Conversations with a Conservative

So I said I may be MIA until after April 13th, and I have held pretty true to that!  I have been studying (or attempting to, I get distracted very easily) so I haven’t been around to blog or do much of anything.  My house – disaster.  Laundry – piled high.  Kitchen sink – thankfully the hubby keeps up on that! Anyway, I have had some realizations in just the last week that I wanted to share and jot down for my memory’s sake.  First, I realized this last week that I had to surrender this exam to God.  I didn’t really know what that meant, but anytime I felt anxious or afraid, I would pray.  I would ask that God would take this exam from me and show me how to surrender it to Him.  I would also pray that the Holy Spirit would be with me and guide me (I’m not sure if I am supposed to talk to the Holy Spirit or ask God to ask the Holy Spirit – remember, this Holy Spirit relationship is very new to me.)  Anyway, I have spent this time time trying...

This spiritual awakening God is blessing me with has been a long time coming.  I was spiritually dead for a while, but then the Holy Spirit, in spite of me, started stirring in my soul.  I don’t know why, but boy am I glad.  The stirring is what lead us to a different church, but then it felt like I was always on the brink of something big, but I could never quite breakthrough the barriers I was putting up.  Finally, at our church’s womens’ retreat last April, I sat crying and praying out to God to help me, to show me how to breakthrough and I know I finally am.  It has taken almost all of this last year, and I am still learning daily, but I am hearing the Spirit and knowing God and relying on Him in so many ways.  I feel like that is a lot of what I am writing about lately because He is finally starting to fully be part of all of my life, not just the areas I let Him in the past. Ironically, the women’s retreat this year starts on the day of the dreaded ...

Thanks for going on my spiritual journey with me!  I just felt like I needed to process it all and get it out there.  It has been so amazing for me and I just hope that I keep calling out to God and Holy Spirit so He can just keep revealing His truths to me.  Okay, so here is something pretty silly, but y'all know I like (ok have an obsession) with handbags, right?  I mean I have loved them for as long as I can remember.  I used to go through them pretty quickly and just buy cheap ones often.  However, once I got into college, I really began to value the classic, leather handbag that I could keep for more than just one season.  I think all of my handbags are leather now, except for any Vera Bradley stuff I have, and I just love using them all and shopping my closet when I want a new handbag.  Let's be honest, though, it is still fun to buy a new one every once in a while.  No worries - my frugality prevails.  Every time I think I'll sa...

So on this journey I am learning to go to God and the Holy Spirit whenever I need Him - especially when I start hearing lies from satan and most of them come in some sort of fear.  I have been feeling very fearful and overwhelmed and worried about this PE exam coming up.  I want to pass so badly, and I fear that I won't.  I finally realized last week that I was feeling this anxiety because I was trying to deal with it and not give it to God.  I asked for the Holy Spirit to come in and take over, and He did!  Here is an email I sent to my Bible study gals because we are supposed to share His work with each other.  I am just going to let you read it so I don't have to try and type it all again.  This is where I am now: Hi Ladies!  I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday! I had just a couple of things I wanted to share, and I was afraid if I waited until tomorrow night I would forget it, plus a couple of things are links to a website I wanted...

*Disclaimer - I am not a  theologian or a seminary student.  I am just a child of God and I'm sharing my personal journey.  If you have any questions, you can always ask me, but I urge you to read the Bible to find these things out, because I may not be saying it all in the most understandable way.  Always read the Bible to know the truths of God and His word! So I started this blog series with a title about the Forgotten God (this is a great book by Francis Chan, by the way), but I have realized I did forget this part of God.  This part is the Holy Spirit.  Again, in my background, the church would mention the Holy Spirit, but we never really talked about it or studied it, and I definitely never understood it.  In fact, it was about a year ago in a women's Bible study at church that I heard something for the first time that changed my life, "Jesus left the Holy Spirit on earth to be with us until He came back."  What?!  No one had ever tol...

So I left off yesterday with our search for a new church.  I did feel God leading me away from the same type of church I grew up in at this point, and I also felt like that would be fair to the husband.  We needed a change.  We started googling churches in our area - kind of weird, but that is the age we live in these days.  Like I mentioned yesterday, my first thing was to go straight to their doctrinal statement and make sure it was Biblical and we agreed with it.  We tried a few churches, but again, the one where the people just welcomed us was ultimately where we landed.  In fact, there was another church we also really loved, but we felt like they wanted us to build up a young couples group and we had spent 5 years trying to lead that at our last church so we worn out, but it was very welcoming too. We landed at a Bible church, and it did take me a few Sundays of telling myself, "it is just different, not weird."  It was new for me to be in Bibl...

I'm a Christian.  I think that has been fairly evident on my blog, but if not, now you know. I grew up going to church, and I loved my church and the people in it.  I came to really understand and know Christ back in August of 2009 while at church camp in Colorado, but then satan went to work on me and I slowly started losing my fire.  I didn't lose my belief, and I talked to God often, but something just always seemed like it was missing.  I wasn't quite there or something.  I just thought I wasn't one of those people God talked to and went on living my life.  More on this later. I went to a Christian university, but I quickly realized it wasn't much like my church where I grew up (I don't really want to mention the specific church/school I grew up going to because I really love my home church and the issues I found with my church can happen at any church, it is not denominational specific, some may be more prone to legalism, but it can happen any...

However, I have done pretty good so far with the studying (I hope anyway) so I decided I didn't want to go for forever without posting anything.  Plus, Murphy's Law, I had been feeling uninspired with blogging topics and once I don't really have time I realized that I had a lot I wanted to share.  My blog (old and new) have gone through many transformations, and the latest was blogging about what I wear.  I have no idea why.  I started randomly reading fashion blogs and got inspired and it seemed fun.  However, I don't have the time or camera or style to really be a fashion blogger  (or the money, except that there is a great group of gals who share their thrifty finds which is awesome!)  So I'll probably still post outfits sometimes just because it is fun for me and helps me stretch my current wardrobe because one thing I have learned is that I don't need any more clothes or anything.  I know I will still probably buy some items, but I am tr...