Learning to live Intentionally.

What's up everyone?!?! So the first day of Spring was yesterday (March 20th) and I am already feeling the winter blues going far far away. Winters are always sooooo long, dreary, and gloomy. Now that Spring has arrived it is time to do the usual Spring cleaning and get rid of the old to replace with new! What are your goals for Spring? Is there anything you may want to accomplish by Summer? Since the beginning of January at the church I attend, there has been teachings on living your life intentionally.  I thought about this type of living a little further and I started to reflect on whether I have been living life intentionally. The answer to that was a big fat no! I realized that I have been just pretty much going through life planning some things here and there, but not really trying as hard as I can to live intentionally. There are plenty of things I would like to do such as traveling, arts and crafts, etc., but have I really been trying to coordinate these various things in my life INTENTIONALLY? The word intentional means done on purpose. When we are living on purpose instead of for just winging it through life, I feel that a lot of the things we've hoped and prayed for will fall into place. We are all on this earth for a purpose so why not live life on purpose? We are almost done with the first quarter of 2016. Time seems to be going by faster and faster, but if you are living life intentionally maybe, juuuust maybe time will start to be on your side.

Faith Driven.

The faith concept has been something that I have struggled with a long time until recently. Yesterday I had a powerful conversation about how we as people are not the authors of our life, but it is really in God's hand to write our story. We live in a world where everyone has statuses and quotes on social media making you believe that you are the only person that creates your own life. When we take matters in our own hands it makes it way more difficult to live an abundant life because you are trying to do everything yourself and keep up with everyone. We are so busy trying to find our gifts alone, find creativity within us alone, or figure out life in general alone. Once you start trying to do everything on your own you end up burning yourself out and being depressed and oppressed. You see us humans are not strong enough to live our lives on our own, especially with all of the trials and tribulations that we may go through. There is only one person that can help you with EVERYTHING YOU NEED and that is GOD!

I have been around people that have been practicing faith for years and never really understood how powerful faith is, but the closest example to my life is my Mother. My mother is the only person that I know that really loves her career and what she does which is being an elementary school Teacher. She gets up happy everyday to go to work no joke. I always wondered how did she end up finding something just right for her that she genuinely loves. My mother did not grow up saying she wanted to be a teacher nor did she grow up in an environment where she was encouraged to be in that field. God, destiny, and faith literally placed my mother in her career. She was a mom before she went to college and my grandmother helped raise my brother. After graduating college she got a teaching job immediately in an area she was not familiar with. She didn't let that stop her as she drove almost 4 hours from where she grew up to start her new journey.While on her journey she ended up meeting my father and getting married, adding two new additions to her family (My sister and I).  The best part about this story is that she grew saying she just wanted to work in a factory and live a simple life. She didn't see herself teaching and and that is the beauty of faith. It is not supposed to be seen and it is not what is within your physical sight. Your circumstances does not control your destiny.

Our plans are not God plans and we do not have control of our life. Everyday consists of new beginnings and it consists of different things and situations. If you have a plan that you have been trying to go by that you created yourself and it is not working out, take that plan and throw it out the window. Consult with God about what HE would like for you to do and the answers will come. Also you have to learn to be patient in order to hear from God because it is not always right when you ask him that you will receive the answer. I cannot tell you how many times I have prayed and wanted an answer so bad, but didn't get the answer until well after.  In meantime you have to teach yourself to continue to practice having faith and drill it within yourself. Faith consists of works and it will be dead if there is no work done.

Your body is a temple, treat it as such.

Have you ever felt like you were disgusted with a habit you may not be able to quit easily? Or maybe you feel like you want to change something about yourself that can easily be done, but you have been procrastinating heavily (as I raise my hand). Well....I am going to be brutally honest and open about mines. Right now in my life I am not at a weight that I am used to and yes I know some may have noticed, but a lot of people have not. I tend to be able to hide how I feel about certain things and what I weigh well. You may be thinking to yourself, she takes a lot of pictures and she seems to be so confident? Let me tell you I am my hardest critic for myself. Ever since I had my son it has been hard to break the habit of eating what I want and proportioning my meals. Since I am short I really need to be careful of how much weight I actually put on because it can become dangerous and come with many health risks. It also does not help that I have a job where I sit all day in front of computers and sometimes I forget about getting up out of my chair. I'm very thankful for being able to sit, but it can be a gift and a curse at the same time. Before I had my son weight was not an issue for me, I could eat Chipotle all day and not gain anything. When you have a child or children your body changes and very rarely goes back to being the same. It is harder sometimes to lose weight and it may have slowed your metabolism down. There are some mothers that "snap back" per say, but they can probably tell you that they feel different as well if you ask them.

I don't want some quick so called health plan that ends up making you gain more weight back when you stop. I really want to change my whole eating habits for the better completely. Meaning more vegetables, fruits, and healthy proteins. The reason for my weight loss not being as successful as I would like are because I am procrastinating and I LOOOOVE Food! Especially food that are considered carbs and starches which I am definitely not supposed to be eating to lose weight and it does not help speed up the process. When someone has a goal they are determined and procrastination is no where within their motivation. I've decided to take control of what is going on and make my body feel better and make myself feel better as a whole. The bible teaches us that our body is a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19) in which I have not been following. I have been reflecting over my life for the past couple of months and evaluating myself from the inside, out. I feel like I should take better care of my body for myself and my family. This journey also does not only consists of working on my body, but on the inside of my body also. Coming from a family background of heart disease, diabetes, and strokes I need to be more conscious about the decisions I make towards my future. I will be on a new journey to find healthier alternatives to eat and also learn how to portion my meals again. Eating food is important for the nourishment of my body, but it should not be an obsession or constantly on my mind. I honestly want to get to the point of food being less complicated than I have made it. God did not create us so beautifully for us to harm what he fearfully and wonderfully made. It is time to do better!

Thanks for the support in advance and I will be keeping you all updated! My only hope out of this is that I am able to be transparent with my struggles I am having and it could maybe help or inspire someone else.

Until next time :)