How to Pray for Your Husband… When You Don’t Know If He Exists
Praying for your future husband shouldn’t be the only thing on your prayer list by any means. But if you struggle with contentment, route your discontented thoughts into prayer. As one of my dear friends told me: “worrying is praying for what you don’t want”. Don’t worry about being single. Pray for wisdom, strength, humility, and a desire for the God who loves you – the same God who loves your future mate.
Singleness is Not a Problem to Be Fixed
I view singleness as a testing period, the reward of which is received through perseverance. I believe this is true because it is true for every other stage of life. Good marriages don’t just “show up” – you have to persevere in love, trust, and respect. Good kids don’t just “appear” – you have to teach, train, guide, and discipline children in the truth. And good single years don’t just “happen” – you have to persevere through the pain, loneliness, and discontent to live these years to their utmost possibility.
Why Am I Still Single? (And Other Questions)
Update: the first post in the series is live! Click here to read “Am I Single Because I’m Doing Something Wrong?” I used to stand by the fence lining our back pasture and watch the sun set, and when I did, I often prayed the same prayer: “Dear...
How to Conquer a Critical Spirit
This post is part of the Broken and Beautiful series, a discussion of beauty and identity. I finally met her in person at a lingerie shower for a friend. I had seen her from afar and we shared dozens of mutual friends, but I had never approached her – partially...
5 Ways Comparison Defeats You
“After this baby is born, I’m writing an entire series on why you shouldn’t believe anything you read on the internet concerning pregnancy.” I said to my husband, slapping my laptop shut. He chuckled. “So they shouldn’t believe...
Why Telling Ourselves We’re Beautiful Will Never Be Enough
This post is a part of the series The Broken and Beautiful, a discussion of identity, self-perception, and beauty.
I stood in front of the mirror and frowned. What had once been the outline of my abs was disappearing overnight, my face was broken out in all-new places, and I could point out several other flaws at the drop of a hat. Mr. M poked his head in the bathroom door.
“You’re beautiful.”
I smiled wanly. “At least you think so.”
I am now five months pregnant with Baby M, and though I’ve been able to hide my growing body underneath my regular clothes so far (thank heavens for blousy trends!), it is growing more difficult by the week. Not just that, but I’ve seen the visible changes as I get dressed each morning and hastily cover up my “undesirable” to put best face forward in my world.
Many of you are like me. Pregnant or not, you look in the mirror and cringe at what you see; then you cover up the “undesirable” before facing your world.
Why Uncertainty Is Necessary
A few days ago I received my Commencement packet in the mail. As I flipped through the pages, I was in something of a daze considering how long this day has been in coming. Hours of late night work, crying over papers I was sure would be the death of me, doing my best to keep up my grades through engagement, wedding, full time job and then early stages of pregnancy – and here I am: graduation!
Until my last class concluded in March I had always been sure of two things: I had to finish my degree, and we (Mr. M and I) needed to pay off his student loans to become debt-free. In March, I finished my Bachelor of Science in Religion and we made our last payment to Sallie Mae. I wanted to shout: “I’m FREEEEE!”
Once the excitement died down, however, I realized the things I had worked toward for so many years were now complete. The things that were certain were gone. Suddenly, the future seemed clouded with a fog of options and uncertainties, completely out of my control.
Every month I reassess my goals using Lara Casey’s PowerSheets. As I wrote down my goals for May I looked back at the goals I’d listed for 2015. I was a little astonished at what I could check off.
What I Learned From My Parents’ Marriage
http://phyliciamasonheimer.com/what-i-learned-from-my-parents-marriage-guest-post/
Life Isn’t Meant to Be Easy
“You are going to be white if it kills me.”
I plopped the bucket on my kitchen floor and got down on my knees, scrub brush in hand. The grout in my kitchen tile is the bane of my existence. I’ve tried bleach, I’ve tried baking soda and vinegar, my good ole’ Murphy’s Oil Soap – nothing would make the grout white. So on my day off I decided to attack the tile with full force: baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.
What began as a small, ‘quick’ project turned into a five-hour affair of misery.
First, I ran out of baking soda (some planning would have been nice). So, I thought, isn’t washing soda pretty much the same thing?
Friends, washing soda is not the same thing as baking soda.
The washing soda and peroxide paste morphed into cement. It took an extra half hour of scrubbing, splattering all over my stove, cupboards, and refrigerator, two bruised knees and a lot of paper towel to remedy my little experiment.
I will never again tell my floor to “kill me” in order for it to be clean. Because it will.