So it Begins…

At last, 2022 has come to a close. I honestly cannot believe how much has changed. From graduating nursing school, to a trip to Europe. From passing the NCLEX-RN exam and becoming a licensed nurse, to now having 7 months of experience, being thankful is an understatement.

I have had to face a lot of my fears in 2022. I have taken on bigger roles and places of leadership. I have been working to move out of my comfort zone and push myself to be better. A lot of that was emotional and simply working on myself. I realized I have a lot of issues that have worked their way to the surface, and I have had to deal with those things.

I have had to learn how to give grace to myself, and not hold myself to some impossible standard. Life is not about perfection. It is not about performance. It is about becoming the best that you can be, and for me that means becoming all that God created me to be. It is about accepting who He says I am and how He sees me. It is about listening to His voice and not the world’s voice or the enemy’s, and sometimes not even listening to my own.

I have lived for far too long in my head, and it almost destroyed me. I have had to learn how to think deeply without overthinking. To not react to every single thing. To continue to grow in critical thinking skills that both help me in my personal life, as well as in my professional life.

I am not one for making New Year’s Resolutions that I don’t stick with. I do however have a few things I plan to work on for 2023:

1. I want to seek the Lord more than ever. I want to learn to trust Him more than ever. I want to learn how to dwell in His peace and love, and to love myself and others the way He created me to.
2. To become more intentional with my time. Time is limited. I must choose what to do with it. For me, I want to spend more time doing what I love, and that is music and photography.
3. I want to be in better physical shape. One thing I’ve noticed being said by some influencers I follow is this: Consistency and showing up are better than meeting a workout goal but being unable to apply consistently to said goals. I know longer have a better look as being my primary goal for wanting to work out. It is to be stronger and healthier. The better looks will follow. This also holds true for diet. Slowly changing to something healthy but also sustainable is what is more important to me now.

I guess the best way to sum it up is that I want to become the very best man that I can be. To get rid of all the wrong expectations that I have held for far too long about life. Those things were not reality. That’s why I want to continue to trust God’s truth, not anyone else’s. Anything outside of this is not worth giving energy to.

I want to make a difference in this world. I want to live my best life and enjoy it. I want to shine the light that was given to me. I want to quit complicating things and just live simply.

So here is to 2023. May it be a year of strength and growth. May it be a year of maturity. May it be the year that we become focused. May it be the year that we stop making excuses and put in the work for what matters. I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Let it be your year. Cheers!

Simplicity

Sometimes you refuse to slow down and evaluate things. Sometimes life gets in the way and it’s not easy to do so on a normal day. Then the flu hits and you’re forced to make a dead stop in your tracks. At least that is what happened to me. I have never slept so much in my life. It was absolutely brutal. I still feel the fringes of it having mostly recovered.

So what is it that I was able to evaluate? Well the Lord has been speaking to me more and more lately. Very subtly. Having this time to evaluate things I realized there were areas in my life that I still didn’t trust Him with. That has happened over and over, I can tell you that. I think it’s part of our journey to constantly be shown somewhere else to trust Him. He takes us on this journey with Him. I have been both stubborn and slow to learn in some areas, but His kindness and grace is ever present.

If you know me very well at all you know that I have a bad history with overthinking. Classic introvert some would say. It is true that I am more of an introvert. But the truth is I’m exhausted. I’m so tired of having to feel like the control is in my hands. Because it is not, and it never has been. I become hesitant to say yes to God because I don’t know what He will say. What will He ask of me? What if I do it wrong? What if I fail Him for the millionth time?

There’s still this perfectionistic voice in me that says I’ve only ever failed God, and I can’t do it right. I never failed at much of anything as a kid. I didn’t know how to fail and keep going. If I have failed at something, my instinct is to say I am the failure, though that’s not true. We are not our failures or bad choices. We are not the battles we face or the demons we fight.

The other day, it was like I could see clearly. Why do I complicate things? Why do I hesitate? What if it is way more simple than I have believed? Because honestly, I’ve believed about every lie the enemy can throw at us. So I took a step and said, okay, I will choose to take the Lord at His word and trust Him. Keep it simple. Trust that I am His. Trust that when I pray, He hears me. Trust that I am loved by Him. Trust that no matter what, He will see me through. Trust that He is big enough for my failures. He is big enough for my questions. He is big enough for my hurt, my pain, and my doubts.

