From Damaged to Destined

WOW!!! How time flies! I feel as if I was just toasting to the New Years, blinked, and then it was April. The past two months have been crazy, stressful, and yet rejuvenating in a way that is hard to describe. Over the past three months I have been going through A Confident Heart by Renee Swope with my Biblestudy group. What an incredible book filled with hope to overcome our past mistakes and let God use those mistakes for His glory. I would recommend the book to every woman out there who has ever felt despaired, forgotten, and/or wondered if God really does care.

This book has helped me gain a confidence about myself and a reassurance that God is out there with a plan specifically for my life. I may not know His plan just yet, but I am confident that placing my burdens at His feet will help me eventually become in the loop, so to speak. I am not saying I am a completely confident woman because I read this book, but I can guarantee that I am a growing confident woman in Christ because of this book. One of my favorite parts of this book is Renee challenged us to plan a DATE (Determine A Time Everyday) with God. What I loved about the idea is that I could do something different everyday to spend time with God. I did not have to get up every morning at a specific time and attempt to not fall asleep over my coffee while trying to listen for God to speak to me. Yeah, I have been told that before, but the way she explained her ideas made me feel more confident that I could do the same as well.

So I started reading passages and searching for verses that I felt spoke to my life and circumstances specifically. I stumbled across Psalm 32, a passage suggested by an old professor and mentor of mine when I was going through a tough time a few months back. I had put the passage aside and told myself I would read it later. Well later came, and I was finally ready to hear the words that God had been trying to communicate to me my whole life. I was forgiven! God was my shelter, my strength, and my deliverer from evil. I need not fear with God by my side. And now I have committed my quiet times to reading this passage, searching out how I can specifically use this chapter to help others, and memorizing all eleven verses. I work well with guidelines and tasks that I feel I can accomplish. I believe that this is a good start to a great journey of a wonderful life that God has planned just for me.

No the journey will not be easy. Satan will fight, and is fighting, for me to return to him, but this time I have a weapon that can move the mountains, and I am not afraid. I am more than a conqueror. And with Christ by my side I am certain that no matter the troubles that are waiting ahead I will become the godly, confident woman He destined from the beginning of time I would become.

Red & Khaki, Red & Khaki

Update! Update! Update!!! I got the job at Target! It definitely is not my dream job by any fat chance, but it is a job that pays decent, and I am very appreciative of that fact. With Target & Tutoring & Ben finally getting some gigs we actually paid this month's rent fully out of pocket. We did not have to break into the savings at all! We are slowly, but surely, climbing out of the red and into the black, I think that is the term they use for good, do not quote me on it though. God is good. It has been a long, difficult journey to get where we are today, but every step is worth the memories we make. Here's to a better and brighter February! :)

Come What May on Saturday

All I am saying right now is do not let Saturday come! Do not let Saturday come! Yet, at the same time it would be nice if tomorrow was Saturday. I just want to know if Target is keeping me or not! Is that too much to ask??? I am freaking out here! I really, really need this job but at the same time if God wants me elsewhere that is fine too; I just want to know already! I can barely sleep at night because I am so stressed and worried that I may not have a job come next week. Money rules the world, that is true, but I so wish life did not have to be this way. I pray that I can somehow trust God to take care of my life, my job, and my future. I have no control over this and no amount of stress will make this process easier, stressing over little things only makes things worse unfortunately. So, I am giving my job and my financial situation to God. Whatever happens this weekend or next week is all in His plan, even if it does not make sense to me.

The Beginning of the End???

Welcome to the New Year & the End of the World! What is your opinion of that matter? Do you really think the world will end this coming December? I personally believe that the world will end the day after just to throw everyone off their rockers, haha. :) No but seriously, I think the idea of the world ending is preposterous! God said in the Bible that we would not know the day or the time that He was to come back to Earth. The fact that we know the Mayan calendar ended on that day is merely just another mystery we may never be able to answer, but I highly doubt that the end of the world will happen on that December day, the 23 or whatever is the date.

Either way, I have set some goals for my life this year which I intend to strive toward and achieve, whether the world ends or not. I do not personally like the sound of "My New Year's Resolution" so I go with my goals for the year. They are optional ideas that I will strive to achieve with no outside pressure from other people, at least that is how I see the concept. So my goals for this 2012 year are this:

1. Read my Bible & Exercise at least 3x a week.
2. Figure out what God wants for my life & strive to achieve whatever that may be.
3. Finally make & finish a scrapbook of our wedding.
4. Actually write a Christmas letter.
5. Be more organized, especially in my room.
6. Blog at least 7x a month.
7. Be a better person in general, a person that I am proud of and would be proud to show off to the world and have my future children call mom.

