God

Something that I’ve learned about myself over the past year is that I am an emotional person. I feel and experience things very deeply. While I sometimes wish I didn’t cry while watching commercials, I am thankful that I experience the full range of human emotion.

I’m currently reading the You’re Already Amazing LifeGrowth Guide by Holley Gerth and gaining a lot of insight into how God has made everyone exactly as they are for a reason.

While it’s easy for me to feel like I’m weak because I’m sensitive, I am learning to view this trait as an asset to serving God. Being sensitive often means that I pick up on small details. When I talk with a friend, I try to pay attention to their body language and listen to hear how they’re really doing. I cherish deep one-on-one conversations, and I feel amazing when I can lend a listening ear to someone who just needs to talk.

Understanding that no emotion is “wrong” or “bad” has made a huge difference in my life. I can vividly remember crying in my elementary school library as a child because I forgot to return a library book. It felt like a big deal to me at the time because I had never once forgotten to return a library book. While I know the librarian had the intention to soothe me by saying “Don’t cry! It’s okay!” I also know that she sent a message to my younger self that crying and feeling upset = not okay.

What the LifeGrowth Guide is teaching me is that all emotions are a gift from God that help us process everything we go through in life. When I’m feeling stressed out, I can stop and think what is this emotion telling me? Do I need rest? Connection? Something else? Negative emotions also prompt me to question whether or not I am believing a lie from Satan.

When I start to believe I’m not good enough or I can’t do something, I am learning to stop and ask myself what scripture says about these thoughts. I can do all things through him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13). I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) and God loves me with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). Knowing that I have the Bible as a tool to confront the lies that are all too easy to believe is incredibly life-giving and works to strengthen my faith as I learn more about who God is and how he cares for me.

Doubt and lies absolutely thrive in isolation and darkness. When we keep things to ourselves, we feel alone. I know that when I bring my cares and concerns into the light of loving relationships–whether it’s in person, through a quick text message, or an email–that connection with someone who loves me and can speak the truth against the lies makes all the difference. Opening up about things that are more than surface-level prompts others to do the same and deepens relationships. This is the embodiment of Ephesians 4:15:

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” Ephesians 4:15

We may know what is true, but don’t always feel it. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. It simply means that we’re human and are working on being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). God understands this because He’s the one who made us and doesn’t demand us to feel a certain way, but rather asks that we keep believing, growing, and obeying.

Here’s to growing in Christ every day and learning to trust and enjoy the process!

Hey there! I received a question on this post about dating Jimmy for five years, and I thought I would address the topic. So, here’s the question:

First of all, I hope I don’t portray mine and Jimmy’s relationship as perfect on my blog. If it comes off that way, let me assure you that it’s not. We haven’t had any rough patches where we’ve broken up, but we do have our disagreements.

I think it helps to break this topic down into three different points. I also talked to Jimmy, and asked him some questions so he could contribute to this post so it’s not one-sided.

1. Why we think we haven’t broken up:
My take: First and foremost, Jimmy and I try our best to keep God at the front of our relationship. My relationship with Christ always comes before any other relationship in my life, and I think that’s the biggest reason why we haven’t split up. We both have non-dominant personalities, and “go with the flow” pretty well–so neither of us are upset a lot. Also, Jimmy and I only see each other on the weekends because we live an hour apart. I never want to spend our precious time together arguing, you know?

His take: “Well I think we haven’t broken up because of just the simple fact that we built our relationship around God and He is who we both try to please first! Not each other! Although that’s a close second. And trying to please our personal selves is last on the list! So there is no doubt in my mind that, that is the sole reason we haven’t broken up.”

Cooking together 🙂

2. Things we “fight” about:
My take: I think the one thing that makes me upset is when I feel like Jimmy doesn’t understand me. We were in a really bad car accident together in 2009, and I broke the windshield of his car with my head, and had to have reconstructive nose surgery. That experience has given me an intense fear of feeling out of control, especially in vehicles. Jimmy loves driving. He loves driving fast, driving in snow, etc. Sometimes I get upset with him if he’s driving and I feel like he’s being careless and doesn’t understand how afraid I am. Other than that issue, we don’t disagree on much else! We disagree a lot less than when we first started dating because we got to know each other’s personalities better, and we’ve both matured a lot, haha.

His take: “No two people are alike and no two people will always see eye to eye! So most of the times when we may have our disagreements I think is due to that. In no way should that be down played at all, either! I think it is very important to work on those things, and to know each others boundaries and limits. For example, I know when Allie is stressed out that she can be a little more on edge! And understandably so….so though I may pick her a little, I know to stop a lot sooner cause I don’t want to tick her off even though I never mean for it to upset her. But that’s just who she is! And we have to live around each others personalities….Like I said in question number one…we have to put each other first before ourselves and I think that this would fall into that.”

Looking and feeling confused together in Ikea…

3. How we’ve keep our connection strong:
My take: We both try to be “present” when we hang out–so we don’t check our phones or social media accounts constantly. We also email each other every weekday. I know that’s old school, but I absolutely love it. We’ve been emailing each other every weekday since I was in high school. I think we also have a deep connection despite our physical distance because we are both connected to God.

His take: “I think that if you put God first and then put each other first then staying close will just fall into place! You have to work on your relationship by learning each other, and not letting your own personal wants and desires in the way. There are obviously lines you must draw, and there may come a point where you just need to sit down and talk to each other about whats bothering you. But in order to stay close, there is a constant maintenance you must do to achieve that…and if two people love each other and are able to care for one another then maintaining a good relationship shouldn’t be a constant day in and day out struggle!”

I hope that answered the commenter’s question! Thank you for your input, Jimmy 🙂

Do you have a significant other? What do you argue about? How do you stay close?

Living My Full Life

Embracing Emotions

Answering a relationship question