Passion in Brokenness.

Honestly, its been a hard season year over here. Lots of tears, battles fought, with some won and some taking every ounce of strength I have and then some. Thankfully through it all there has been a lot of refining, growth and holding onto the Lord with everything I have. So I can't really complain about the process. Anything which brings me closer to Him with a daily drive to be in His presence is worth all the pain. 

Being married has been a blessing in so many ways, yet in others I have found it extremely hard. I have this bad habit of caring deeply what other people think of me. Often allowing their opinions to define who I think I am and not the Lord. And its been a hard year for learning to let go of approval from others. From not being ashamed of where the Lord has taken me in life, how He has orchestrated certain things and how I met my husband young. 

I started sharing our love story here. Then I stopped, to be honest I almost completely dropped out of the blogging community all together not long after. Many things factored into this happening. But one of which was feeling the desire to hide. You see, I grew up with a deep heart for purity and waiting. For waiting on the Lord's timing for romance and wanting to encourage single young women to fall in love with Him and trust Him to work out the rest. I had a lot of friendships formed with that common ground. 

It was a beautiful season in my life. 

Then I got married.

 And I was ashamed to talk about this beautiful story the Lord had written in my life. I didn't want to make other girls feel bad about where the Lord had them. I wanted to still encourage them to keep waiting and trusting, now knowing that what He had whispered to my young heart about trusting Him was completely true! 

But I began to allow this to rob me of the joy He has given me with where I am now.

It has been a hard few years understanding why the Lord gave me a passion for Waiting and Purity, then bringing my husband to me at a young age. I can't begin to understand what it feels to be a late-20 something single girl who is struggling with loneliness and longing for an earthly prince. Yet my heart breaks, because my heart is minister to you, friend. To reach out and assure you that it will be ok. That the Lord does have beautiful plans for each one of us, we are just never sure what those plans are until we are the other side.

{Via}

I am still not sure how He will continue to use me with this passion. Whether it will change into a passion for something else completely or if He will continue to use me in small ways in this area. I have no idea what the Lord is doing to be honest. 

Something I would appreciate your prayer for, friends!

I had started writing here sharing thoughts on purity, waiting and loving the Lord. I still think these are totally relevant. I also feel at a crossroads of Him doing something bigger and moving forward, I just can't yet see what that is. So maybe there are big changes ahead for this little space as I pray, listen and hope to follow His leading.

In the meantime, I am resting in the assurance that God is good. 

He is gracious and loving. 

Understanding the longings of my heart even I can seem to understand 

(or explain). 

I am so thankful to sit in His presence when my poor husband is not sure how to help because I don't understand how this passion is still so present in my current life situation.

And my heavenly prince gets it. He understands what I'm feeling and probably smiles knowing what is on the other side of the crossroad. 

In the meantime I hope to continue encouraging you ladies, sweet friends. Even in all the rambling and brokenness from this girl. Thankyou for being gracious with me as I have not replied to emails or taken forever to do things. 

You show me Christ daily and I am so thankful. 

Much Love!

L

Girl Behind the Blog: Travel.

The Girl Behind The Blog- Around The World

Time limit: Vlogs should be 2-3 minutes long

Introduce yourself and your blog

Briefly tell us where you've traveled (domestically and/or internationally) and what you were doing there.

What do you most look forward to when going on a trip?

If you could hop a plane this second, where would you go and why?

Hey friends! 

So its that time again, another fun vlog, another attempt at sticking to the time limit (oops sorry ash!), another awkward 'I'm talking to myself moment.'

I apologize at being late to the party again on this one, schedules have been crazy over here as we have been winding down our frantic (but fun) summer and spending time with family who visited.

I don't know if I will write about a lot of these trips or not. I have been super SUPER blessed to travel to so many places and see God's creation!! 

third culture kid

1. 'A third-culture kid (TCK / 3CK) or trans-culture kid is "someone who, as a child, has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture. ...'