My friends, it is simple. God is bigger than all of that. He can handle our emotions, dreams, fears, doubts, and pain. We’re not sparing Him from anything by keeping it to ourselves. We’re not showing responsibility by how well we handle it on our own. His desire is for us to fully depend on Him. To cast all our cares on Him, because He truly cares about us.

Healthy Coping

How do you cope? I recently made the realization that I do not cope well. I think it says a lot about someone by the coping mechanisms that they use. I don’t mean that in a judgmental way. I am just trying to say that you can look at what someone finds comfort in and it can tell you something about that person.

What are my coping mechanisms you ask? Well that is something I would like to talk about for a minute. Whether we realize it or not, we all do it. We all have that thing we go to on a bad day. A hard day. A tiring day. A lonely day. It’s easy to use whatever we’re used to, to self-medicate the pain away.

Bad days happen. They cannot be avoided. It’s how we navigate those bad days that determines our outcome. My coping mechanisms include movies and shows I’ve seen a hundred times. They’re easy to put on and relax to. I know exactly how they end so there is little chance for anxiety in a story with an intended outcome that I already know.

Another one of mine is music. I can listen to the same song over and over sometimes. Something about it captures me and helps me forget whatever it is I’m running from. A bad day. A bad memory. You name it.

We might as well throw in food too. Food is a coping mechanism for many people I would assume. Why in the world do we literally call certain foods “comfort foods”? Because people comfort themselves with food. It’s just something we do as humans. Obviously there are those who do this in moderation and those who go overboard in a very unhealthy way.

Let’s be real though. Coping mechanisms are important to have. To destress or take your mind off of something is a good skill to have, so what’s the problem? The problem of course is unhealthy avenues OR using them as a way to numb a problem that should be confronted and worked through.

Some of the obvious unhealthy ways to cope is the classic line “sex, drugs, and alcohol”. There are more subtle versions however. Becoming withdrawn, isolating one’s self, and again any sort of behavior that is reckless or dangerous though not considered “bad” on its own.

In my personal life I have realized that instead of giving God all of my issues like I should, I have been trying to cope with them myself, running away from the confrontation they bring. That has to stop, and now. I’m not saying to not use various positive methods to cope. I am saying don’t run away from what you know needs to be fixed. God is much better at fixing us than we are. We must simply be willing vessels and partner with Him and then put in the necessary work to change. Faith without works is dead. It is important to have both. Works alone won’t cut it and faith without it does nothing. You pray for rain but you till the ground in preparation for it.

I have spoken about balance many times. I feel like the Lord is correcting me in this, like a good Father does. I have gotten off-balance and allowed myself to cope in things that are only taking me further from him. They’re not bad on their own, but the way I’ve gone about it has become distracting.

I’ve lived much of my life fighting with shame and condemnation. Much of that time thinking it was simply conviction. Conviction doesn’t make you feel hopeless. Godly shame and sorrow draw you closer to him. If it makes you afraid and want to run away, its the wrong kind. Jesus paid for all that already. I am so quick to offer grace towards others, yet find it hard to give to myself.

I hope this helps somebody, and you stop running to all the other things you use, to hide away from what only the Lord can help you in. A strong relationship with Him and the right routes/methods of coping will go a long way.

Stay strong friends.

Victory In Jesus

Sometimes understanding doesn’t come until the end. Sometimes the knowledge of something only takes you so far, but its the application of that knowledge that changes things.

I’m in my last semester of nursing school. Whew. It has been quite a ride. I’ve learned that while there is a lot to learn in the classroom, it can only carry you so far. You see, it’s the application in the clinical setting of what we learn that makes the difference for our patients. It doesn’t matter if we can explain what something is, if we cannot carry it out. In that way, both the education and the skillset to carry out the task are necessary.

In life, there are many educational lessons I have learned, but until I learned the application, I only knew it in my head, and not my heart.

How does one live fearlessly? Well all the Bible verses on fear are fantastic, but without the application to use them as a weapon, fear won’t go away. I have actually come to realize that God will not remove fear just any time we ask Him to. No, He gives us what we need to overcome it, by trusting in the one created us. Why do we ever believe the father of lies? Anything the enemy does or says is false, it is nothing but an illusion. Yet we do. We listen. We even believe sometimes, those false things.

