Live. Love. Lead.

     Surely I cannot be the only one who has seriously tried to pray someone out of my life. You know those "thorn in the flesh" kind of people. The kind of people you pray Psalm 35 over like "may their way be slippery..." The kind of people that look for you to fail and when you do (because you're human) they are right there jubilant and ready to remind you of your shortcomings.      Recently, I was studying 1 Samuel 1, which recounts this courageous woman of faith named Hannah. She had one of these kind of people in her life. A hater.  Hannah was barren. Hannah would go to the house of God and be bullied and ridiculed time and time again by Peninnah about her barrenness. This woman made it her aim to poke fun and consistently bring to Hannah's mind that for which she deeply hoped for--a child. This woman threw this in Hannah's face consistently.  I think we all know what that's like at some level.     What was fascinating to me is th...

     Currently, I am on a journey of shifting priorities so that my lifestyle can be more catered to and for my family.  Yes, as a single woman I am shifting my priorities and practices to prepare for my future family.  Talk about some faith...I am not even dating anyone so the prospect of family is a hazy dream at best and definitely a journey of trusting that God can and will provide.      So, why would I try to discipline myself in matters of time, finances, fitness, health, spending time with God, and career when God's timeline for when my family begins is a complete mystery to me?  One answer...Proverbs 31:12.      This verse reminds me of my "why."  It reminds me of why I work hard, by His grace, to discipline myself in matters that will assuredly impact my family in ways that right now I cannot even imagine.  This verse reminds me of the type of woman I am pursuing to be and in so doing I am becoming it. ...

     An advisor once told me, "If you focus on everything then you're focused on nothing." Over the past year and half I have thought about that statement...a lot.       Many times it is easy for us to get caught up in so many dreams of how to make things better.  In and of themselves those dreams are not bad, but they can become problematic if we lose our focus on the G-D who created and empowers us to fulfill a purpose that He lovingly made for us.      The L-RD is working His plan via all the people, circumstances, struggles, and triumphs that He intentionally places in our lives in order to instigate transformation. Yet, all too often we lose focus when we zone in on all the things around us to such the degree that we analyze them as individual events; rather than significant strands of a unified cord called----purpose.       There is nothing random that happens in life; every spec of our existence is uniq...