This Christmas I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for. This year God has done some incredible things in my life. The current season of my life has been better than any other season of college. It has been a hard and busy season for me, but I have nothing serious to complain about.

I don’t say this to brag about how my life is. My life is far from put together. I have struggles just like you do. Here are some of the reasons I am extremely grateful this Christmas. A few of the reasons are because of my job, church, school, and most importantly God.

I have had a hard time with jobs in college. It was hard to balance a job and school for most of college. Currently I am at a workplace that I love! Having a job that I look forward to working at has been incredible. I can’t say that about most of my jobs. Also, this job is enough to completely pay my bills.

I have also found multiple opportunities to get involved at my church. I have seen my relationship with God grow a lot in the past year due to my church challenging me. This year I have been given the opportunity to help lead a middle school & college aged small group. I have loved these two opportunities, and it’s has been a great joy in my life.

Also, this past year I have graduated with my undergraduate degree. Now I am in graduate school at Liberty University. I have enjoyed graduate school, because I am specifically taking courses that intrigue me. I will hopefully be finishing my master’s degree in the summer of 2020.

The most important reason I have I feel grateful for this Christmas has been because of God. I know that all these blessings have come from God, and I want to acknowledge and praise how great God is in my life.

Though I know that not everyone is going through a good season of life like I have been in. I know for some of you this has been the hardest year of your life. I want to encourage you that it does get better. I have had seasons where I had very little hope. Now I can look back and know that God was using those difficult times to prepare me for today. No second of your life is wasted to God.

So regardless of the season you are in right now. I want to remind you who’s birth we celebrate on Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. If you don’t know Him personally, then please email or contact me. I would love to tell you more about Jesus.

Scripture References

• “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV
• “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” ~John 3:16 ESV
• “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ~Matthew 1:21 ESV

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Recently I bought a pillowcase that had a scripture on it. I read the scripture, and I thought it was fitting for my life presently. The scripture is Hebrews 12:14. It discusses having peace and holiness.

Tonight, I was reading the Bible. While reading the Bible it gave me a new meaning to peace. I was reading chapter 3 of James, and when I got to the last verse that mentions peace it made me think. I realized that when we, or at least I, think of peace I think about it when dealing with other people. I never really thought of peace within ourselves. After reading this I happened to look at my pillow, and again it was about peace.

Most people know this about me, but I am an over-thinker. I’m also a perfectionist, planner, and I strive to be an over-achiever. All these things can be a good thing, but only in a healthy dosage. Sometimes in the past the healthy dosage has been something I struggled with. I would be working on these things so much that I would stress too much. I was talking to a near stranger yesterday, and they were pointing out these facts about me without me even telling them.

I can think of at least 2 of these situations in the past week. With both situations, I have over thought and stressed about the scenario. I had already assumed the outcome of these situations would be a negative. If I am being honest I started crying at the thought of what the outcome of one of these situations would be. Ultimately with both situations, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. With both the result was positive, and I stressed way too much about it.

I pray that God helps me work on my worrying and overthinking. I know that the Bible tells me to not worry about tomorrow, and I know it’s areas that I could greatly work on. God already has our future planned, and there isn’t much value in worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet. Yes, it’s good to be prepared for certain conversations  although I know I take that too far sometimes. I hope that I grow in peace, because I want to strive for righteousness and holiness.

Scripture References

• “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” ~Hebrews 12:14 NIV
• “Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” ~ James 3:18 NIV
• “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” ~ Proverbs 16:3 NIV
• “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 4:6-7 NIV

I would Love to hear from you!

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I have been doing some major soul searching recently. There have been multiple things that I have been unhappy about. I realized that for me to live the life I want I need to have better habits in my life.

One thing that I realized is that I have had a lot of bitterness towards people. I realized that I had negative feelings associated with a particular group of people. One person in particular in the group had hurt my feelings significantly. I realized that I needed to forgive this person for the pain they caused me. What suddenly clicked for me to change is that I realized in 5 years I don’t want to be still harboring bitterness toward this person still.

Since I realized that this bitterness needed to be removed I have been doing better with not being bitter towards this group of people. For a while I let this group get me extremely upset. Though recently I haven’t gotten upset nearly as much as I had before the switch.

The reason I believe I have been able to handle this change is from God changing me and helping me through it. I have been in constant prayer for these people and asking God to teach me how to handle certain situations.

