Mark & Hannah

My computer has been gone for the last few weeks being repaired, I am so thankful it is now back and was here for me to edit my pictures from the wedding in Kentucky we traveled to this past weekend. Its not very often that you get to go to a wedding where you know both the bride and the groom from high school. 

I spent a lot of time in High school with this sweet bride and her sisters as we all went to youth group together, they are just the sweetest and so fun to be with. I also went to school with the groom. 

So I was so thankful we were able to make it to their wedding. Still can't believe the incredible story the Lord has written here with this couple. Never would I have imagined The Lord would bring this guy I went to high school with into her life! But The Lord has so been at work in both their lives and you can just see the evidence in their love for him, others & each other!! There is no doubt that He brought these two together & that He is going to do amazing things through their lives together. I can't wait to see what He does......

The Lord truly writes some amazing love stories that bring Him glory!! 

P.S. More pictures from the last few months coming soon, now that my computer is back! yay! 

P.S. He Loves You.

So there's this girl in California, who is pretty much one of the most amazing women I have ever met in my life. And believe me I know some amazing women. 

This girl shared recently how we met on her instagram. Its seriously one of the most amazing stories. 

I met her back in 2005/2006 I'm not exactly sure when. I think I was a freshman in college, totally feeling lost being transplanted back into the western world after being in desert for about 6-7 years. Things were hard, I had surrendered my love life to the Lord after fighting Him and a lot of wrestling over it. I totally surrendered it, I had no idea what He was going to do with it (read more here). So I signed up with a community called purity girls, all beautiful young girls who shared this passion of trusting the Lord with their love lives. It was exactly what I needed at that time in my life when I felt as though no-one understood my desire to really love Him by giving Him the pen to my story and seeing what He would do with it. The day I signed up, there was an option to pick an accountability partner, and I felt like such a fraud. I had only just started on this journey of learning how to trust my heavenly prince with this area, I certainly didn't think I had anything to offer anyone else on this issue. 

I was scrolling through these pictures of young girls all with beautiful hearts and incredible stories, and I didn't really know what I was even doing being among them. When I clicked and a precious young girl (the same age as me) appeared on my screen. I read her bio about surrendering her pen to her sweet savior and trusting Him on His timing for romance and I got a little nudge. I have never been more sure about the Holy Spirit nudging me to do something. I was sitting there going 'but I didn't even want an accountability partner, Lord. I'm still trying to figure out what this looks like to trust you in this area, I can't support anyone.' And I felt His sweet whispers, 'Pick her, just trust me.'

So I clicked request accountability partner. And I have tears flowing down my face at His faithfulness by that simple click. Because the years that followed were just precious, we emailed each other, prayed for each other, shared our struggles and dreams in this area of our lives. It has truly just been one of the most encouraging friendships in my life, being able to walk similar paths with this incredible girl who lived the other side of the world from me. 

He absolutely wanted us in each others lives, and I am so thankful He did. It has been a blessing watching Him answer our prayers for one another. And I look forward to maybe sharing more of this amazing story with you guys someday.....

Now that I've bragged on her and the way the Lord brought us together as sisters....
she did something amazing this past year already.
She has written the most amazing inspiring devotional (and I'm not just saying that, really!). 
It has brought me into a beautiful season of seeking my precious prince & I have enjoyed just sitting in His presence understanding how much He thinks of me, how huge is love is for me, while reading her precious thoughts and meditating on the scriptures she shared. It reads like letters from her directly to you friend, you will honestly believe they are personally written for you. 


And I really think you should check it out.
You really won't regret it.  


But just in case you need any more persuasion, here's some sneak previews:

//Buy The Devotional//

//Being Intentional//

One thing I do have a passion for that I thought I would slide in here, is coffee dates. Intentional relationships and mentoring. I'm not always the greatest at being intentional and seeking out ladies whom I would want to mentor me or being intentional about meeting with other ladies for the purpose of encouragement and growth.

But it is something I am passionate about.

It's something I totally feel is biblical. 

'As iron sharpens iron, 

so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.' 

Proverbs 27: 17 

Even something as simple as meeting to pray for one another. Or intentionally meeting to share your walk with the Lord. 

'Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, 

just as in fact you are doing.'

1 Thessalonians 5:11

I don't think it is something that naturally happens even among church community, at least not in my experiences. It is something I am continually having to train myself to be purposeful in, to be bold in asking a friend about how they are doing spiritually, to give freedom to others to ask me the same question. To have that accountability. 


I particularly love investing in the lives of younger girls, high school age. Being able to love on them as they walk through a challenging part of life. Being able to listen and on occasion share things I have learned with them. Something I am totally praying about being able to do more of in the very near future.

How are you intentional in your relationships friends?

