator, He is King, He is Lord, and He is Love. God has shown me so much about love and how to love and what it means to be loved in the last 22 months, its unbelievable. He has radically altered my perception of a relationship in the form of Ryan choosing to love me, and in the form of Godly advice from amazing men and women He has placed into my life. I am so humbled and thankful for this lesson. I pray that He never stops revealing these "secrets" that society doesn't know or doesn't tell us. That I would learn more and more of His love, that I may in turn love. And when I fail to love as I will time and time again, that I would be reminded of His power and that I am a sinner redeemed by the blood of Christ. My prayer is that you know this secret, and if you didn't that now that you do know it, that you would seek to learn more.

I was watching Fireproof this evening, the song at the end has some very powerful lyrics. Check it out:

Another one bites the dust!!!

No, Ryan and I didn't break up...I dropped another pound!! WHOOOP WHOOP!!

Heres a song that really motivates me to get up and get going....LOVE it!

I know that you are for me...

I have been struggling quite a bit lately with my mind, and the lies that fill it. In all kinds of ways such as, attacks against myself, with words that others say to or about me, with things that have happened in the past. I fight to now allow those thoughts to envelope me, and yet today I find myself struggling to the grasp the edge. Some events have led me to feel like I can't truly share myself in fear of it getting turned around and making me into seeming like a jerk. I hate that, and I know that everyone involved hates it too. Its an awful situation that the gospel does and will rectify.

How often I forget that even when it seems like all hope is lost, its not. Its the extreme opposite of lost, if I would just hold on my Savior will remedy it all, as He's paid it all as he hung on the cross.

Father, God, forgive me for being so consumed with the lies that are in my head. God forgive me for some of the ridiculous thoughts I allowed to bounce around in my mind instead of turning to You, and Your perfect word. God would I not lean on my own understanding and what I think is best, but that I would seek out You and Your perfect will, Father. That I would pause when a negative thought comes into my mind and would realize that that isn't bring you any glory or honor and that I would meditate on Your truth. Father, God, that no matter what may come or what I or anyone says Lord that I would never forget that I am Yours. That You are for me. That You aren't against me, ever, and even in that God that any evil that comes upon me had to be cleared by You first. And that You allow it not only for my good but You allow it to bring glory and honor to You. Father, how lightly I sometimes take the fact that I am Your child, how easily I forget what it means for me to be a daughter of The King. Father I pray that You continue to stir in me a renewed sense in just how precious it is to be Yours, and to know that no matter what may come or how hard it may seem, God that I'd always remember that You are for me and I am Yours. Amen

I was dead and am alive, I was lost and am found.

Last night I went and got my very first tattoo. It was an impulsive thing to do, and yet it wasn't at the same time. I didn't know I was going to go last night, but I have been thinking about getting one for a few years now. I didn't know I'd end up with the one that I did, until yesterday as before I always wanted one to honor my grandmother. She would have hated it. So I decided against it but still wanted some kind of a tattoo on my right ankle. Yesterday it finally hit me. I wanted to go get it. And the idea of the one that I got came to me and it all made sense so I went with it.  I couldn't enjoy it more.

What you see above is the tattoo that I ended up with. Its written in Korean. Its pronounced nangbija, and it is the adjective form of Prodigal. I spent a year in South Korea while I was in the Army and while I was there some major poor decisions I had made before the Army caught up to me. I chose to lie about them, and then finally decided to tell the truth. When I did that, my then fiance' Rob...left me. I was in a foreign country, newly single, a wedding gown was already being fitted for me by Korean women who spoke very little English. And I was an ocean away from all the ones I loved. I got very depressed, and really didn't enjoy my personal time while I was there. I turned to alcohol and food to take care of my needs. When I got back to America I cherished our way of life much more and now looking back I'm thankful for all of the events that happened over there that helped break me down to eventually see how desperately I was in need of a Savior. That's why it is written in Korean. Prodigal comes from the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) This is the series the pastor at the church I was attending was preaching on when I realized I was in need of a Savior. That story is very close to my heart, especially verse 32 when the father is talking to the son that had never left his side, the father says, "It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."

So there you have, the full story on my tattoo.