The decision must be made. Who are we going to serve? Who are we going to believe? If it is killing, stealing, or destroying, there is only one source, and that is satan. Jesus came that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. Fear torments, while love gives us peace. Perfect love casts out all fear, so when we choose to believe fear, we are not living in the perfect love of God.

We have to find our way back to him, as the beloved son, the beloved daughter, and trust Him to see us through to the end. Don’t believe those lies anymore. Don’t listen to the voices that say you’re not enough, or you can’t make it, or it’s hopeless. Believe me, it’s not too late.

There is no competition between God and satan. There is no battle. Satan was defeated before he began, because he is not an equal with God. We have to get it in our eyes and our hearts that God is so much bigger than any issue we can ever face. The victory is already won.

Time To Grow Up

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to grow up. We all get older in body, but simply growing up and into adulthood doesn’t mean we’ve grown up, maturity takes place at different times for different people. There are also levels and stages of maturity, as well as different areas in one’s life to mature. I could be mature when it comes to one thing or another, and still be naïve and childish in another.

I have come to the conclusion that God has been maturing me for quite some time now, preparing me for this life He created me for. There have been areas I matured in at a young age, and others that I still yet lacking. I believe the first step is to realize that growth is needed, even necessary, so that it can then occur. We want instant gratification. If I order something I expect it to have fast shipping. If it gets delayed then I am not happy. If I have a destination I want to get there. God loves the journey though, because it’s in the journey we build relationship and levels of trust with Him. He builds us up and creates in us the character to steward the destination, the promised land.

In my last post, I mentioned not running anymore. I still find myself running. Yet, once again I am deciding that the loop and cycle is not for me anymore. A decision must be made, and it has been. Let’s break down the word discourage. It is the opposite of courage. God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. Living a life opposite of courage is living a life opposite of what God calls us to. Therefore, I can no longer live that way. God calls us higher, deeper, and to move out of our comfort zones. A life worth living is a life rich and deep in the love of Christ.

Oh let us all learn to take off that garment of heaviness and put on that garment of praise. Let us learn to call the dry bones to live. Let us learn to all see the Goodness of God.

Giving Up And Moving On

I just can’t anymore. I don’t think I’m supposed to. I’m letting it go. Giving it up. I don’t have anymore energy I can put towards it.

This is what I have recently realized and come to the conclusion about. It’s what I found praying one Monday night at our weekly prayer service. “God I’m done running. I’m done. I don’t have the energy anymore. I refuse to run from these things chasing me any more. If I run at all it must be to run to you. Not afraid of what’s behind me but simply wanting more of you”. That was the basic gist of what I prayed. Not word for word, and simply some of what I feel even now mixed in to convey the feeling. There are many things this relates to, it is very complex and in some ways ridiculous. I cannot get into everything, but there are certain aspects I wish to write about.

I’ve decided to give up the self-hatred, the thing I thought I gave up, but really hadn’t. Sometimes you mostly get over things, but they’re still there, lingering in the dark. Then, when something triggers, it once again shows that it is indeed still there. Why is it there in the first place? That is pretty complicated, and I can’t begin to really explain it. I guess it simply comes down to believing every lie the enemy told me for years. Trust me, there was a lot of them. It’s sad when the reason you want to stop hating something is because you literally don’t have the energy any more for it. God will use whatever means necessary to get us to where He wants us. If it’s not the easy way then He’ll do it anyway. I am not the same person I was. Not at all. Others notice it more than I can, but I know it to be true too.

I’ve learned so much about myself it’s not even funny. More than I wanted to know, I can say that much. I’ve done a lot of self reflecting, and understanding why things are the way they are, why they were the way they were. It was necessary in order to accept it. The pain. The past. Being haunted by things that were, by things that never were. The pain of things that didn’t exist, except in my own mind. I would be more specific, but now is not the time. Even that I have to leave behind. I can’t keep living there, in the past. I have to say goodbye to it. All of it. It is the only way to maintain sanity. I understand now more than ever how Jesus said putting your hands to the plow and looking back means you’re not fit for the kingdom. You actually can’t be. Because, until you leave your past behind you, you’re a living ghost, like the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Scrooge story.

I wrote the previous paragraphs a couple of week ago now, and sitting here reading it I realize I have grown even in such a short amount of time. I am regaining energy, not constantly being drained anymore. Energy to be fully alive. Maybe none of this will make sense, and that’s okay. Sometimes it helps just to write it down and see it outside of my own mind. Perhaps someone will connect with it, and not being super specific, can aspects of their own story. To know that they’re not alone. To know there is hope. To know there is a God that takes you as you are, but doesn’t leave you there. A God that really does take all the broken pieces and makes us whole again. We’ve all been wounded. We all bleed.

