The word “surrender” can be a scary one.
It implies laying down our desires and our dreams, for something that is unknown. Surrender means that we submit everything to God with hands wide open. The problem is that we have a tendency of closing our fingers around those desires and dreams again into tightened fists. We say to ourselves, God is not willing to help or He’s not moving according to my timetable, and we feel the urge to take control.
My name is not an exciting conversation starter. It’s not linked to another name. There is no family history revealing quirky or interesting facts about how my parents came to name me. The name “Katie”, however, is a variant of Katherine. I learned very quickly that it means “pure”.
For a long time I didn’t quite get the meaning of pure. I used to pride myself on being a good person. To me, “good” was close enough to pure. I knew that I sinned, but I never sinned “badly”, in my eyes. I rarely made my parents angry when I was younger. I was quiet, timid, shy and out of everyone’s hair. To me, that was important.
May I ask, when did every season of the year become busy? Growing up it seemed that there were only two busy times – back-to-school and Christmas. The rest of the year was ordinary and slow.
It’s only February, nothing important has happened for two months, and yet I feel like I am gasping for rest. Even when I have restful times, I’m not truly resting. My mind is jumping to the next chore, project, or event.
I am very excited to bring you my first post here on TripleBraidedLife!
Embrace. What comes to mind when you hear that word? When I hear it, I think it sounds elegant. I feel like it is a fancy way to describe a hug. It actually means to “accept willingly or eagerly”. As single Christian women, what are we accepting willingly or eagerly into our lives? Godliness or sinfulness?
In the face of consequences from my recent deceptive and lying actions, I asked myself, “Am I embracing the discipline of godliness in my life, willingly and eagerly?”
Can I just tell you that Lent completely snuck up on me this year. I mean, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but as I scrolled through my Facebook feed yesterday I saw a post about Ash Wednesday and had to remember what day it was and if THIS Wednesday was the Wednesday they were talking about. It was.
Can I also admit I immediately felt burdened by it? Easter is my favorite holiday, truthfully, not in a “I just want to be different” sort-of way, so I love that in less than 40 days it will be here. But, right now I’m exhausted. I’m bogged down with so much life stuff that I feel like I can’t give Lent one ounce of me.
This is partly because I am in Bible Study Fellowship which is great, and I’ve recommended it so many times, but it is intensive weekly Bible study. There’s no extra time in this toddler mom’s days for a Lent study, too.
So what do I do? I start a Lent study anyway, of course – She Reads Truth to be exact. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Sometimes I wonder if it’s to subconsciously set myself up for failure.
Hi, my name is Liv and I’m single.
For the longest time that word grated on my nerves. It meant that something was inherently wrong with me, but I didn’t know exactly what that was. The years have passed and friends have gotten married with children, yet it feels like I’m still in the holding room waiting for something or someone to happen.
God had to break me out of the stronghold that my singleness was about me. It isn’t. Singleness and what I do with it is all about God.
