Having Joy Through Hardships

Right now, I’m sick. It is Good Friday. We have a program at our church but I’m home because I have a very low-grade fever and mainly just feel too tired to go.

About a week ago I began memorizing James 1:5, for a few days I was studying the surrounding passage. It is about having joy during trials and asking God for wisdom on how to be joyful in trials. I posted about joy a few months ago and here I am again. God must be showing me something 😉

Before I continue I want to make a disclaimer and say, yes, I am aware that getting sick is not considered a trial to everyone and definitely not as big as being persecuted for your faith or a family members death.

Right now, this is what I’m struggling with. It feels like a big deal to me because I love the traditions I have with my family at Easter and want to enjoy them. I also am planning on spending spring break at the beach with my friend for her birthday and have really been looking forward to that. None of this will happen if I’m sick, but God has taught me through this.

In front of people I’ve had a lot more trouble trusting God than by myself. I’ve been praying James 1:5 and I keep giving my worries back to God. It has brought me closer to God. This is teaching me to trust God. He has a plan. He will redeem the bad things that happen in our lives for good.

Your trial is probably different from mine. We all get them at some point or another. God uses everything for His glory, even our mistakes or Satan’s schemes. You are right. I don’t know what you are going through. Yes, I’m sure it is hard not to question God or wonder why this is happening.

Try to give it to Him. I’ve spent more time with God the past few days then I have since the missions trip I went on maybe. It feels good. Spending time with God doesn’t just mean praying and scripture reading, though it can. I’ve been listening to an amazing Spotify playlist of praise music. I’ve been doing some Bible journaling as well. Something I have been praying is that God won’t let me waste this opportunity to serve him.

Whatever kind of struggle you are going through. Look at it as a way to practice joy and pray that God will not let you waste this wonderful opportunity.

Have a fun spring break!

-Rebekah

***UPDATE: I’m better and had a wonderful Easter and I’m at the beach right now.***

 

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What is Easter all About?

Crosses, the Easter bunny, lent, egg hunts, and candy galore— why is Easter so important and why do Christians celebrate it?

No one knows exactly when Easter began but now it is celebrated in many countries around the globe. For Christians, we celebrate Easter as the time when we commemorate Jesus dying for our sins and conquering death by coming back to life three days after He was killed. Sounds pretty remarkable, right?

It can be hard to comprehend all Jesus did for us. For my devotions this morning, I read through all four gospel’s accounts of Jesus’s death (if you want to read about it too check out Matthew 27 & 28, Mark 15,  Luke 23 & 24, and/or John 19 & 20). I feel like I have a new appreciation for how much Jesus did for me. He experienced so much hardship that He did not have to go through. He could have stayed comfortable in heaven and let us mess up and go to hell, because that is what we deserved.

Instead, He went through many difficult thing. He sweated blood and begged God for some other way to save us but went through with it despite His feelings. He was betrayed by one of His close friends. He was falsely accused multiple times for “sins” he had not committed. He was ridiculed, spat on, and punched. He was mocked while dressed as a “king”. He was beaten with a staff, flogged, and ultimately crucified (a horrific Roman death which you can learn more about here).

There are two reasons why it is extraordinary that He did this. First:

To God it doesn’t matter if you’ve committed adultery or told one lie, you are tainted by sin. Key point: Jesus has never sinned. That made Him the perfect sacrifice, unlike us.  He went through all of these awful things and He did not in any way deserve any of them. He chose to because He loved you and me. We are the ones who deserve to be killed and crucified. Because of what He did, we can live forever in Heaven. He has conquered death!

Secondly:

This is still true today isn’t it? It is very unlikely that a person would die for someone else. It is almost unheard of that someone,would die for a murderer or someone who is not a “good” person. Jesus did. In the next verse it says,

We didn’t clean up our act and then God thought, oh maybe I’ll send Jesus down to save them. We were sinning and He came down anyway. This truth is something to celebrate.

This is why Christians celebrate Easter. It marks the time when Jesus saved us from our hopelessness. If we believe that Jesus died and rose and ask him to forgive our sins, he will. Then, we are able to go to heaven.

If you don’t know Jesus very well (or at all) I challenge you to learn more about Him, what He did on Easter, and why it is so important. This coming Easter consider going to church. Check it out. You never know what you might discover.

If you already are a follower of Jesus, thank him for His amazing salvation. How can you let your light shine for Him this Easter season and furthermore?

Have a blessed and peaceful Easter!

-Rebekah

Using a Bullet Journal in Blogging {{Collab w/ Hayley}}

I’m doing a collab today!! Hayley (my BFFL who writes at FlourishingbyRestfulFalls) and I like bullet journaling, so we decided to do a collaboration about it. We wanted to show ya’ll how to use it with your blog. Everyone is unique and so we wanted to show the different ways we use our bullet journals to enhance our blog.

You can check out her post here. She has also posted other bullet journaling inspiration on her blog so make sure to go read some of her posts. For the record, I was the one who got Hayley into bullet journaling, so I deserve the credit 😉 😉

I use my bullet journal four different ways to manage blogging (There are so many others! Just do a quick search on Pintrest). Here they are:

#1

12 posts for 2017 list

I use it to keep track of what I want to post. I guess this would be a mix between an editorial calendar and a post idea list. I love blogging as a hobby, so I don’t give myself extremely high expectations for it. At the beginning of the year I wrote down twelve post ideas that I wanted to write this year (that is once a month, which is not very hard). Every time I complete one of them I check it off.

#2

Master list of blog post ideas

I keep a running list of all my blog post ideas. Usually my post ideas come to me through out the day randomly (for instance when I”m practicing playing the piano). I write these down in my bullet journal. I have them somewhat color coded by topic. Nothing super strict but a general idea. This is awesome because whenever I need a post idea I can glance at this and I’m bombarded by ideas.

#3

Making April’s tracker

March’s completed tracker

I created a tracker to help me track my habits. In the top I write the different category’s and then everyday I complete them I color in the box. At the end of them month you can see if you completed your habits and it also looks aesthetically pleasing. I looked back on my March tracker and I was extremely consistent (sorry I wasn’t able to take an updated picture of it!). The tracker really helped me want to and remember to read the posts in my reader and such.

You can also do this with non-blog related things as well.

#4

Blogging things that make me smile

Inspiration page

Finally, I created an inspiration page in my bullet journal to keep my inspired. Here I write (very colorfully) various reasons why I love blogging, specifically, ‘blogging things that make me smile.’

It is really fun and inspiring to write down new things. I can look back at them and get inspiration to write more.

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Those are the ways I use bullet journaling to help me blog! Don’t forget to check out Hayley’s post here.

Do you use a bullet journal? If so, how? If you don’t, do you want to start one?

Have a wonderful day!

-Rebekah

 

Pick a Prompt

Hi! You may or may not know that I LOVE writing. I just don’t post my writing very often, but I want to start doing it more. I have found a few prompts that have been sitting in my Pinterest board waiting to be used (Click here to follow me). I have so many ideas but I need your help to decide which one to post first.  Feel free to use any of these prompts (DISCLAIMER: I didn’t make these up, if you want to know where they are from follow the link). Vote using the poll down below and I’ll write a story using the prompt with the most votes.

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That’s all for this post! Have a great day and remember that tomorrow is Friday 😉

P.s. Here is my picture for BIBPC

It’s my cat eating a stink bug, haha. The stink bug is the critter.

Ugh, pollen allergies are not funny. Does anybody else have them?