you my friend, are strong.

"strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in the time to come."

 -Proverbs 31:25, 

"She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms."

 -Proverbs 31:17

Without a doubt God has given us women powerful strength. No matter how little or big we might think it is, God has designed us to be strong in Him. I personally never felt like I had a problem with this at all. I declared myself strong in the Lord simply because I have been surrounded by people who are. Recently I had the opportunity to discover otherwise. I had placed my strength in something else besides my King, and when it was swept beneath my feet I was.... weak. A weak that even looking back now, I never thought that I could be. I had lost hope and lost sight. A wonderful friend of mine, (my lovely mother) came to the rescue to, well, remind me of who I am and Who's I am. She reminded me that I AM NOT strong, but in Him I am unbreakable. I do not have to be strong in times of hardship or for that matter even in times of joy for if I am with my King, I will be strong in Him and because of Him. Just thought I would share my struggles and tell you beautiful ladies that, YOU ARE STRONG. God has given you that strength in Him. From being a loving mother, the struggling college student, or the young girl finding herself, I urge you to rely on your God and I guarantee you that His strength will shine through your beautiful faces. 

pursing happiness

Today, for sure, had it’s ups and downs. For now, I will skip the good and fast forward to the bad. My heart desires love. Sue me, I am a girl, I doubt I am the only one that wants the fairytale ending. However, being the personality I am, I cannot half way do anything, ever. When I do anything, my whole heart is in it. Even in school, which either left me with an 100 or a very low grade. Oh, but when my heart feels an ounce of what it desires, it jumps into the deep in. My hopes, then are based on anything related to “the boy” or whatever it may be. I constantly get to learn the lesson in life that everything fails me. Everything will fail you too. Everything. You can not place your hopes, desires, dreams, sadness, past, anything in anything without it failing you. Unless you place it in God. point blank. Why that is so hard to live by? beats me. Oh, He always amazes me in His loyalty though, even when I have pushed Him to the back of my mind, and don’t have enough time for Him, and when I am pursing something other than Him, He is in absolute, relentless, pursuit of his creation. He is pursing me! Even, when I am being selfish and prideful, He is pursing me with everything He has. God pursued Adam even after his disobedience in the garden (“Where are you?” Genesis 3:9). Even now, as I am so desperately desiring something so little compared to His love,  He is continuously in pursuit of me! This warms me in a way I just cannot describe. He loves me so deeply, so passionately, and at all times. I cannot repay him that same love that he so rightly deserves. I pray that I pursue Him with everything I have, giving him my all, because He will never fail me, even when I fail myself, he will be the one holding my hand along the way. 

I cried out, “I am slipping!” but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me.

Psam 94:18

Oh how he has romanced me

So today during my quite time I decided to get out, and kind of go on a date with my beautiful King. I went to starbucks to get away, and dove into his love letter. It was awesome! After about 3 hours of being romanced and swept off my feet I left starbucks with the best feeling I have ever had after a date :D It’s so captivating to get lost in the wonderful abyss of the Lord’s love! Not just agape love, but passionate romantic love. I had never thought about God in that manner, but my heart delights in it! Allowing him to romance me, and sweep my off my feet. It makes me smile! Brings me so much joy! Anyways, just thought I would share a simple word, from a simple girl with a big God. 

To fall in love with God is the greatest of romances, to seek Him the greatest adventure, to find Him the greatest human achievement. (St. Augustine)

ALSO!

http://www.purityandtruth.com/2010/07/21/gods-romance-for-singles/

That is an awesome article on God’s romance for singles :D THought I’d share

God Bless

xoxo Hannah

MIND

I don’t know about your mind, but MY mind… is crazy (a little crazy? yes). I don’t think that anyone can ever understand what goes on in my mind, but I think it is silly for us to think we can understand something that God made. He is more complex than anything that we can understand. What God does want us to understand, is the importance, and power of our minds. Think about how powerful our minds are! When you burn your finger, it sends a message to your mind saying “ouch that hurt” which makes you remove your hand, now without that message, you wouldn’t feel the burn, which would allow you to burn that little finger of yours right off ;) now that would HAVE to hurt. Our minds control EVERYTHING that we do, everything we think, everything we sing, talk, mumble (in my case), everything we understand. thats all in your noggin. Our imaginations, are simply amazing. Think about it, everything around you, everything you see, it started from someone’s imagination. My chair, My shoe, This laptop, someone had a idea, which turned into this product. - Get the point? Out minds are important! VITAL! so it is vital that we protect something so important.  

