A love that carries me

When I was a little girl, I learned about Jesus. My parents taught me about Him from a young age and how if I asked Him to, He would live in my heart. Since then, I've always had this image of a cartoon Jesus tucked away in my heart. Sort of like a toy in my pocket. Kinda funny right? Well I guess it's sort of a nice sentiment to imagine that The Lord just hangs out with us, waiting till we need Him, and that's how I always thought of it. My whole life!

Y'all it's so different though. Last night I had a dream. In the dream I was walking. On beaches, through trees, and through all sorts of places. After a while of walking, I said, "Jesus sometimes I forget to carry you with me and I don't want to be that way." And just as clear as day, Jesus said I didn't have to! He said not to worry because the whole point was for Him to carry ME.

Wow.

This dream has been on my mind all morning and I've been praying about it, trying to understand. I know we've all heard the "footprints" poem about The Lord carrying the guy through the tough times. I think it's more than that though, I think what The Lord wants us to know is that he wants His love to carry us into and through the good times too. Because being a follower of Christ requires a complete surrender, a complete change of heart, and most importantly, a complete relinquish of control. When you finally allow The Lord to carry you, things like the direction of your life and where you are going, become out of your control and there's no longer a need to figure them out. And even smaller worries like how your day will go, vanish.

I would just like to challenge you today to just allow The Lord to begin to carry you, not just through the bad times, but through the good times too. I think you will be surprised at how much His love will envelop you if you let it. Because let's face it. That's all he really wants anyways.. To love you.

xo

Victoria

Seeking the King

So the last few Sunday evenings the husband and I have been watching that series "The Bible" on The History Channel. Have you? It's so good. In case you haven't seen it, basically they took The Bible, pulled all the major highlights out and made a series out of it. Each episode is 2 hours long and they run until Easter Sunday. It's really cool and I hope they make it available on DVD because I'd love to own it! 

Anyways, as I've mentioned before, I was raised in a Christian home, and went to church my whole life so most of these stories are pretty familiar to me. I mean I remember David and Goliath and Daniel in the lions den, I learned about them through puppet skits and little cartoon characters on a felt board as a child, and I've heard so many sermons preached on them. I guess that's why I took them for granted for so long and honestly remembered them as the puppet skits and cartoons I first learned them as. Watching this series though has really opened my eyes. God did some really cool stuff. No seriously! And I feel like sometimes we forget. Sometimes we think of Him as this nice big guy in white that lives in the clouds and hangs out until we beg Him enough to do something for us. But guys He's so much more than that! 

Lately The Lord has been challenging me in my prayer life and it's so tough. I was praying the other day, probably going down my list of wants, needs, and wishes and the Lord stopped me in my tracks. Sometimes when He speaks, it's like He's in the room. It's so loud and clear and hard impossible to ignore. He gave me a bit of a challenge and asked me who I thought I was to constantly speak to the Lord as if He were my hand maiden. Woah. 

As believers, sometimes I feel like it's so easy to get caught up in making a "to do" list for the Lord. We spend so much time marking down situations and circumstances that we want the Lord to intervene in. But how much time do we spend actually talking to God like a friend? I'm not saying that He doesn't care about our needs and we should just figure things out ourselves, but I'd like to submit to you that the time we spend asking the Lord for things should be far outweighed by the time we spend seeking Him and just trying to get to know Him. Tough? Yeah I know. But I mean think about it, would you want a friend or a loved one to only communicate with you when they wanted something? I wouldn't. Not at all. Well believe it or not, God is no different. Jesus sacrificed on the cross so that we were no longer indentured servants and could instead come boldly before the throne of the everlasting father. Not just so that we could have His help with things in our lives, But for something more beautiful. Jesus sacrificed so that we could get to know our creator, so that we could fall in love with Him.

There's a Phil Wickham song I love called "Beautiful," listen to it if you get the chance. Anyways, the first line of the song says, 

      "I see your face in every sunrise, the colors of the morning are inside your eyes."

I love it. I'd just like to challenge you today to do less "to do list" reading and more seeking, and taking time to stop more often and just discover the beauty of our King.

xo

Victoria

5 Things on a Friday

So I'm going to be doing these Friday posts a little bit differently than in the past. I know I have kind of used them as an outlet for my randomness once a week, but from now on I'm going to start featuring 5 things I'm currently crushing on. Sometimes these will be fashion or beauty related, and sometimes they won't be, but I hope you enjoy! 

So this week is a pretty eccentric mix of things but y'all should know that I'm also mildly obsessed with everything in the picture above! I mean these fabulous little finds made the first cut, right?! Lets jump right in! 

{starting from the far left side of the picture}

1. Volumizing Lash Powder by Essence- Ok so I told y'all I have an obsession with eyelashes right? I wasn't joking. A friend of mine told me about this "volumizing powder" and I'm pretty sure I brushed her off at first and thought to myself, "she's out of her mind." Sorry friend. BUT thankfully she convinced me let me try it! So here's how it works, its basically a little baby jar of white cotton like fibers that comes with a mascara wand. All you do is put on a thin coat of mascara, then use the wand (not the one from your mascara silly!) to apply some of this powder to your lashes while your mascara is still wet. Then give it a sec and apply mascara again. (side note: it's white so you'll look a little weird but trust me.) Then poof! Your lashes will seriously look fake. No joke! It's the weirdest thing. And the best thing is that this little jar of fabulous only costs $3 at Ulta so you have no excuse not to try it! My asthetician told me that other, more premium brands make something similar and they are upwards of $30!! So yay for this $3 find! 

