Friday 22 January 2016

Your Everything

If you or better yet, a stranger took a good look at your everything, what would they say it means? 
Would it mean you're ...

fun
loving
creative
spontaneous
organized
generous
patient
passionate
a lover of the King?

I have had the phrase "everything means something" in my head for about a week now and it was just tonight when I asked myself and God, is it true? Do I believe that everything means something? 

I think it's good to know why we do what we do. 

If a complete stranger took my everything

my conversations
my actions
my use of time
my thoughts
& even
my prayers

what would they say my everything says about me?
what would they say your everything means about you?

As I'm writing these words, I feel challenged. I've decided I believe it. I believe that my everything means something and I believe your everything means something too.  
Everything, right down to the way I interact with the grocery store cashier....it all points to something. Certainly we are human and can not be perfect in character at every moment. However, I do have to ask myself how often I let the challenges of life get the best of me and start letting "my everything" point in a direction that I'm not meaning for it to. 

At any point, we can change the direction that our everything points to. ------->>>
xo
SJB

Friday 15 January 2016

Salt & Light


Do you choose a word for the year? Or maybe a statement? Or a bible verse? What makes you choose the word that you decided on? It's a big commitment....one whole year of this one word being YOUR word.
Well I did choose a word this year, just as I have for the past 7 years. The first year that I chose my word it wasn't really me that made it all happen. Well, let me explain that. I was in the middle of some major life changes that were just all negative.
Side note - this is where I get unsure of how much of my mess to share.....after all, my mess isn't the point of telling the story but without letting you in at least a little, you won't see the full picture. *Sigh* Here goes nothing.
My marriage of 6 years along with all the dreams I ever hoped for (as far as I knew it) was coming to an end. I didn't have anywhere to live with my 2 year old munchkin. I had alienated myself and therefore didn't have friends around me. Thankfully my parents and I were in good relationship but they were living 3 hrs away trying to start a new life of their own. My living situation got figured out but the rest was still a mess. My heart ached and all I could think for months on end was "how did I get here".  I kept going over my big decisions, then my small decisions and everything in between wondering if that was where I went wrong.   
At some point while trying to figure out my life the new year came around. I was never one for new years resolutions but this year something had to change. I decided that I would choose one thing to change. The problem was, I didn't know what to choose. It seemed that so much had to change. I took it to the Lord.  He lovingly told me that I needed to decide where I want to go, what kind of mom I want to be, what kind of daughter I want to be, the kind of people I want to be around and the list went on. It hit me. I need to live with intention.
Intentional.
That was my very first word for the year. Everything I did and every decision I made was filtered through the lens of "is this living intentionally". I would ask myself, does this decision line up with the way I have decided I want to live? It was a lot of work and made me so very aware of where I had gone wrong. 
As you can imagine, living intentionally in the mess I had was a pretty big challenge so it was my word for about 4 years in a row. I guess that kinda makes it not really a "word of the year" but I loved the habit that started from letting "Intentional" be my word. I found myself automatically using that filter when making decisions. It was a new way of life and became much easier with time.
Two other words I had were FOCUS and FOLLOW. They also changed my way of thinking dramatically and I'm so grateful for the new filters that were put in my mind. 
This year I have been so busy with life changes that I hadn't thought about a work for the year at all. I did however find myself wanting to write out and hand stamp "Salt & Light" constantly. I was thinking on it and reading about it in the word as well. I guess God wasn't going to let me forget to choose this years word - He even chose it for me. 
When I've found myself thinking about what being salt & light means to me, I am quickly thinking about my boys and my husband. I want them to feel a ray of sunshine and a good taste in their mouth when they think of me and with every connection we make I pray that I can be their daily dose of salt & light. 
This little misshapen silver button pendant is coming out in my new collection February 1st! It is misshapen to represent that we don't have to be perfect to be salt and light. 

Thanks for reading friends!
OOOO <<<------- hugs! Love Sue