Did you know that no matter what time of the day it is, you mind is full. But it is up to you what fills your mind and what doesn’t… 

This is what my understand had been throughout my whole life (until now that is).. If it is in my head, it is true. If my head thought “Hannah you look pretty today” It was true, and I acted like I thought it was true. If the thought in my head said “Hannah, you look like a fat cow” I thought it was true, and I acted like it was true. Makes sense right? That you believe what is in your head. (see im not crazy!) hahah This was the bad part though, My mind had tricked me! When someone would come up to me and say “Hannah, you are beautiful” I thought they were making fun of me.. (I know how crazy that sounds now..) Because in my head I though “Hannah you are ugly” and it was true! Because it was in my head! and my head wouldn’t lie to me.. right?  WRONG. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Trust me, It looked even crazier, when someone would give me a compliment I would back out of it and tell them to be quite. Can you imagine? “Hannah your pretty” “SHUTUP!” hahah that’s how it went. My mind was giving me lie after lie after lie! 

John 10:10 says “The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy” 

and that’s exactly what he was trying to do. Kill my happiness, steal my joy and destroy my self esteem. 

Your sweet mind. It is just a container. But a fragile container, don’t forget. So our first duty with our brain is to protect it. Things are going to fill it. That’s just the nature of your mind. It is up to you to decide what get’s to fill that container. 

And how do you do that? Protect the portals to your container, your eyes and ears. However, even when you protect them the enemy will STILL whisper lies to you, trying to convince you to sin or doubt or question God and His love. It is human nature, and especially being the kind of human that loves God. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books “Same Kind of Different as Me” 

When you become important to God, you become important to satan. 

So are we helpless?! Not at all! We can win the battle in our minds and learn to glorify God with it. 

How? cheering :) Thanks to Annie Downs and her cheer to fight the fight until we see His face. 

M-I-N-D 

M-mute the lies

I- Identify the truth

N-notice the patterns 

D- decide what you think

MUTE THE LIES!

This is the first step. Literally, just stop listening to them. How do you know what the lie is? Know the truth. Study the scripture and know what is true. Only then you can call a lie a lie and choose not to believe it. Choose. You have to choose to do it. However, it is not going to end just because you decide you don’t want to hear it. In fact, It might get worse. Lies constantly pop into my head, I have to keep constantly muting them. Like right now? As I am sitting here talking to you lovely ladies and skipping my workout the lie “Hannah your never going to be pretty if you don’t loose weight” is popping in my head, and what do I have to do? MUTE IT! thought- you are not the truth! My mind is choosing to be obedient to Christ and His truths. He says I am fearfully wonderfully  made. 

IDENTIFY THE TRUTH!

Now even having those truths like Psalms 139:14: I am fearfully and wonderfully made, or verses like song of solomon 4:7: all beautiful you are.. there is no flaw in you.. The struggle is, actually believing those truths. You must invite that truth in. Allow it to come in. Which means? You have to make room for it, so it can stay with you forever. Like we said, your mind is a container, and it can only hold so much, so to make room… remove the lies, and replace them with truth. His truth. 

NOTICE THE PATTERNS!

Once you know the lies and stop the lies… try and realize when the lies are more than likely going to pop up. You know how it goes, when you finally get over something, and then one day you sit down and find yourself struggling with the same thing, and you find yourself wondering “wait a minute! how did this happen again? didn’t i get over this already?” For me, I know the time around valentines always hits me hard, and the lies start popping into my head like crazy. “Hannah your not good enough, Hannah your not pretty enough” But preparing myself I can more easily mute the lies with God’s truth. Does that mean you will never fail? Nope. But it will most definitely make things easier for you :) and everything likes easy right?

DECIDE WHAT YOU THINK!

Somethings need to stay in your mind forever. You need to decide what you think and stick to it. I know one thing that has stuck with me for a long time is a scripture from proverbs 25 “patience can persuade a prince” (which i want to get a tattoo of when i turn 18-cross your fingers the parents are still debating it) It has saved me from a lot of heartache. It seems to pop up when I am with a guy or thinking about dating guy. We all need verses like that. That we base our life around. 

With all of that said, remember some things in your head are straight from the King above! if God has put sparks of an idea in your head, it is up to you to follow through. your mind is beautiful, and yours alone! You can change the world with it! You can create amazing art with it! You can solve the problem of cancer with it! Use your mind as an instrument of righteousness, identify the lies, believe the truth, and change the world with the ideas in your mind that can become reality! 

CHALLENGE: I did this, and I think it is so incredibly stinking cool! In the book that I had mentioned, It asked to get notecards, and on one side, write lies that are stuck in your head, and then throughout the week pray and seek in the bible for the truth that contracts that lie. It’s easy. At the end of it all, I had 15 lies! (I got a little carried away) They can be anything, like “I am ugly” “I wont be good enough” “I have to have sex for him to know I love him” Pray about it. Pray that you will be able to Identify the lies. Then find the beautiful truth He has given us. You can even get help from someone you look up to, to help you find your truths. Its fun! Just try it :) You can literally see what the devil is trying to put in your head and the truth that God says about you… Good luck and have fun! 

I think about you ladies constantly! I pray for you all the time! We are woman with precious hearts and minds given from out King. Remember you deserve to be cherished and loved as God loves us. 