God didn’t create us to live on the sidelines. He created us for war. He created us for love. He created us so he could know us, and we could know Him. He’s taken me farther than I could have ever imagined. He has shown me more than I could ever see. He wants to do the same for you. Invite Him to change you. To be the potter to your clay. His version of you and who He created you to be will be unrecognizable from what you think. Don’t believe me? Ask Him.

Recalibrating

I suppose in some ways I haven’t missed writing these. In other ways I have missed it very much. Life gets busy but we always find the time for the things that mean the most to us. As another semester is coming to a close, I find myself so badly needing a break. From the title, you have probably started reading this with an idea of what I will be talking about today. It does tie in to calibrating.

When I first starting writing this, school was over for the semester, but as I am currently writing I’m about to start the summer semester. The name Recalibrating also came to me after I had already started.

What have I learned? More than I can share in a single blog post. Hey, it’s more than I can share in a series of posts. However, I do feel the need to share this point.

What is freedom? Freedom is not just being able to do whatever you want, but it’s being free from someone or something. It is something very important to me, and in a natural since the freedom we experience here in the USA should never be taken lightly or abused. It has cost many everything they have, including their very lives to defend our freedoms, for that I am forever grateful.

There is another freedom though, even more important. That is the freedom from sin. Freedom from eternal death. The freedom to choose to become a slave for Christ.

Freedom has great cost. It cost Jesus His blood and very life for the most important freedom, freedom from death and sin, and the power they held over our lives. Freedom in this nation also had a great price, and cost many literally their lives. Freedom is not cheap and should never be treated that way.

I say all that to say this: What would you do to have freedom? What price would you pay? What length would you go to? I had to answer that very question, yet I now know my freedom was never gone, it only appeared that way.

Let me explain. The season of my life I consider the worst personal hell I have ever experienced, could have been avoided. Yes that’s right. It is my own fault that it took this long. I listened to fear, instead of the Lord. I listened to the father of all lies instead of my Heavenly Father.

I allowed the enemy to steal my joy, my peace, my song, everything. It was the lowest point in my life. Crying out to God one fear-filled night, He didn’t come and make the fear and situation go away, yet I heard Him speak to me. “I have already given you everything you need”. I realized that I had the Holy Spirit. I had the Word. I had praise as a weapon.

Fast forward to today, I can tell you what my problem was all along, though I realized it in pieces.

One. I became distant to the Lord because of fear. Even though I always kept praying and hoping, the intimacy I had with Him was gone because I listened to fear and that I wasn’t enough and there was something terribly wrong with me.

Two. I was beyond distracted. I could get peace in prayer when I was focused, but maintaining that focus proved difficult.

So that’s it. Intimacy and focus. The enemy found what could cause fear and distraction in me. Through this process the Lord has broken lifelong issues off of me. His mercies are new every morning. I am beginning to hear His voice once again, as I press in and pursue Him. To fall in love with Him all over again, and cultivate that relationship with Him unafraid of not being enough. He takes me as I am, and thankfully He never leaves me as I am. He is the potter and I am the clay.

So don’t let the enemy steal from you any longer. Love is a choice. Peace is a choice. Joy is a choice. There will always be a storm going on around us. Peter walked on water to Jesus during a storm, because he had focus. Only when he paid attention to the storm did he sink.

Recalibrating comes in now. He’s shown me that the longer I wait to reset and refocus, the harder it is. The further away from the standard, the more off course you will be. We must constantly reset and calibrate to the standard. Daily. multiple times a day. We have to learn to live in constant calibration to His Truth and His Word.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Here we are, December 31st, 2020. I was wondering if this year would ever end. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe this year that will live in infamy. Regardless of what you believe about the source of these crazy times, life has changed for us all. I may be calling it early, but at midnight tonight I can say I survived 2020. We survived 2020.

2020 was one sucker punch after another. Personally, I have never experienced anything like it in all of my life. There were many times I genuinely didn’t know if I would survive the year. God is faithful. So many beliefs about so many things were tested. Realizing I only want to know the truth, reality, God’s reality, I knew I had to surrender every thought and belief about literally everything, and allow Him to guide me through the rebuild process.

