Live Brave: Faith

I am learning more and more, that when you open your heart to God, He responds. With every step you take towards Him, He steps towards you. It's been a process for me, one day at a time but I am so grateful that He wants me to draw near to Him.

On Thursday I had to travel up to Newcastle to see a client. It's a three and a half hour drive each way which means I have a lot of time for podcasts and music. One the way up, I was listening to the radio and this song came on. From out of nowhere I started crying, tears streaming down my face.

The thing is ... they weren't sad tears. As I listened to this song I began to get a fresh glimpse of who God is and a realization of how much He loves me. That love for me is what makes me who I am. I can not separate who I am from God's love for me and that was both humbling and beautiful beyond words. Gratitude and love just started pouring out of me and for the next few minutes I had a real sense of my heavenly father sitting right there in the car with me as I sped up the motorway.

I have never experienced anything like that before. It is a moment I will never forget. On the whole drive back I listened to the radio, hoping this song would be played again...but it wasn't. I have however had it on repeat since Thursday evening and I knew that I had to journal a page in my bible.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows.

- James 1:17

Every time this song plays I can't help but lift my hands to the sky in worship and gratitude, so I knew that I wanted my page to have a similar feel or look to it. I wanted vibrant colors across the page to try to express everything I have inside of me now when I hear this song.

I pray that this new realization makes it way into every crack and corner of my heart and life. And I pray that you may truly know that our heavenly Father is a good, good Father. A Father who loves you so very much. A Father who is perfect in all His ways and knows exactly what you need before you even ask Him. He Loves You!

Two weeks ago I decided to buy Lara's book. Everywhere I turn I see or hear people talking about it and I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I didn't want to miss out on something amazing so I opted for a paperback version that I could underline and write in and go back to time and time again.

When it arrived I delved head first into it. I got my journal, my favorite pen and made a start. As it happens a few weeks prior to deciding to buy this book, I had also started listening to Jeff Sanders "The 5AM miracle" podcast. His idea is to "dominate your day before breakfast" and I just love that concept. While I don't get up at 5 am, I do now get up at around 6 am which gives me about an hour before I need to start getting ready for the day ahead. I've been doing it for around two weeks and I can say, hand on heart, that I love it. I love that I start the first part of my day doing something just for me, working on something that is important to me and something that previously I hadn't been able to do as well or as thoroughly as what this has now allowed me to do.

Anyway, I digress, back to Make It Happen and what my early morning efforts have produced. First off let me just say that if you are looking for a purpose, if you are looking for a way to really dig deep into what you want from life then this book is for you.....but let me add a caveat. If you really want this book to impact your life then you have to do the hard work that goes along with it. There is no easy way of getting these amazing things out of the book without putting the effort in. It just doesn't work that way and I can honestly say, that while parts of it were pretty tough, I am so glad that I saw it through and that I waded through the tough, messy stuff in order to get to where I am now. And let me just add that I am only at the start of this journey. I don't believe that this journey has an ended date. It's going to be something that I constantly have to review and tweak and amended - and that is totally to be expected.

I have always been a goal setter. Some of them I achieve but a lot of them I don't. For me, it has generally been those stretching goals that I have desperately wanted to achieve but somehow haven't. I've lost motivation along the way. I've given into fear and decided I can't actually do it. I've allowed my progress to be halted which in turn has meant I haven't been living to my potential. But not anymore. Today I am committing to my overarching goals for 2015. I am committing to the tiny steps that I will need to take along the way. Most importantly I am committing to praying my way through each and every day that it takes to see these fulfilled.

Earlier this year I set my 2015 goals which you can read about here. It's actually rather funny because as I first began working through this book I started to think that I would have to scrap the goals I had set earlier this year and start again. But as I continued to work through the book I realized that 99% of my goals could stay, that they actually fit perfectly into my overarching goals that I have worked so hard on over the past two weeks or so.

