Oh, my dear, sweet, friend. Your spidey sense just always knows. The day you left this comment I was having a bad moment, just starting to feel the weight of too much to do and too much stress, and still a lot of pain. Your sweet face and words were just what I needed.

I realized about the middle of January that I only had health insurance until March 22nd. My schedule has been power-booked with doctor appointments while I have been researching and deciding on new health insurance. I use the phrase “health insurance” very loosely here, you know, the kind where the deductible is so high that you’re paying everything yourself, PLUS your premium. I also had another setback with my pulled muscle, the same one that I’ve been dealing with for the past year. Blah. I’m so done with that. I am hoping come the end of March, when I have most of this off my plate, that things will be back to normal once again. I have had so many ideas on things to write and make (I’m making notes.), but I have just had no time or emotional energy left to dive in with all of the deadlines I have bearing down one me. I cannot wait to be back full force. I’m so ready to be done with this month and to get my life back.

I cannot tell you how much your friendship means. I think of you and the others so many times throughout my day. I cannot wait to get back and start connecting more. Thank you so much, my sweet friend. I hope YOU are healing and feeling better. We are all quite the mess. How wonderful it would be to all be close and healing together. We are in spirit. xo

I wanted to come by and check in on you, as I felt a tug on my heart to do so. I hope and pray you are well, and not hurting. Healing and not suffering. You are His Great Workmanship… You are a Miraculous Masterpiece.

Truly,

Chris <3 (And although I really have no right to claim God's name in this comment, I will safely assume this little note was from Him too.)

Good for you, Lana! We tend to think if we are Christians that we automatically have all this, that we automatically know and do these things. I am a very long work in progress. It makes me really glad that my salvation does not depend on me and doing everything right. Ha ha.

You and I both have struggled with anxiety and fear, and those emotions are so detrimental to our faith. I love that we are both doing something about that and feeding our minds healthy and faith-filled thoughts every day. I still feel like I struggle, but if I am fair to myself, I have walked through some pretty tough doors over the past few years, and I am in a much better place mentally than I ever thought I would be as these things began to unfold and actualize in our lives over the past year. I know there are going to be some tough days ahead, and I feel that twinge of anxiety, but then I tell myself that it’s going to be OK. God’s got this. And more than that, I believe He has good things for me and my future. That is far, so FAR, from where I was a few years ago. I’m not where I want to be, but I am no where near where I used to be either. It sounds like you are on the same path…feeling better every day. I love that you mentioned the word habits. It really is about changing what we do every day and creating better habits. It becomes our new life. Isn’t that such a wonderful thought? xo

He really does love his mom and her faith, Ceil. When he tells the story, there is a point where you can here the faith in the words and way she said them to him. This story really spoke to me, because while I recognized the confident way she dealt with this, I had to ask myself if I had ever had that where prayer and faith were concerned. Had my children ever seen that? I would love to have that, and I would love for my children to see that in action in my life.

It sounds like we are in a similar place, Ceil. I’ve been doing a lot of work in this area. The verse about taking every thought captive has been coming to my mind a lot. I reminded myself today that it doesn’t say we won’t have thoughts we shouldn’t have. It basically says that we will have them. It just says to take them captive. Joel has even talked about that in a sermon I heard last year. I can be so guilty of thinking that everyone else has it all together in this area, but the truth is we are all a work in progress and deal with this one. It does take a lot of work, though, creating new habits, taking old thoughts captive, and learning to think better thoughts. Here’s to taking those old thoughts captive and having a joyful 2015. xo

I know, Chris. I cannot hear enough on this subject. I am definitely checking out Charity’s post. Thanks for letting me know about it. I’ve been listening to a series lately by someone else on the true nature of God, focusing on grace and love. I cannot hear that enough. We have so many old messages and self-condemnation inside of us the only thing that makes any sense is grace and love.

Thanks for letting me know about the video. I called Joel Osteen Ministries, and they were great about showing me where I could find it. I had no idea they had so many free, online videos on their website. They have some on youtube, but they have tons on their website. I’m so glad, too. It makes it a ministry. Anything else would have concerned me and honestly would have made me sad. I think the some of the confusion with the Youtube video was the unauthorized use, many doing this type of thing to run ads on them to make money, that and them wanting to know where and how they are being used, which is understandable. As a former portrait photographer, I have seen some crazy copyright infringement. Some photographers even using another photographer’s work as their own portfolio. I updated the post with the link to where to view the video. 🙂

Thanks again for pointing me to Charity’s post. I’m so looking forward to reading it! xo

(Your video seemed to not work. “Video was terminated due to third party copyright infringements”) BUMMER! You’d think good ol’ Joel, would WANT us all to hear this. 🙁