These issues I could not cope with. Refusing to cope or accept them I believe contributed to the fear, and confusion, that was such a big part of the year for me. I thought I was fighting demons. I thought I was going crazy. I felt there was no way out, but then I stopped. I was fighting me. I stopped focusing on the crazy. I stopped focusing on the lies I had believed for so long. I began focusing on Jesus, my Lord and my Rock. I began to only desire to believe according to His word, no matter how uncomfortable it was for me. He didn’t give me a spirit of fear, He didn’t give me anxiety, or depression, or low self-esteem, or self-hatred. He didn’t give me insecurity.

I am not an orphan. I am a Child of God. Realizing my life of beating myself up and believing so many lies, it was beyond amazing to realize there can be true freedom. I quit fighting what I didn’t understand, what I didn’t want to accept, I gave up the burdens He didn’t give me to carry. I realized it’s okay not to have answers. There are still many I don’t have, and I won’t ever have.

While this year was the hardest year of my life, I grew more than any other year before it. It strengthened me in ways I didn’t know possible. As a matter of fact, I started nursing school this past semester, and I truly believe it was my boot camp. I matured more in this semester than I have since becoming an adult. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like a completely different person going to 2021, than I was when 2020 started. I still have so far to go, but I know now that I will never have to do it alone. I can’t do it alone. We can’t do it alone.

Love and best wishes for the new year,

Joshua

Well, Let’s Get Real

So, I lied. Sorry about that. I looked back at my last post, which was at the end of 2019, where I said a New Year’s resolution of mine would be to blog more often. Yet here I am in September of 2020 writing my first post of the year. I almost laughed when I read my New Year’s post. If only I knew what 2020 was actually bringing…

…2020 has been a whole new world. Honestly it is a world I don’t want. Fear, chaos, and pain seems to be the only thing in sight. Hatred, deception, and attacks from the enemy on a level never before seen in my entire life. Not that 24 years is a very long time, but you get the point.

So let’s cut to the chase. I am relieved to be able to even write about this, even though I am very nervous to do so. The spiritual warfare I experienced last year was nothing, nothing compared to this year. I experienced a darkness hovered over me to a degree I have never known. Isolation both was a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that it allowed the Lord to reveal to me sooooo many issues I hadn’t realized were still there. The curse was I felt isolated and alone, a victim of fear and torment. It has been one of the most hopeless years in my existence.

There are far too many issues to discuss here, but I will boil it down to one theme that has been in my life even since I was young, and that theme is Fear. Fear has been in my life in one way or another, hiding in the shadows, masquerading as wisdom, just so subtly being involved in my decision making. I feel like it was like in the movies where there is always that one person who everyone thinks is good but is actually a spy, a sabotager, a shape shifter, never being able to be seen as they really are. In my life he is called Fear. He paints a picture of negative thinking and hopelessness that things will never be better, that I will never become the full potential of the man God has called me to be. We sing songs how fear is a liar, yet I still listened.

In 2018 I was free, and so passionate and in love with Jesus. He showed me even then my issue with fear, which led me to do anything I was afraid of. Becoming open about chronic illness, dreaming big, all the way to going to school to become a nurse. The life and joy I had was amazing, almost unexplainable. I was free from the past, just living my best life. Mid-2019 that all changed. Why was this happening? I began having issues with thoughts, and fear again. It happened off and on, but ultimately was settled by the end of 2019.

This year I have been confronted with an issue going back to my teenage years. What is that? Sexuality. If you throw fear and sexuality in a blender, you get a drink of confusion and hopelessness. I never knew confusion like I knew in 2020. I now realize a big part of my problem was that I never had anyone to have open, honest, healthy conversations about sexuality with me from a biblical perspective. I never had open, honest, healthy conversations about sexuality with anyone in any way really. That left me to conclude things on my own. My teenage years were filled with pain, confusion, and shame. I felt shame for being a male. I hated myself. What were these feelings I was having? Why was I broken? Nobody else has issues with lust or whatever these feelings are for sure. It’s only me. I want to serve God, but how can I even say this with these issues?