Another reason that I believe that I have grown better in the feelings of bitterness is that I have talked about my bitterness to others. I have gone to trusted adults to get advice and feedback on how to grow in this area and how to handle these feelings in certain situations.

I hope one day I get to a point where there is minimal hurt feelings. I also hope one day I won’t let other people’s actions affect me as much, but I am not there yet. I pray that if you have bitterness towards other people that you will fight to remove it from your life. We need to forgive others even if they don’t ask for forgiveness.

Scripture References:

• “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” ~ Ephesians 4:31 ESV
• “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” ~Matthew 6:14-15 ESV
• “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses” ~Proverbs 10:12 ESV

I would Love to hear from you!

Feel free to Comment below, or email me at:  matthew712girl@gmail.com

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I’m at the stage of life where many people my age are finding out who they want to spend the rest of their life with. Constantly I am seeing social media posts of other people getting engaged, married, or having a child. It’s hard to fathom this due to the fact I am nowhere close to this season of my life. Also, I realized that I am the age my dad was when he met my mom. I’m also quickly approaching the age of how old he was when he married my mom.

I think it’s easy to wish to be in a different stage of life than you are right now. For example I think a good percentage of people that are in school want to be in the next level of school or be done with school. Though the God who has created us has designed each season we’re in for a reason. He knows what our future holds, and I know that he doesn’t waste a single second of our lives.

I am going to admit that during this year I have watched a few sermons online about relationships and love. Some were specifically about being single. I learned a few things from these sermons.

One thing that was mentioned in every sermon I watched was that when we are single we have more time to spend on things for God. Once you’re married and/or have kids your family is your top priority. So we should be spending our time doing things that can further His kingdom. Also, as a single person we don’t have to check with anyone about doing something. We can just do it what we specifically want.

Another idea I learned from these messages is that we need to have our relationship with Christ correct before we get into a relationship. This is something that I could work on doing better. I’m not saying that I don’t have a relationship with Christ or I’m not doing the things that God would want me to do. I just know that there are a few areas that I could grow in.

One area I could grow in is praying for others more. I have noticed that most of my prayers are self-centered, and I don’t pray for others as much as I could. Another area I could grow is setting aside time to read the Bible daily. I read the Bible at least for a little while most days, but I’ll also go for periods of time where I don’t dig deep in studying God word. Lastly, I want to grow in memorizing scripture. I’m a LifeGroup leader for a college bible study for women. The past couple months my coach and I have been holding each other accountable to memorize scripture. We have finished memorizing 13 verses so far. One of our goals is to have a whole chapter of the Bible memorized.

I want to see this season of singleness as a gift. I don’t want to spend most of my time doing things that don’t matter eternally. God can use us in incredible ways if we allow Him to, and I am expectant that God is going to use me to further his kingdom.

Scripture References:

• “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” ~1 Corinthians 7:7 ESV
• “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” ~Joshua 1:8 ESV
• “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” ~Colossians 3:16 ESV

I would Love to hear from you!

Feel free to Comment below, or email me at:  matthew712girl@gmail.com

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I don’t think grief ever completely goes away. Today was my grandmother’s birthday. Even though she has passed away 2 years ago I still have times where I remember her and grieve her death. I actually had two or three times this week that this has happened.

The first time was when earlier this week I was going through things in my room. When the family was together for her memorial service each of us was able to pick out a ring from a box of rings that she had. I stumbled upon this ring and it made me think of her.

This week I have been reading a devotional about creativity. My grandmother was extremely creative and artistic. She could turn anything into art and it was her main passion in life. She was the one in my life that taught me how to draw when I was young, and she always encouraged me to be artistic. Most of what I have done artistically during the past couple of years has been making graphics on the computer. I decided that next year I’m going to paint and do more art with my hands.

Another time this week I was listening to a song in my car. I had decided it’s about time to start listening to Christmas music that day. There was a song that was about not having someone this Christmas. If I’m being honest I started crying during this song because I missed her.

For many of us there is someone that has died that has affected us in some way. For some of us it’s someone extremely close to us. Other times it’s someone that we knew that we’re just shocked that they had passed away. I want to encourage you that it’s ok to grieve a loss of someone you know. I think it’s actually good to cry over the loss of someone. The reason I believe this is that it shows that you had someone that you loved and cared about deeply. I’d rather have had that person for a season of my life than to never know or be close to them like I was.