Until next time…

xoxox Hannah 

new

So this is what is new with me…. God took me into a complete world wind of break downs. One of them being, like every other girl on the planet, beauty. Not saying that i will never struggle with this again, but for the time being, i’m actually content. I started on this on-going journey to find myself beautiful practically at birth. I never was skinny enough, my hair was never smooth, long, straight, curly, enough, if i wanted to look one way, … i would look the exact opposite. So i put on this face of ” i don’t give a ..” on the topic of looks to hide my discomfort and shame for myself. On the inside, i was dying to feel “pretty”. I like to call this my “awkward stage” in life. That so horribly lasted until half way through high school. High school was when i really started seeking God. Not saying i was perfect by any means. I had my falls, and i had my mistakes. Soon enough, it clicked. The whole “God” thing. What he did, what he saved me from, how he sees me, everything. Now, trust me, I still struggle with this every now and then.. when i hear the devil in my ear telling me that it’s all a lie, and someone like that couldn’t possibly love someone like me. But he does, and the awesome part about it, is that he always will. 

The more I would seek God, the more comfortable i felt with myself. Which i what i longed for so long in my life. Most recently, this is what I have come to understand and live: 1) I am beautiful because God says so. 2) I have a lot to offer, every girl does. Not for one second should we lower out selfs to think any other way. 3) Make yourself happy with your beauty, and not the world. <- [ this i have had fun with, now that i am not focused on dressing a certain way for this guy or that guy, I dress how i want to, whether that means, rolling out of bed because i woke up late and being content with no make up or pulling out that bright red lipstick and having fun with it.] 4) Once you view yourself as God’s and His alone. Your whole perspective turns upside down… for the better. 

That’s my spill for the day. I hope you all know that you are beautiful and deserve to be cherished. Be happy and healthy as God intended, and once you include God in every aspect of your life (even the makeup/beauty/clothes/ part) great things can happen!

until next time….

xoxo hannah 

and this one goes out to the girls with broken hearts

Most girls start of in the world as innocent and beautiful. They are open emotionally, but usually they are happy. Then they get older. Someone hurts them. Justice is perverted. It breaks her heart. The smile disappears. They clam up. After a while they learn to smile again, but it’s not the same. The innocence is gone. They are a good fake. They grow numb to some extent. They have walls around their heart, and they aren’t going to let anyone in. They don’t cry, but they don’t smile either. Usually they get quite successful though, because they can be tough like the men. There is just one problem… they aren’t men, and being tough is killing them.

Girls, putting walls up around your heart will starve it of the love it needs. Then you in turn start looking desperately for love, but on the same hand you’re pushing it away. It’s no wonder boys are confused with girls. On one hand you say you want him, but on the other hand, you are pushing him away.

You can’t seem to admit the truth of something being wrong because that would be showing weakness, but you still want him to do something about it. When he believes you that “nothing” is wrong you get hurt further, so you build up the walls higher. I know lying is easier than being vunerable and telling the truth. We don’t want to be weak, but being like fine china means being breakable. Being soft means being mouldable. Being a flower means you have to open up and risk getting crushed or wilt and die. 

If you decided to be tough and brittle, it might work, but if you break, you will shatter. If you are soft, yes it will hurt, especially at first, but you will become strong, truly strong, in a way that you didn’t realise was possible.

Now, I’m not saying you won’t ever get hurt. Love hurts sometimes….most of the time for the average teenage girl..  But He will protect you. He will hold you. If you trust HIM rather than yourself.

Oh, hurting Girls. God loves you and He wants you to trust Him with your heart so that when things go wrong and you’re getting pushed around, and your life just seem like a crazy downward spiral… when your team is losing, when the nation is in turmoil, when no-one likes you, when the electrician fixes everything excepting your problem, and you have a 7 minute walk in the rain. He wants you to be so secure in Him that when it happens, and while you may be flabbergasted and don’t like what is happening, you are not feeling sorry for you. You have the peace that surpasses all understanding, because God, is your God and He is taking care of you. 

Gaurd your heart, yes, but gaurd it through Christ. 

I most defiantly struggle with this in my life, so i thought i would share. 

Until next time….

xoxo Hannah. 

single

This struggle always seems to pop up every now and then, when i am feeling down. I get so eager for a boy to come and whisk me off my feet and carry me away into the sunset… yeah yeah yeah i know, its fairytale thinking. Still, this want becomes so demanding in my life at times. I feel that i need it, to some how be/feel complete. I was reading the other day and stumbled across Isaiah 54. It completely blew me away, and made me feel secure. After reading it, i did some research and broke down the verse, which furthered my amazement in what God says he will do for me. 

In this chapter we see that with God, we can have joy and fulfillment in our lives, whether we have a husband or children. (verse 1) That we are not alone. God is our loving partner and redeemer. (verse 5) 

In the end, whatever plan that God has planned out for me, I have faith that i will be content, because He will be the one to complete me. Understanding this brings me a world of comfort. Don’t get me wrong, i would still love to ride in the sunset with my knight in shinning armor, if God permits it of course. :)

Until next time, xoxo

Hannah