After deep digging, praying and searching I have the following ten overarching goals for the rest of 2015. I am super excited about them and will share how I plan to approach these during the rest of the year in a post that is due out around the 1st of April. For me, the difference between these goals and every other goal that I have set is the why factor. Why is this goal important to me. Why should I devote my time and effort to working on it...... and as it turns out - I LOVE THE WHY!! It really does give my goals a different feel to those from my past. So here you go, here are my goals for 2015 including the why behind them.

2015 Goals

I will clear 100 items from my home because I want to get rid of things that are holding me back from moving forward.

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I will intentionally spend my mornings focusing on what I need because I want to develop in who I am and do things that allow me to be the best me so that I can live the life that God has in store for me.

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I will work on my relationship with food because I don’t want anything to have a controlling influence over me except God.

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I will create opportunities to find the magic in my day because I want to be thankful for every good that God has given me.

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I will give of myself by volunteering somewhere because I believe my purpose is to serve others and I want to honor God by serving his people.

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I will pursue financial responsibility because I want to be a good steward of what God has given me.

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I will get rid of at least 50lbs of fat because I want to feel confident in my strong, capable and beautiful body. I want to live my life on purpose and I need to be as healthy as I can be to do that to my highest potential.

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I will encourage and support those around me because I believe that we each need to be our best selves to build communities that are healthy and meaningful.

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I will listen and learn from those who are wiser and more experienced than me because I want to be someone who is always open to learning and growing.

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I will spend time creating and doing things that help me to utilize and nurture my gifts and talents because doing these things truly makes my soul happy.

I have printed this out and it is currently hanging on the wall in my office. As I spend a bit of time over the coming days breaking this down into smaller goals I am excited about what is happening inside of me. I am getting excited about what my future holds again. Excited for the opportunities that are coming to me as well as those that I have to encourage, support and serve others. Each day is an exciting opportunity to make strides towards living my life on purpose!

Have you read this book? Do you have your own goals set for the year? Please leave a comment and share them as I would love to read them and encourage you along your own journey this year.

If you have grown up going to church, the word Grace is something that you hear a lot. In fact, I think that Grace has become a popular word outside of church too.....although, I'm not sure that it is easily or clearly defined wherever you hear it. For me, Grace has always been a bit of an abstract, "out there" type of word. Something that I knew was powerful. Something that I knew was a gift. But something that I couldn't put into my own words.

And through this, life was happening. Exciting, scary, difficult, big, small things. Things that make you question who you are and where your life is going. Things that leave you wondering if you would change things if you could. That leave you comparing your worst to everyone else's best.

Now, although I have said all of that, I wouldn't be sharing my story in a balanced way if I left it there. Nope, that is not the full story of my life these past few years. There have been good things. I have been really blessed. I have worked hard to move forward from some of those experiences and situations. I continue to work on staying away from comparison and every day I focus on being who I am.

And then a couple of months ago I started coming across the word Grace. In discussions with friends, in articles on the internet, in blog posts. And this word started settling into my soul, into my inner self. It kept making its way into my thoughts and my self talk.

During my prep work for 2015, I spent some time on Pintrest looking for a quote for this year. Something that I could use as a bit of a mantra. Something that will lift my spirits when the challenges of life show up. Something that whispers quietly to my soul. Something that stirs up peace within me. Something that overflows encouragement. And which quotes spoke to me the most? The ones about Grace.

I feel like this quote chose me instead of the other way around. I feel like it holds big promises and big responsibility. I feel like its going to really stretch me.

Now, sitting at the beginning of this year, I'm not all that much clearer on what Grace actually means or what it looks like in everyday life ,,,,,but I feel like this is going to change as I focus and sit with this word during the year. Right now I feel like Grace means cutting myself some slack when I need it, when I have done my best but things outside my control have prevented me from doing what I had planned. I aim to reflect on the word each month as we move through this year and look for the Grace in the everyday. I don't not what it will look like but I am sure that it is going to make for a great journey as I continue to live and document my life.

So what is my quote for this year I hear you say? Well let me share.....

If you have a quote for the 2015 I would love for you to share it in the comments below.

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