I used to think that marriage would solve any issues involving this, but I have been disappointed to find out it does not. I am so thankful that earlier this year I listened to teaching from Kris Vallotton, from Bethel Church in Redding, California. He has so much biblical teaching on sexuality. I bought his book, Moral Revolution, as well as the 40 day devotional. It has truly helped, but I am still learning how to implement what I have learned. No one told me that having a sex drive was normal. No one told me that it doesn’t go away. I am 24 years old and I feel like I am finally having to learn so many things I should have known years ago. Shame and confusion tore apart my soul. I tried everything as a teenager to stop the feelings and thoughts. Sometimes I would imagine hurting myself. It was an issue I was so lost in it caused me to want to just give up probably hundreds of times. Now of course this wasn’t constant. I would have several months at a time where everything was just fine. I was just so free and overjoyed to find freedom in 2018.

Why did I lose that freedom? I realize that it was so easy when I experienced the love of God, and began walking in His ways. Seeking him in His word, prayer, and worship. Yet when everything hit again, I just expected to be able to say a prayer and He would rescue me. A few weeks ago, however, He hit me with the truth. Crying out over and over for Him to help me, it was as if I was on my own. I never was though. It’s like He was saying the whole time, and I could feel it sometimes, that He has already given me everything I need to overcome. His Word. His Holy Spirit. God has not created me to live as a victim, in bondage, but He calls me his child.

I had a big moment of repentance just a few weeks ago. Repenting for allowing and listening to fear, but also for being lazy. Yes lazy. I just wanted Him to set me free in an instant. Wonderful, Godly people at church would encourage me to use His word to combat fear, but I never did, until I realized that this was a battle God wants me to be involved proactively. The book of Nehemiah is that of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. They prayed but there was work to be done. To rebuild what is broken and torn down can take time, but God is faithful.

In my brokenness, I am beginning to have an honest assessment and evaluation of my life. God hasn’t left me to stay this way. He is the potter and I am the clay. He has a life for me I can’t even imagine, as well making me to be a true Man After His Own Heart. I want to be a man that loves like Jesus. I want to be a man that will honor, love, respect, and cherish my (future) wife. I am proclaiming and applying His word over myself day by day. I can see such a difference from when this year started, but I know there is still a ways to go.

I used to live a life expecting to die. Chronic illness had taught me to expect that. I liked to think that way though. Never having to worry about maturing and being involved with issues I didn’t want to face. Fear of failure and mistakes always kept me hesitant from stepping out in faith. I got a tattoo recently. I never wanted to get a tattoo just to get one, but I saw myself with one, and ended up getting it. It says TAKE COURAGE. God hasn’t called me to be a coward, but to be a Man of Courage. This tattoo is so meaningful to me, and a reminder to Take Courage every single day. To settle in and no matter how many times I get knocked down, I can get back up.

The battle belongs to the Lord.

As 2019 Comes To An End…

Here we are, at the end of another year, and nearing the dawn of a new one, 2020. It has been quite literally awhile since I have blogged last, and I felt the need to write some thoughts down, as this is the last day to do so before the year is ended and reborn.

2019 was quite a year. I have finished two semesters of college, experienced several amazing church conferences, continued to progress in my photography, (recently shot a wedding), and countless other little accomplishments that compile my year.

It wasn’t all positive though. I struggled through some of the most intense spiritual warfare I have ever faced in my entire life. I grew from it, and learned so much, but at the time it was going on there were many moments I felt like I was going insane. One thing I kept telling myself through it all. It is such a profound statement, so complex and yet so simple: GOD IS GOOD.

GOD IS GOOD

 

This past fall semester in school was rough, and I mean rough. I was trying to work part time, give music lessons, continue with photography, and still do school full-time. It was a BIG NO. It caused me to have a rough time getting into my schoolwork, and I even dropped classes one day early in the semester. (Thank the Lord I was able to add them back the same day.) In November, I was hospitalized in Charlottesville, Virginia, for around three weeks due to CF. That was a whole different story in and of itself. Overall, I am so thankful to have passed all my classes this semester!! (Yay, no retaking those again!!)

The past few weeks and months have been tough to say the least. Stress, fear, doubt, pain, and so many other things and issues I will not get into. I am thankful that the Lord has been through it all with me, and all of His promises are Yes and Amen.

Overall, I am relieved to have survived 2019, and have learned so much that I will carry into 2020 and beyond. I am excited for the new year, and all I have planned. I am finally going to be making some New Year’s Resolutions, one of which will be making writing on here and in general more of a habit. A big thank you to all that are reading this that were there for me during this year. I wish you all a very Happy New Year!!!

PS. What are some of your New Year’s Resolutions? Leave a comment down below. 🙂