What are your goals for this year? Whether you accomplish them or not is besides the point; the idea that you are striving toward something is what matters the most. So write up some goals today! Or write them up in February! Or change them each month! What matters is that you make a conscious decision that this year is your year to make a difference and change into that person you have always desired to be, that person hidden deep down inside of you longing to spread its wings and fly. It may seem like a challenge at first but how much sweeter is the triumph when you step onto that mountain peak and can see just how far you have come since the beginning of your journey. So put your past year behind, make some goals, and start your climb to the top today!

Ending a Year & Starting a Year on A Happy Note

December ended on a great note and January started on a great note, so far my year has been good in short. There were 23 of us on Christmas day. It was an amazing time to catch up with family I have not seen in awhile, my cousin and his fiancee have been gone the longest, a looong seven years. It was so great to see them again. They have been in town but I was always busy with school or work and could not make it to San Diego to see him, sad as it was. This Christmas was a family reunion, not the whole family, but a good portion of us, because we all realized my grandparent's health is steadily declining and decided this Christmas needed to be spent with them. Their house is small and it was very noisy, but that just meant being forced to spend more time with each other. I would not have preferred Christmas any other way.

January started off to a great start as my best friend Bekah was back in town for the Christmas season to visit family. She is currently in Iowa at a Nursing school. I showed up to her house on Christmas Eve with a surprise visit just to chat for a few minutes before heading to see my family. Words cannot express the joy and happiness I felt at seeing her again, and it had only been barely five months, unless you count the couple skype dates then it was less, but those were not in person so it is technically different. Man how I love that girl! She knows every secret of my life and the fact that she has not judged me is proof enough to me that she is a friend that is hard to find and definitely one you do not want to lose. We then met for breakfast the Wednesday after Christmas and spent 3 long hours catching up on life. Then on January 10 she came up to LA and stayed the night. I loved seeing her one last time before she went back to Iowa. It was really awesome that she gave up one of her last nights visiting to hangout with me.

So besides my computer being a pain, wondering if I still am going to have a job at the end of January, and trying to figure out where the forest of money trees are, my life is going quite well here in Sunny California.

Merry Christmas Daddy

My dad passed away 11 years ago on Tuesday, December 13. It has been a long, difficult, emotionally challenging 11 years full of heartbreak and discovering who I am. I have been to the bottom and am finally working my way out of the pit of hell, literally in some aspects. I hope someday my life can reflect the woman my daddy would be proud of and the woman he dreamed I would become. I am pretty sure I have failed him so far, but I hope that when I see him again in Heaven he will be proud of how far I have come in life. Even though I have strayed far, he was always an inspiration, an image of someone I dreamed someday I could be like. Maybe now that I am changing there is still a chance I could be like my dad. And maybe someday when I see him again he will not be disappointed in me, like I fear so many nights.
Merry Christmas Daddy! I will always love you, and I will never forget the legacy you left behind.

Conflict Between 2 Jobs

I just realized I never finished posting about how my job interviews turned out. Well I got both of the jobs! Except I had already officially started working for Target before I knew I got the job at the Brea Library, so unfortunately the Library was not willing to work with my Target schedule and decided to pursue someone with a more open/consistent work schedule. I was really bummed about the Library job since working in the library is what I would love to do, but now that I have worked for Target for a month I am really enjoying my job there, the experience I am acquiring, and the people I have met.

I still miss the Library job, but, as my husband pointed out, who knows maybe I can still work at a library in the future. Who knows what God has in store for me! I am thinking of looking at some of the state and city college libraries around my area come the new year to see if they are hiring because their libraries are bigger and I would not put everyone out of their jobs like I could have if I worked at the Brea Library. ;)

Until then I am enjoying the experience I am gaining at Target. I can almost actually count change finally! lol ;) It is an exhausting job at times, that is for sure, but getting paid is definitely worth it when you have so little money. The only problem is I have to be extra amazing right now because January 15, 2012 is when I will find out if I am hired on as an actual, non-temporary employee of Target or if I am let go and on the hunt once again for another job, which I really do not want to have to do. So until I am told otherwise I am putting my heart into this job and focusing on being amazing so they will see what a benefit I can be to their company. Come January I will give you an update on how things turnout. I pray that God allows me to stay on and if not He opens a new door to a new job that He has laid out for me. It is all in His hands how my job future turns out.