30 Day Challenge - Day 3

Day three just happens to be a Sunday. Whoo! Talk about a challenge. The one thing I had going for me was that it was that most glorious time of year when time falls back for an hour. My day consisted on teaching my Sunday School class for 2 & 3 year olds. It's crazy. I grew up with so many brothers. I had no idea at the time that God was preparing me for this class. I typically have one girl in class. The rest are all boys and can range from seven to ten kids. That is a lot of boys!

My husband didn't work today, so that also threw my day off as well. When he is home on the weekends, we tend to default to his plans and schedules. We did manage to make it to the grocery store and probably shopped for way more than we needed. To be honest, we did shop for more, not probably. 

Despite all of that, I still managed to complete all my tasks for my daily challenge, read some books to my little guy until he fell asleep, massaged my husbands feet and now I sit here typing away to finish up this post for the evening.

Action 1 - Be Thankful

The moment I am most thankful for is also the moment that makes my heart melt just thinking about it. That first time my son said, "I love you mama". When I close my eyes and think about that moment I can still hear him and how he mispronounced "love" and I can see the sweet little smile on his face when he said it to me. We were laying cuddled in his bed together. I had said it to him and he replied. Just thinking about it makes me want to go wake that kid up and squeeze him.

He continues to astound me with the new things he says and that imagination that is really starting to kick in, but that first "I love you" will stick with me forever.

Actions #2 - Devotions, Journaling & Prayer

Today's devotional reading in Embraced is all about not just reading God's Word, but reading it to understand it. To understand the God who is a God of love and grace. To read about a God who offers salvation to anyone who wants it. Here are some of my takeaways.

• I needed to look at the words in the Bible as a love letter to a broken down girl. A love letter not meant to simply be read... but a love letter meant to be lived.
• When I make the connection between what happens in my life that day and why I need that verse, I experience God. I see him active in my life, and I become even more deeply aware of His constant presence.

One of the things I have struggled with in the last couple of years is that I don't "feel" God like I used to. I can tell you about some pretty intense moments, prayer meetings, conversations, connections I have had with God in my past, but in my more recent history I can tell you the connection has been different. Kind of disjointed. I know He hears my prayers because He has answered them. Even as recent as this morning. But I miss that deep connection. The security of being close to Him.

Maybe this is just the reminder I needed to get to the place that I really want to be. Just maybe, what I really need to do is relearn who God really is. Just thinking about this makes me realize that I have been taking my relationship with Him for granted.

Have I said yet how much I appreciate these two books seem to compliment each other? It's amazing to me the messages that can be paired together from each book.

Today, in Girl Be Brave, Cheryl talks about not conforming and having your own identity. She calls out how society encourages us to judge one another to justify who we are. A couple of my takeaways today are:

• ​If you were to succumb to the pressure to conform, you would miss out on the awesome identity God has given you. He made you the you that you are because He knew what it would take to get you there.
• But in His infinite wisdom He knew the world would need someone like you with all your unique ideas and abilities.

Let's just take a second right there. I don't know about you, but one of my biggest life struggles has been my identity. I am constantly putting myself in a role of people pleasing. God will put me in a spot to do great work and I get caught up and conflicted with making sure that other people are happy with who I am and what I should be doing and saying that I lose the identity and the purpose that God has given me. Why is there that constant struggle to be identified with those you are with instead of just accepting the identity that God has given you? Is it because it shows I am weak? Because I don't look perfect? Because I won't fit in? I can probably answer yes to all of those.

I'm thankful for this last year. The growth that I have seen within myself. I'm thankful that God is still here and is still loving me and still holding my spot to use me for my purpose.

Action #3 - Exercise

Today was a weight day! Whoa! I am feeling it, but it was a nice break from cardio the last two days. I could digress on not wanting to do it. I was tired. I won't though. I'll just keep it simple. Day three of working out is in the books! 

Good night friends! Be blessed!

Note: Anything I have italicized is not my own words, but are either paraphrased or directly from a book. I try to make it clear from which book the writing is from, but if you are unsure, please ask. Also, if you click on any links that lead you to Amazon from this page and you then purchase the product that you clicked on I may or may not earn money from your purchase.