This post is part of my 31 day series for the month of October, 
fighting through the fears and sharing the confusing passions I have. 
Hoping to figure out the bigger picture of all these interests. 

Summer Photo Drop. [Meet Up With Brooke From Magnolia Grace]

I can't believe I am still sharing pictures from over a month ago friends! 

But I didn't want to not share these with you. I had the opportunity to meet up with Brooke from Magnolia Grace last month and we decided to go to the zoo together. 

She is just such an encouragement to be around! I am so thankful to have met her at Influence last year.

Not to mention she definitely drove a lot more than I did to spend time together. 

We will have to meet again a lot closer to her next time :) 

We had a great time, especially when we found Africa. Who knew it was in Ohio you guys! LOL

We also paid to go on this little train ride which would supposedly take us closer to the African animals which were all hanging out in the middle of an enclosure. Well, this train was SO SLOW you could practically see the grass growing the rocks next to it were faster. All this while we were super far away from the animals, then once we got near them it sped up to get back to the station.

Say what???? 

We were highly amused and laughed so hard at the craziest which was this lame train ride. 

Even the kid behind us is bored.

Looking for our next destination. 

I'm sure the poor guy who we asked to take this shot didn't know what was going on when we suddenly posed.

Any place that serves lemonade with an amazing straw like this is pretty great in my book.

Current Favorite Reads.

Outfit Stats: Mustard Peacock Coat - Charlotte Russe, Striped top - AE, Jeans - AE, 

White Cami layered underneath - Old Navy, Boots - England ;)

Hey friends! 

Lately I have had a little more time to catch up on some favorite blogs.

This doesn't always happen for me depending on how busy we are during the week.

So when I started to take some time away from a regular blogging schedule, I have been able to put some of that freed-up time into reading.

And I have been enjoying listening and reading to so many wise and encouraging ladies.

I thought I would share several of these reads for you guys to head over and check out.

Kerrie from The Williams Post - Free At Last

Caroline from JCaro - Time Spent worrying is Lost Joy

Moriah Sunde (On the Influence Network) - Called To Love 

Julie at From Awkward to Art - Doing What I have to Do to get What I want

Rachel at Finding Joy - The Gift of Grace

Cassidy at Cassidy Robinson - Why Blog?

Amanda (On Allume) - When you struggle to Find Your Niche

Nadine at Secondary Heartbeat - Even If My words Defeat the Purpose

Erin at SweetnessItself - Vlog//My Ten Favorite Books

I hope these encourage you! I have found them so thought-provoking and challenging. 

This is what I love about the blog community.

If you came across a post which encouraged you this week, leave it below in the comments.

I'd love to read it =)

Much Love!

L

Happy Thanksgiving & Birthday.

Happy Thanksgiving Friends!!!! 

There's so many reasons to be thankful today. I can't even begin to explain them all.

So I wanted to start with this sweet friend of mine.

Because its her birthday today too!! And I am definitely crazy thankful she is in my life.

I'm sure a lot of you probably know her pretty face.
Cause well she's gorgeous right!!
Meet Erin. She blogs here.
She also just writes crazy awesome posts, so you really do want to meet her.


Words wouldn't do justice how thankful I am to have a friend like her.
Seriously she has walked with me through some crazy ups and downs in life.
We met about eight years ago now when we were accountability partners based on our hearts for purity. The Lord placed such similar things on our hearts its insane.
And it has been such a joy walking with someone who understands where I'm coming from, because they are so similar.
Totally one of those God-given friendships. Like a bosom friend who is such a gift.


Today she celebrates another year of walking with the Lord, another year of life on earth.
And I am just so amazingly thankful for her friendship, her witness online, her heart for purity and other unpopular views in today's culture.
She encourages me so much by just being herself.
Definitely beautiful inside & out.
I can't wait to see how the Lord continues to use her in her ministry and how He continues to write her life story.


So today I just wanted to share with you one of the things I am thankful for.
This sweet girl.
Hoping you have a wonderful birthday and happy thanksgiving sweet friend!

Wishing we could grab a coffee together and celebrate!

Much Love,
L

Happy to be Home.

Thankful//to be home after the Influence Conference.

My heart is full and I can't wait to share with you guys all about the Conference.
Until I get a chance to start writing about it all....
enjoy some pictures.

More to come on this AMAZING company later. I so want to show you want they are doing to help vulnerable women! Its awesome! 

Meeting these two lovely ladies were two of the highlights of my entire trip.

Casey Wiegand//These Happy Times

 Then there was this time we were in Chicago hanging out. And had more Starbucks in one week than I usually have in a month.

TasteandSee//SweetnessItself//WhatSheSaw

More to come when I have settled at home and edited the pictures.