Places Lived

England (in 3 different cities)

Germany 

Middle East

England (Oxford)

USA - Midwest

Places Visited (Internationally)

England

France (Many different cities)

Belgium

Holland

Italy (Many different cities)

Austria

Switzerland

Spain

Greece

Cyprus

Luxembourg
Prague
Nepal
India
Sri Lanka
Singapore
Kenya
Tanzania
Canada

Places Visited (Domestically)

Texas
California
Hawaii
Illinois
Ohio
Michigan
Indiana
Arizona
Kentucky
Tennessee
North Carolina
New York
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Minnesota
North & South Dakota
Montana
Wyoming
Idaho


Where have you guys traveled to? I want to hear all about it!! 
Where do you want to go??

Head over and link up! 

Much Love! 

L

A Date Night of Sorts.

Hey friends.

I couldn't resist taking a moment today to share several funnier pictures from a photoshoot that took place with my hubby.

I shared a post about my second stitch fix here.

Also mentioning how much fun we had, almost like an impromptu date, there was lots of laughter, lots of images which didn't turn out and an evening of memories as my sweet A graciously took pictures for me to share of the five items I received in the mail. 

So when my sweet friend Katie wrote last week about a linkup she was starting to encourage creativity by asking us to linkup with a photoshoot. I totally wanted to jump right in and join her.  

So here are some of the sillier images from that day and the fun we had hanging out together.

I may be ordering another fix from Stitch Fix soon, just so we can enjoy another spontaneous date evening again.

Katie shared these words by Edith Shaeffer, 

"Man has the capacity both for responding and producing,

for communicating as well as being inspired.

It is important to respond to the art of others,

as well as to produce art oneself. 

It is important to inspire others to be creative

as well as to communicate by one's own creative arts"

Love it. 

Maybe you will join? 

Let me know if you linkup, I can't wait to see everyone's creative photos. 

A Redeemed Bigger Picture.

Yesterday evening my sister and I had the opportunity to hang out and spend some time together painting at this paint class. It was really a ton of fun. 

It may not have been a great decision to go the evening we returned from vacation, hence the tired look haha! But I'm still super glad we went.

I wasn't very happy with the way my picture was turning out towards the end, it looked really messy and didn't seem to be looking the way I had hoped it would. But I kept on going and adding the layers of paint in hope that it would turn out in the end. 

Today while driving home from church I suddenly realised after listening to a sermon by our pastor how that painting related to part of what he was saying. How up close our lives can be a bit of a mess. So many things going on which we seem to mess up and not get right. We can keep going with this mess for a while and how God in His sovereignty can be using our mess for the good of His bigger picture. The messiness of the painting was like that, up close it was seeming like a total waste of a canvas to me, but how the mess combined began to build up a beautiful bigger picture. 

What humility there was in that today, to realise that our mess can be used by God. Not to say that we should just keep messing up all the time and know that it doesn't matter (because I don't believe that would be biblical), but to realise that it is God who makes things beautiful in the bigger picture. Not us in all our mess.

It is His bigger picture.

Just thought I would share this thought today.

Much Love!

L

Having a Presence. In Real Life.

I am going to stop apologizing for being absent here in this space. Every time I login I feel the need to say how sorry I am for not being here. But honestly, I'm not all that sorry. You see I have been making a choice for several months now. 
One that involves saying yes more. After reading this post by Casey Wiegand, this one by my sweet friend Brit and this one by sweet Nicole. All these beautiful ladies have voiced what I have been feeling the past few months and why being on here has just not fit in with the time I have available.


I have been saying yes more. To real life. To people the Lord has placed around me for the here and now. To those who I wanted to get to know more at our church but perhaps didn't have time because I was heading home to blog. To those trips we wanted to take and haven't been able to before. To time with my husband in the middle of our busy weeks. To the two precious babies who I care for during the week. I have been saying yes, to real life. 


Because one thing I have learned in my transitory life is that in a very short space of time, we could be living somewhere else and called to another place. And I don't want to miss the opportunities in this place. The times where I could be a part of the body of Christ physically. Part of a real life community with all its ups and downs, experiencing the messy parts together.
I love this online community, but I don't want it to replace my real life presence where the Lord has me. 


So I will (hopefully) stop apologizing. I will still be here in and out. Hopefully more than I have been lately. But for now....I am enjoying real life. Where God has placed me.
Experiencing family time with extended families which happens once a year or less.  

Much Love!

L