I also want to encourage you to show the people you care about how much you love and appreciate them in your life. You never know when your time with them is going to end, and you don’t know what battles that they might be going through.

There are tons of people in this world today that suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts. I recently saw a Facebook post of someone that I knew in high school that had attempted suicide recently. I’m glad this person didn’t succeed, but seeing this opened my eyes of how we should be taking every opportunity we have to encourage and support the people in our life. Also, if you personally are struggling with either of these situations then I want to encourage you to reach out to someone to talk to about it. It helps to be in community with other believers that can come along side you during this difficult time. If you don’t have anyone to talk to, then I encourage you to email me. I’m always willing to listen to anyone if they need it.

Scripture References:

• “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” ~Psalm 34:18 ESV
• “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” ~Revelations 21:4 ESV
• “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” ~Isaiah 41:10 ESV

I would Love to hear from you!

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I was in my car a couple of weeks ago, and I was listening to a country station. The song that started playing was “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw. I started to think of what I would do if I knew I would be dying soon.

God hasn’t guaranteed any of us tomorrow. I started to think of what I would like to accomplish if I could before I died. A lot of the things he mentioned in the song are things that I would like to do as well. When I heard the lyrics, I realized that I could be doing better in forgiving other people and being the friend I would like to have. I’m still learning how to do this, but it has become a greater mission in my life. I also realized that I wanted to read more as well. It’s hard to know how to do certain things if we don’t try to learn the topics. I’m going to try to read more this upcoming year. I’m currently reading a book I really enjoy.

God commands us to do these things that were mentioned, and I want to do what God has commanded of me. If we do these things then it helps in advancing the gospel.

Scripture References

• “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” ~ Proverbs 27:1 ESV
• “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” ~ James 4:13-15 ESV
• “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” ~ Proverbs 18:15 ESV

I would Love to hear from you!

Feel free to Comment below, or email me at:  matthew712girl@gmail.com

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I thought in honor of my 50th blog post I would decide to tell everyone what I have learned about blogging. I started this blog 5.5 years ago when I started college. At first I started this blog for a class. After the class ended I decided to make this blog my personal blog where I would tell everyone what God has been teaching me. There are three major things that this blog has taught me. These things are that I should be alright with change, be expectant that God can use my story, and be alright with not being perfect.

When I started the blog I was solely blogging about a local nonprofit. Since then I have deleted these posts so that I could be more consistent with what I write about now. Also, I decided to add the Traveling with God aspect to my blog. This is where I blog about where I saw God on my trips. Another thing I decided to do along the way was to add graphics that I have made to each one of the blog posts. I believe each of these changes were beneficial to the blog. Though if I wasn’t open to change then these things wouldn’t have happened.

I also learned that I should be expectant that God will use my story to impact other people. I have had numerous occasions where people have told me that what they read on my blog has helped them. I always love it when people tell me what they think about my posts. If I can just impact one person through my blog, then it makes my effort worthwhile. I don’t look at this blog as a way to make money. Instead I write so that people can learn more about God through me.

Another thing I learned is that it’s alright if I don’t always get it right. There have been periods over the years that I didn’t post anything for a couple months. In an ideal world, I would like to post multiple blog posts a month. Though I have had learn to accept that sometimes that’s not going to happen due to the circumstances I am going through at the time. Especially in my early posts there were multiple grammatical errors or posts that didn’t flow well. I have chosen not to fix these issues because I want to see how much I have grown in my writing abilities. I also enjoy reading my earlier blog posts to look at how I have grown as a person as well. I am not the girl I was when I started blogging. Thankfully, I have learned a lot about God as I have gotten older.

I also want to thank each of you for reading my blog posts and being a part of my journey with my blog! Without faithful readers like you I wouldn’t be at 1,375+ views and 850+ viewers on my blog. Another cool fact about my blog is that it has been read in 20 countries with 100+ views being from people outside of my own country. I hope each of you have enjoyed reading my posts! I would also love it if you share my blog to others you think might benefit from reading it!

Scripture References:

• “Always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” ~ 2 Timothy 3:7 ESV
• “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV
• “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” ~2 Peter 3:18 ESV

I would Love to hear from you!

Feel free to Comment below, or email me at:  matthew712girl@gmail.com

Want to know when a new blog is posted? Email me at: matthew712girl@gmail.com, or if you have a WordPress account, follow!

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