Much Love,

L

Influence Excitement

Countdown: 1 month & 1 day till Influence Conference

Well there are many reasons why I am looking forward to Influence.
I'm looking forward to the awesome sessions, seeing several of you lovely ladies in person
for the first time (anyone else find that weird, cause I totally feel I know you guys already?),
learning about how to blog with Christ at the center.
I feel a wonderful weekend of learning and sweet friendships on the horizon.

One of the reasons I'm so excited, is that I have awesome roomies lined up who I also happen

to be roadtripping to the conference with.

These three girls and I will be sharing a room.

So for sure, there will be many goofy moments awaiting us.

(SweetnessItself, What She Saw, Taste and See)

But just in case you wanted to see a project in the works
(I know we are so months behind when this was cool....but we don't live in the same place guys!!)
Enjoy these moments from when I stayed with one of these girls in the past.

Hopefully that got you laughing!
I'm sure there will be many more moments to share!

Much Love,
L

How to have an epic blog-friend adventure.

I Love the friendships I have made through blogging.

Seriously, I can't even begin to explain how much they are an answer to prayer.

Before I started blogging, I was desiring friendships with sweet girls who love Jesus with their whole-being. Girls who were a similar age, the kind of friends a lot of people seem to make in college.

Well I went to a secular college the other side of the world and struggled for a while there to find sweet friends (I did eventually btw).

So when I moved to the states, I was unsure where to meet girls my own age who loved the Lord.

I met a few through my hubby's friends, but not anyone I really immediately bonded with.

Then I started blogging and met multiple girls who were the same age who just loved Jesus, who wanted to use their blogs to share their journey with Him.

I have been so blessed by this adventure.

It was even more exciting to find out I lived 20 mins from one of these girls too.

So for the last few months, she and I have been meeting up on a regular basis and spending time together....which has just been such a huge blessing in my life. 

So since I have shared the background and how I am thankful for these sweet friendships.....

I thought it might be hilarious to share with you the adventure that

Annie from what she saw

and I 

had today.

{Via}

Probably not the first thing you think of when you picture meeting up with a blog friend.

And that is definitely true, because we usually go to places more like the first picture.

However let me explain how we ended up in such a place.

So my plan for the day was to meet up with Annie for lunch at a Mexican place (can I just add a yum in there) and there was a pile of junk I needed to get rid of for a friend who had asked me to pile it into the back of his truck and take it out to the landfill. Now I thought I would be really cunning and load it up and meet her for lunch, then since I was only a few miles from the landfill.....I would continue on from there.

So first of all....I decided I only needed like 2 mins to load it from the garage into the truck.

Umm really not sure where my brain was on that.

Plus I had put on cute clothes to meet a friend, so yeah my nice jeans and a nice top with cute accessories.

So I start loading things out of the garage and into the truck and discover like an entire extended family of crickets in the pile of junk.

I'm not really a bug kind of girl.

So once I had recovered a little, I strategically maneuvered the container with the crickets into the back of the truck without getting super close.

Then added a few more items like a toilet?

I'm sure by now any neighbors were wetting themselves while watching me attempt this task.

Then climbed into the truck and headed out to lunch.

We enjoyed a nice lunch together laughing at my gross cricket encounter.

Then I mention I am heading to the landfill and does she want to join me for the adventure.

She said yes.

So Annie and I pile back into this awesome ghetto truck and head down to a dirt track

(which really needs resurfacing like there are potholes the size of kids)...

and find the landfill! 

Yes neither of us knew it was there.

Then we join the back of a long line of smelly trucks.

At this point we are laughing super hard at the attempts of trying to make the scenery look something like this:

{Via}

And Annie pulls out her camera laughing at how awesome this will make for a blog post.

So we continue to drive the truck into the landfill,

yes even across a weighing scale. LOL.

And dump it into the civilian area, so we didn't get to drive up the epic roadway

that really did look like that picture.

Then we proceeded to throw all the trash into the landfill.

The car smelled a ton better on the ride back just FYI.

I supposed the rest of the afternoon was more normal.

We made ourselves at home in the christian inspiration aisle at Barnes and Nobles hanging out on the floor talking for 2 hrs then buying nothing.

Then heading to Trader Joes and laughing so hard at random things.

All in all an epic adventure.

Blogging friends truly are the ones that will help you carry out your trash 

and won't judge you if it includes a toilet. 

I am so thankful for the awesome adventures and encouragement these friendships entail.

Stay tuned to see how our epicness continues as we adventure to Indy in October for the Influence Conference.

(yes, we are road tripping and detouring to pick up friends from an airport on the way)

Much Love,

L

P.S. I bet you didn't know Pinterest had pictures of landfills either?