Walk a Mile in my Shoes

Sometimes silly things happen to people. Like today for instance!

I took my 13 week old pup to the vet today. He is a chihuahua/whippit mix sweet as could be. As the vet was examining him, she looks at me and says, ma'am, your dog isn't a boy, she is definitly a girl! After I turned bright red and almost blurted out You're kidding! I calmly said, Really? Hmm! Guess we need to get a pink collar then huh? Ha I was so embarrassed! My poor little girl puppy! Being told bad boy and good  boy for so long I'm suprised she hasn't ruined the furniture!

This silly incident has gotten my "wheels" turning. Sometimes people (or in this here case a pup) are made out to be someone they aren't. Someone might appear to be a certain way on the outside and that is normally what we judge them on, (yes I'm admitting to "judging the book by it's cover"). Instead, that very same person could be a completely different once we got to know them or talk to them for some time.

How is this fair? How can someone just take what they see and just assume? It isn't fair yet so, so common for our human nature to look at someone and already have a conclusion about who they are.

You know the old saying that goes something along the lines of, Don't judge me until you've walked a mile in my shoes. How pertinent to this post today? Everyone is made up of experiences and all together forms the journey of life. Everyone has walked their journey to this point. Everything bad and everything good that has happened to them up to now, are pieces of their life puzzle. Some people let their journey make them into a better person and some just use it as an excuse for their behavior, (more on this topic at another time).

Judging someone for their outward apperearence could make you into a negative person. Cause really, who looks at strangers and tries to find something positive about them? It is usually, Wow did they look in the mirror before exiting their house today? (yes I am saying I've done this).

I thought I would end this with a picture of our little puppy!

                                     Now we just need to come up with a new name for her!!

Love is all you need

The last few weeks have been so busy that I just haven't had time to sit and write. I have started jotting down ideas just to chuck them in the trash!

I have been bombarded with thoughts lately on love and what it really means to love and be loved. Love is so much more than just a word. It is a feeling, action, expression and the one thing that every human being longs for.

Love is also a journey. It takes you down stunning, precious, straight pathways, and then down narrow, rugged, not so glamorous ones. To find someone who can hold your hand and be by your side through the journey is something so sacred and truly rare.

1 Corinthians 13 gives a beautiful picture of what true love is. If you had everything you could possibly imagine, all the knowledge, all the money, everything you've ever wanted, but you have no love... nothing matters... you have nothing...

We got the pleasure this weekend to see Jake's best friend get married. This brought back memories of my wedding and all the emotions I was feeling. To be considered someones wife, is the most rewarding and romantic title I think I will ever carry. My husband is my best friend. He is the one person in the entire world that knows literally everything about me. To put my trust and confidence in someone is part of the foundation of love.

The word love is tossed about like a kite in the wind. It gets used and abused. To love someone is 100% devotion, whether you are on that beautiful path or the dark and bumpy one. 1 Cor 13 states  Love is patient, love is kind......It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perserves...Love NEVER fails.... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE. 

To love is to be. I wish I could pick a better word to explain love but to me it really is to just be. Love is what completes empty spaces and fills voids. Love is what breaks hearts and creates new life. Love is what satisfies and what goals are based off of. To love is to be...

Being at the wedding this weekend made me think of the first time I looked up while walking down the isle to meet eyes with my husband. I was complete.

We are made with a purpose. And one of those purposes are to find love in one special person, to be with for the rest of your lives. That is being. It doesn't matter what the hardships bring, poverty, stress, heart break or even utter joy and happiness. Love can conquer anything. With love, overcoming anything becomes possible. As long as you are clining to love it will be okay.

To love is to be...

Sun amongst the clouds

Sometimes the things that happen to us in life are a mystery. We are left with questions that go unanswered and hearts that have to be healed by time and God's great love.

We were fortunate enough to go through a joyous experience of finding out we'd be welcoming a new baby bundle into our lives in November, only to find out that it wasn't God's final plans. It came and went almost too fast to process. This was the most devastating and detrimental thing I've ever experienced. I felt as if the whole world was put on pause and I was out of my body watching this disastrous event unfold.

There is no name for a mother who has lost a child. If I was to loose my husband (God forbid) I'd be a widow. But under the list of things I am, mother, wife, daughter, sister...etc, you won't find anything to suggest I've lost something so precious, because there is just no words to describe it.

When disaster happens to other people, you pray for them and do anything you can for them but in the back of your mind you are thinking, Man, there is no way something like that will happen to me and my family... Until it does. I've been struggling. Everyday, my heart aches and I'm constantly reminded of the devastation we've been dealt. I've thought to myself on many occasions, Why am I hurting and stuck in this rut and everyone else has moved on? These thoughts were consuming my life.

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be all about how sad I was really feeling and about the grief I've had to work through (not to mention oodles of anger). But when I really sat down and thought about it, everyone goes through terrible things, but how you come out on the other end really defines who you are to the core. I want what has happened to me and my family to be a piece of my life that has shaped me. I don't want the tragedy I've experienced to be or define my life and who I am.

God's plans are perfect. Isaiah 14:24 says, "...Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand." We may never know why this happened. I honestly believe if I never find out, it's because I just wouldn't understand. God's perspective is so much broader than mine, I'd just never understand, and I'd be left doubting. This experience has made me grow up in a way that I never would have, had this not happened. I was listening to good ol' Charles Stanley one day and his words struck me. He said, "The thing that puts us on our knees, is what grows us up."

Detrimental things are made to shape you into a different/better person, not define who you are. 1Peter 1:6-7 says, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

So there you have it. I am no longer letting this adversity have reign over who I am. The storm clouds are slowly rolling away and I can see the sun... I can see the sun...