Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! This post is coming a little later than usual, but oh well.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to post today because of reasons stated in my last post, but I couldn’t resist!

I wish I could have been able to write the posts I wanted to about Valentine’s Day before this, but oh well, I will write them at some point. 🙂

So I’ll be honest, Valentine’s Day isn’t my favorite holiday. Probably because I think it’s a made up holiday so that stores can make money. But, I still enjoy today. 🙂 I think it’s so important, actually it’s most important, that people show love to the special people in their life year around, not just on today. That doesn’t mean celebrating today with that special person is wrong either though.

Ryan and I prefer to keep Valentine’s Day low key and not spend too much money. After all, my birthday is in three days, so that’s way more important to me than Valentine’s Day. 😉 But we still have plans to make tonight a fun, romantic, inexpensive date night. 🙂

I will go pick us up dinner at a restaurant Ryan has been wanting to try that is known for it’s burgers, fries,  and shakes. A.K.A. Ryan’s favorite kind of restaurant. When I am out picking up dinner, Ryan is going to make sure everything is perfect at home for a romantic, date night dinner at home. This is a perfect, low key Valentine’s Date for us. We would much rather do this than go out to an expensive restaurant that is extremely crowded and wait forever to be seated. Um, no thanks. We will stay at home and be comfortable. 🙂

I can almost guarantee I will be wearing fuzzy socks on this date. #totallynormal

I am also excited for the rest of this weekend! Like I have mentioned, my birthday is this Saturday, so this weekend we are celebrating that with my family.

Tomorrow morning Ryan and I are volunteering with a group from our church to do some type of canned food drive or something. (I’m not totally sure what we will be doing; I guess I will find out tomorrow!) Then tomorrow night Ryan and I are having dinner with my parents, brother, and SIL to celebrate my big day. I think we are all staying the night with my parents because Sunday we are having a big lunch with the rest of my family to celebrate my birthday and my little cousin’s 8th birthday, which was earlier this month. Here’s the whole group who should be at our Sunday lunch!

Plus my other set of grandparents who aren’t in this picture, but here they are below.

I am so excited for the birthday celebrations to begin!

Lucky for me though, the celebrations won’t end this weekend! Ryan and I will go out to eat by ourselves next weekend to celebrate my birthday! Since my birthday is on a Monday and I will have work the next day, I told Ryan I would rather us go out on a weekend so we won’t have to worry about working the next day. I also don’t mind extending my birthday celebrations. 😉

So there’s a little bit of what I will be up to this Valentine’s/birthday weekend! Oh I will also be fitting in a 17 mile run at some point! This will be the longest distance for me to ever run; I’m pretty excited!

Finally, I have to end by wishing my amazing husband/Valentine/best friend an amazing day!

      

Questions:

1. What are your thoughts about Valentine’s Day?

2. Do you have any plans for tonight or this weekend?

3. Tell me something you are loving lately!

Love Challenge

If you have been reading my blog for the last month or so then you know I have a new teaching job. I am a pull-out teacher for first and fourth grade, and if you care about it, you can read more about what I do here. Well, some days I get pulled to sub for certain classes if they couldn’t get a sub. Last Friday and yesterday I subbed for the same second grade class. After being there for two days, I already feel like I know the students in that class so well! I was amazed at how quickly they became attached to me and trusted me. I think I got about six letters that said “I love you” and had hearts drawn on it yesterday.

Isn’t it amazing how easily a child loves someone? How quickly a child can love someone without thinking twice about it? Now think about this some more. What can children teach us? Should we as adults love as simply and easily as a child? Why does it seem as we get older we love less and loving seems so much harder? Is it what we go through in life? Do circumstances happen that then make us harden our hearts to love others?

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7

“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14

Do you see what I’m getting at here? 🙂

I know not all of you reading may be Christians, and that’s okay. We all have our own beliefs, but Christian or not, I think we can all admit that love is very important and something our world desperately needs.

Now I am not just talking about the love you feel for a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, I mean the love we should show to all of the people we come in contact with.

It’s easy to get caught up in our own lives and everything that is on our to-do list, but I feel that we have such a greater calling in life than to just mark things off our to do-list, go to bed, just to wake up and do more things for ourselves. What type of life is this? What is the purpose of this? Think about it, our world keeps getting more and more selfish, and as this happens, we love less and less people.

If you are a Christian, then you have a huge responsibility! God died for you and for me, not just to forgive us so we can go on living guilt free for ourselves, but he forgave us so that we would live for Him and use our lives to glorify Him! What a better way to glorify Him than to love the people in our lives? Even the people who aren’t always easy to love.

