Teens and young adults I think are the most susceptible to this idea of not knowing who we are and going out to "find ourselves". We live with this mentality of if I can just figure out who I am then I can be happy and content.

What if I told you that you could have that peace and contentment with your life at this very moment?

Jesus offers us an unshakable identity when we find our identity in Him.

According to Romans 8:15, we are children of God and have inherited His kingdom. A very touching part of that verse of for me is the last part...

"And by him we cry, "Abba, Father".  

This just really speaks to me because if you think about the stereotypical relationship between a father and child-- that unrelenting, unconditional love and adoration, take that and multiply that infinitely amount of times and that's God's love for you and me.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that were are God's temple and that He dwells in every single one of us. Dwell is defined as "to live as a resident" or "to exist". That's incredibly empowering to me.

In Christ, we are also new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that the old has died and the new has come. We are not our past. We are so much more than that. We are God's children, and He loves us scandalously.

When we recognize our identity as set in Christ and not ourselves or someone or something else, we are free of condemnation. When Jesus died on the cross, He died for all sins-- that means past, present, and future. He died so our worth can be in Him and not in our performance because well, we're human, and humans suck; we're messy. We mess up all the time.

I want you to think of the worst thing you have ever done, and I want you to put yourself back in that place right now. Instead of listening to the voices of shame and guilt, I want you to hear God saying, "I love you. You are still my child. There is nothing you could ever do that could make me love you any less."

We will also not be devalued. With our identity set in Christ, we know and understand our worth, and there is nothing that anybody or anything can do to shake that. We can instead focus on building others up, instead of tearing them down; we can be the hands and feet of Jesus in our daily life.

With our identity in Christ, we can live in the peace and security and contentment of knowing exactly who we are.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is give up the fight of trying to find who you are and instead embrace your identity as a daughter or son of God. You are His, and I don't know of anything in this world that is better to hold your identity in other than that.

Happy Sunday! Feel free to leave a comment if you wish. xx

So, today I thought about I'd post about something that is super close to my heart since God has been doing some major work in my life through it here recently.

And that is.... forgiveness.

The first thing I want to say is that forgiveness is a lifestyle, not a one time action. It's a change of heart and mind, not a fluctuation of feeling one day.

When we truly forgive, we set ourselves free.

When we truly forgive, we are literally being the hands and feet of Jesus. It feels weird because culture and society, especially today, says "No. They hurt you. Are you crazy?"

Thing is, we hurt Jesus deeply repeatedly, unintentionally or intentionally. Yet, He forgives the same each time. Why should we not, as Christians, do the same for all the people in our life?

We are supposed to be a mirror for Jesus.

We are supposed to reflect Him and point others and ourselves back to Him in everything we do.

True forgiveness is forgiving without the other person saying or doing anything at all and then forgetting everything that happened.

It's being able to look them in the eye and not feeling the hurt and pain that once was there, but instead feeling nothing but wanting the best for that person without having to have any sort of relationship with that person.

I also want to say that when I'm talking about forgiveness that I'm also talking about you forgiving yourself. Forgiving yourself, from my experience, is a critical first step to forgiving others.

I want to emphasize that forgiving and forgetting does not mean that you cannot learn from what happened still. This was something I struggled with, mainly when it came to forgiving myself. I felt like if I didn't hold onto that last little bit of control... that last little bit of resentment toward myself... that I would end up returning to that behavior.

And that's when my friend reminded me of the beauty of Jesus.

I told her that, and she smiled and shook her head: "Why could you not ask for forgiveness again?"

A few months later and other situations coming my way where I could have easily repeated that behavior, I find myself not repeating it because I have learned.

I think learning takes reflection.

There were many nights when I would sat with just my journal and Jesus, reflecting over everything that had happened. And I found that the closer I grew to Jesus and the more time I spent with Him, all I would hear was, "It's okay. There is nothing you could ever do that would make me love you any less. Now, please. Forgive yourself."

Forgiveness is amazing. I went from hating and being so angry toward this person to seeing myself crying on kitchen floor every time I saw or thought about them to being able to enjoy being in their presence again.

It was just as critical for me to forgive myself as it was to forgive the person that had hurt me. I definitely feel and whole heartedly believe we are our own worst enemy.

So, what do you say? Is there something God is wanting you to forgive yourself or someone else for? If  you want to leave a comment, feel free. If you don't, that's fine at the same time because this is between you and God first and foremost.

Happy Sunday!

I think that at some point in time that we all feel at a standstill in our walks with Jesus. I feel like this feeling is completely normal, though.

Flashback to this past fall, and that was me. I felt stuck, so I talked to my pastor about it. The Bible was extremely intimidating to me; I never felt equipped enough to read it on my own, I guess, let alone journal about it! He suggested I read a book called Jesus Is by Judah Smith.


After talking with my pastor and reading this book, I had a confidence instilled in me that I could read the Bible. It was something that God had equipped me to do.

So now, I knew I could do it... I just wasn't sure as to exactly how I was going to do it, specifically the journaling aspect of it.

One of my good friends from church had been consistently in her Bible and journaling everyday since January 2, 2015, and so I asked her for a little bit of advice.

She told me something that completely made me rethink journaling. She told me that it's something personal and that there's really not any way to incorrectly do it.

Once she told me that, I took that and ran with it, and I have never so close to Jesus in my life than I do right now.

I figured I'd do this post, just in case, one of you is looking for some inspiration or some way of doing it.

So, here we go.

I journal 2 times a day with my Jesus music playing softly in the background.

The first being in the morning after my quiet time. This usually consists of me copying down the verses I've underlined. (I underline verses that stick out to me.) Some days I write about a verse that stuck out to me, other days I just copy down verses.

It'll usually look something like this:

(Please ignore my awful handwriting!)