2. Almond Hand and Nail Butter by The Body Shop- I'm from Texas, where winter (real winter!) doesn't exist. So things like cracking hands, etc aren't really an issue if you use lotion with any sort of regularity. Well things changed for me when I moved up North because let me tell you, extreme cold, washing hands, and then constantly living in super dry, heated environments does a number on your skin. It really does! Mine were cracking, bleeding, and just hurting and looking pretty gross. I found this stuff a couple years back at the Denver airport, and it seriously is the only thing that really works and heals my hands when they're dry! It's super smooth, really thick, and seriously buttery, and it doesn't wear off after just one hand washing! It's a bit pricey (about $20 for the smallest jar-- which is the size I have) but the jars last a good while and it really really works y'all. My mom always said that your hand's will betray your age before your face so I always try to take care of mine, and this stuff has been a life saver!

3. Chobani Vanilla Greek Yogurt- Ok I know this is random but seriously I have almost finished that huge jar you see there in less than a week. I eat it for breakfast, snacks, and even sometimes dessert! It's a bit more tart than traditional vanilla yogurt but it has less fat and sugar, and wayyy more protien! I just add some granola for crunch and yum!! I'm so hooked. Try it! 

4. High Brow Glow by Benefit- Ok so this is fabulous y'all! It's a chubby little pencil, kinda like an eyeliner that is a gorgeous little champagne/ platinum color used for brow highlighting! What is brow highlighting you say? Well basically it's an old makeup artist trick where you apply white or pearl eye shadow under the arches of your brows to make them appear higher. With the pencil, all you do is apply it directly under the arches of your brows (and then smear it a bit with your fingers) for an instant brow lift! It's great in this super cute, super convenient pencil format! I love it for when I'm doing my makeup on the go... oh wait, I'm always on the go since I'm chronically running late. sshhh! I think I paid maybe $16 or $18 for it and it was totes worth it! 

5. Jesus Calling Daily Devotional by Sarah Young- This is probably the best thing on this list because it has helped me get to a whole new level in my walk with the Lord and my alone time with him. Each day has a "message" of sorts from the Lord. All are based in scripture but they are written in a format where it's more like a letter or love note, instead of your more traditional "thou art..." scripture. Each day is about a paragraph or 3 long and has all the scriptures referenced listed at the end. The main focus of the book is for the reader to learn to live or be challenged to choose to live in a constant state of fellowship with the Lord, which I love because I truly believe that our goals should be more about doing this and not so much about how good we can be. This book is at once encouraging and challenging and if you are looking for a little somethin to suppliment your devotional time or are just looking to get started in the morning prayer department, this is your book. I picked up my copy at Target and it has been something I really look forward to each morning. Time with the Lord in the morning is seriously the only thing that gets me through the day. I'm a total wreck without it.

Well y'all, that's my list! Hope you'll try one (or all!) of these little treasures! Do you have any current crushes to share? I'd love to hear them! 

 I also hope you all have a fabulous, and restful weekend! I will be at the counter all weekend so stop by and see me if you can! 

xo
Victoria

Catch up!

{I've decided to take advantage of the Catch-up, ketchup pun. Obviously.}

So it's been a bit of a whirlwind in my world and I have totally been neglecting you beautiful people! So sorry! Work has been busy insane, we thought we were getting a transfer to Buffalo so we were scrambling to move (we're not going anywhere and believe it or not, I'm thrilled!),  and now we are transitioning into a few interesting changes with the husband's job and have lately been just trying to keep our heads above water! Sheesh! Anyways, I have had so much on my heart and mind for you. I'm not going to try to cram everything into one post but I do have a few things I feel like we need to ketchup (hahaha!!) on that you may have to excuse the randomness of this post! 

Can I just say first of all that I am SO beyond excited for Spring and Summer? Around these parts, winter is unfortunately still in full swing, but I'm holding on to hope that spring is just around the corner! I can't wait for all the new outfit options! I'm totally getting to the point where I'm just sick of looking at my long sleeves! 

With that said, it's about time for me to grab a stack of magazines and spend some time brushing up on the trends for the new seasons! Does anyone else do that?? It's my favorite! I usually have a few fashion industry sites I check too, so usually by the time I'm finished, I've got a good idea about what is going on. Just give me a glass of wine and I'm good for an evening! I do this every season and I'm excited about doing it again soon! 

The Lord has been teaching me sooo many new things lately and honestly blessing me with some awesome time alone with Him. It's been wonderful. I have so much more to share in that department but I promise that is for another post. I really believe that the Lord pours into us so that we can pour out into others and it's so great to have this little old blog to share what's been on my heart lately. 

Well y'all, I'm BACK!! And I promise I will be more diligent about posting. No more neglect! How have you been? What's been new? Anything exciting on the horizon? Leave some comments y'all because I love hearing from you! 

xo

Victoria