 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”               Luke 6:27-31

That’s hard. It’s just natural to not like the people who are mean or rude to us. But think about it. How much better would our world be if we all just worked on loving people more? If we worked on loving the people who aren’t nice to us or on loving the people we see every day at work or the store but never give a second thought about. Every person in our life is there for a reason. Maybe that reason is so that you can show him or her love. Maybe you will make their day or change their life.

Showing love to someone could be as simple as holding a door open for them, lending them a dollar, or just even asking them about their life and listening to them. Maybe you have a few extra cookies or treats around your house, why not share them with someone? Send someone a text saying you are thinking about them. Give someone a hug. A hug might be exactly what someone needs.

How do we love someone though who we hardly know or is mean to us? Well, we have a good example.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

Jesus, God, the Almighty Creator of the world, the only perfect one to ever walk this earth, died for us, a bunch of sinners. I mean he died to save the people who killed Him! How is that for loving those who it’s hard to love?? Now we can’t love people like this naturally, we have to ask God to give us the same love that He has for His people so that He can shine through us.

Here is another definition of love:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” I Corinthians 13:4-7

Basically, I think we need to think of ourselves less, and think of others more. If we do this, I think we will naturally love more! Think about the people you normally don’t give a second thought about, and then think about how you can make them smile. 🙂 Think about how you can make a difference.

This is where the challenge comes in. I challenge you to love people more. Love those who are hard to love. Love those you barely know. Make someone’s day. Make our world a better place. I mean, if we all do this, think about how much better it could be! Plus, I honestly believe that if we start thinking about ourselves less and loving others more, we will be happier! Let’s try to love as easily as a child. 🙂 But you might not want to give an adult a letter that reads, “I love you” with a bunch of hearts. That might be a little creepy coming from someone who is older than ten years old. 😉

Will you take part in this Love Challenge? If so, think of something you can do differently today and this week! 

I would love to hear any of your comments!

Faith in My Friday

First off, I don’t think I can start out this post without mentioning how crazy this week has been. It truly has been a statement of how lost our world is.  We all desperately need Jesus, but our world doesn’t seem to realize this. We all need to continue to pray for and love for the lost. Jesus wants to use us to reach everyone who does not know Him!

I am learning more and more every day just how much I need Jesus, and that absolutely everything in my life needs to revolve around Him because He is all that matters. Ever since my Ryan and I got engaged in August I feel like my faith has really grown because I have had to trust in God so much. There are so many unanswered questions, and I have no choice but to trust in God with absolutely everything. We get married in less than two months, and I”m still not sure where we will live, where Ryan will work, and so many other things. I am naturally a planner, so this is extremely difficult for me. I like to have a plan for everything, but I have learned that my plans don’t matter; God’s plans matter.

Today in my quiet time I read Proverbs 20 and this verse really stuck out to me, and fit just perfectly into everything that is going on in my life right now.

“A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” Proverbs 20:24      

I know this is no coincidence that I read this today. God is telling me that He has a plan for Ryan and I, so there is no point in me worrying or trying to plan out our whole lives. He has a plan, and it is much better than anything I could ever imagine! I mean after all, last year I would not have imagined that I would be marrying Ryan this June, but God had it planned, and I am SO GLAD HE DID!! 🙂

Learning to trust God and realize He has a plan means I need to let go of my worries and anxieties and lay it all at His feet. I have desperately been praying for God to reveal what God wanted Ryan and I to do and where He wanted us to live, and this past Wednesday this verse got stuck in my head:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6    

This hit me hard. I don’t need to be anxious. All I can do is pray and know that God will take care of Ryan and I.

Another thing God has really continued to reveal to me all week is the amount of people Ryan and I have in our lives who love us so much and who love Jesus! This truly is such a blessing, and I am so thankful for everyone in our lives. Ryan and I are apart of the Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) on campus, and last night we went to the weekly bible study/worship. As we sang songs about God’s love for us I loved looking around and seeing college students pour out their hearts to God in song and raising up their arms in praise to Him. It was such a great reminder of how much God loves me, and how he has placed me somewhere where I am surrounded by others who love God as well! Then this morning I got to spend time with two of my best friends and hear about what God was doing in their lives. It is so encouraging to see my friends seeking God’s will in their lives! I love getting to witness it all!

The closer I get to God, and the more I read His Word, the more I realize that as Christians, we need to constantly be on our knees before Him, humbling ourselves so that whatever we do we are using His strength. I am trying to learn to do this now.

Questions

What verses have been on your mind this week?

Are you a planner? Do you struggle with letting go of your own plans and trusting in God’s plans?