It all starts with the heart...

   Today begins a new journey for me, but yet not so new. While I am a new "blogger" I have been a journal-er since I was 10 years old. I was given my first journal as a gift from a church friend,  I had never journaled before but I knew immediately this idea of expressing ones thoughts, dreams, fear, prayers, and greatest desires through the written word would be a life long passion for me after my first entry.
    I have filled several journals over the years, some with sweet quiet time memoirs from God's word, some with sweet innocent childhood fantasies, and some with great sorrow; page after page of tear stained words. While I don't linger on the these writings, on occasion I am drawn in to the writings of my childhood and get mesmerized by the constant thread of God's hand all the way through my teens, college days, and early married years. I am amazed, humbled, and inspired by His constant hand holding mine through every path I have traveled.
   My journaling is no longer just for me to reflect on or my children to read long after I am gone (oh how that should be entertaining!!). I want to share my words in hopes to encourage, challenge, and inspire other women. I have recently been under the conviction to minister to women; mothers, sisters, wives, singles, young, and old. I am not sure how God plans to use me because quite frankly I am a hot mess most days (lets be honest, twice in the past week I may have put my underwear on wrong side out and not noticed until half way through the day or my husband pointed it out... please tell me I not the only women who does that?!).  So while I am feeling inadequate and unworthy I am stepping out with fear and trembling that God will use my messy redeemed life to speak to someone today.

   In the past weeks, I have sat down to write this first entry so many times and just wasn't sure what God wanted me to say. Yesterday I was reading from "Connected" by Erin Davis and felt God just say it doesn't matter what you say just share your heart because this new adventure isn't about YOU saying the perfect words its about connecting with other women, its about sharing MY story through your life. God is good isn't he? Just when I start to get caught up in my worries (disillusioned as they are!) he comes to my side and replaces my worries with his confidence. 

Matthew 19:26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

Ironically that's the verse I taught our home group kids a few weeks ago. Coincidence? I don't think so! 

   Recently God has put it on my heart to de-clutter my life, well I guess it all began last August. I was going to be teaching full time again for the first time in 4 years, my husband was starting a new job, my 4 kids were starting a new school, and we were moving! All good things, no... AWESOME things, things we had been praying and begging God for, for years. We were overwhelmed with God's goodness!! Through all the changes and blessings I felt an overwhelming need to make sure I was being the best steward of these blessings that I could, but I really wasn't sure what needed to change in my life to do that. On August 24th, 2014 (the day before my 32nd birthday) I made a last minute decision to attend a woman's conference at a church near my home, Lysa Teurkerst was speaking and I knew she was a gifted writer speaker but I had no idea how God was going to use her words that night to change my heart. She was speaking about her "The Best Yes" book and while the whole conference was wonderful, one statement just grasped my heart and I haven't been able to get past is 

“When a woman lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule, she’ll ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul.” 

That was me! God was literally pouring blessings on my families life and yet I felt like I was still somehow missing something and I WAS! I was not allowing my schedule to reflect God's work in my life because I was that crazy rushed mom that seemed to be running circles around her family but never really connecting with her family. My heart or as God's Word calls it "wellspring" was contaminated with all the things I felt I needed to be doing to be a good mom and wife; financial security, nice house, nice clothes, regular church appearance, smiling faces, social status etc. None of those things are bad but none of these things had anything to do with connecting with my family. I wasn't really ministering to my family, my precious children's hearts were starved for the gospel and I was more concerned with my next photo shoot to make some extra money to pay for something we didn't really need. I love how in a recent conversation with writer Erin Davis put it 

"my children are my unreached people group"  

I was missing this!! Missing the opportunity to minister to my husband through common activity and just daily heart conversations. So, I made a choice that night, I would begin slowing down, begin changing my schedule to allow for God's schedule. I am still de-cluttering, still making changes, still learning to best plan my schedule to allow for God appointments. I am also failing, I still get caught up in the "rush" but God is changing my heart and that's where it all starts... 

Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.

If you are wondering where is the point? If your life is crazy, if the things that are "flowing from your life" are not aligned with Gods word, or maybe you are just feeling that "underwhelmed soul" I challenge you to examine your heart. What are you placing in the wellspring of your life? Are you contaminating it? Or are you purifying it? Lysa Teurkerst uses the example to "anchor our hearts to God's wisdom" that's the key to all of this mess... That's the key to guarding our hearts.