Tweet In the Youtube-Facebook-Twitter etc. world we live in, it is easy to get 100 likes because you finished a paper, bought a Christmas tree, or heard a meaningful quote and passed it alone.  It seems we have grown accustomed to living our lives through social media and the praise it brings.  Sometimes it looks like this..   FB Status Update: Today I ran 5 miles. FB Response: 25 likes; comments like “Go girl”- “You rock”- “The only way I am running is if something is chasing me”- “love this” etc.. This month, my wonderfully lovely group of Bible study girls is fasting from media.  The consensus so far is..…

Tweet Sometimes, when you get exactly what you want, you have to step back and remember that..you got exactly what you wanted.     This lesson is sometimes painful to swallow.   Enter life lately.   My previous employment had gone downhill quickly and I was anxious for a way out. I wanted a new job. Apparently, in my mind, this would fix all the problems in my life and make everything ok.   Note to self: Don’t listen to your mind. Sometimes it tells awful lies.   Thus, when I did land a new job it was anything but a fix to all of life’s problems. In fact, the…

Tweet Today is Thursday which is becoming my favorite day every other week thanks to my small group of 6am Bible study girls.  As I mentioned previously, we are reading through the book  Seven by Jen Hatmaker.  It is a journey into the excess of our culture and a mission to cut down, cut out, and focus in on those places where discomfort lies and where the Holy Spirit moves.   This month the focus is on the food we eat. In that, each of us has chosen an area in which to fast and limit ourselves as an exercise in self-control and in laser focus.  For me it is…

Tweet God works in incredible ways. I am constantly amazed by how He orchestrates every perfect detail of life. And one of my personal goals for the fall is to write more for fun. I spend a lot of time writing research papers and discussion board threads, but writing for pleasure is a much better stress release. 🙂   For as long as I can remember, I have been a morning person. I love getting up early. I love the peace and quiet of the morning. I get my best thinking and work done before most people are awake. And for the longest time, I have been longing for a…

Tweet This morning I got my butt out of bed at 4:30am and went to the gym. I swam 1000 meters with a group of people who have become a second family to me and who, for all intents and purposes, should not give a second thought to a 20-something barely scraping by to pay her bills.  As I was half-way down a lap this morning, I was struck by how far from my plan it is. Three years ago you could not have paid me to stick my face in the water.  Around the same time, I moved to a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. …