Receiving the gifts we already have.

This has been a wonderful weekend. Really, I am so grateful to God for bringing my friends here to experience my life with me. I will post about our many adventures soon but for now I am just going to share what I learned yesterday... hopefully as I share it with you it will sink deeper into my own heart, because I really want to get this right. 

Fun moments from our photo shoot Saturday. Joy is a beautiful thing. 

Two little girls receive gifts. They each open their own, but then immediately look at each other's gifts to see who got the better one... Inevitably they are not happy with their own, they want what the other one received.

Have you ever seen that before?

Or what about this...

Have you ever been sitting on Facebook looking at pictures of other people's lives, and then begun to wish that your life was different?
Have you ever looked at her & wished you had what she had?
Or dressed like she dressed?
Or traveled like they did?
Have you ever looked at him and wished you got what he got?

Singles wish they were married. Married ones envy the single. We live in one spot & wish we lived in another. He has this job, or went to this school, or ended up with this girl... but wishes he had done it another way... like that other guy did.

It happens all the time. Too much I think.

It is in our nature to reject what we have & wish for something else. Because somehow we convince ourselves that the grass is greener over there...


Yesterday morning I was encouraged as a Pastor prayed over us that we would,
"Receive the gifts we already have, and die to the ones we don't."



I love that. I love it because it is so easy to wish things were different, and obsess over all of the things I don't have. But when I do that I am missing my life's purpose completely.

This life here is temporary. There is nothing here that can truly satisfy me, and when I decide within myself that this "one thing" that I don't have would make me happy, then I have lost sight of God's reality.

No amount of stuff, no man, no location, no family, no amount of money, no clothing or decor or car or house, no ability, no ministry... nothing can truly satisfy me outside of the love of an intimate relationship with God.

Other things may cause some happiness, they may even numb my heart-ache for a while & make me feel secure- but when we are designed for the eternal, it is impossible for the temporal to give us all we need.

We may think we need all of these "other things" to fill us up, but the truth is that we are blessed. No matter what our life looks like, we have the ability to have a deeply intimate relationship with Jesus right now, and that relationship in itself is enough to bring true joy & satisfaction to anyone.





So rather than focusing on everything we don't have- let us be people who delight in the gifts that we do have. Let's embrace where we are in life & fully give ourselves to the pursuit of God. If we are married or single, rich or poor, no matter what the circumstance... let's recognize it as another beautifully unique opportunity to fall more in love with our Creator.

one of the photos from our recent "Beauty Arise" shoot!-- more to come

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, 

yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and 

momentary troubles are achieving for us an 

eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our 

eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, 

since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

2 Corin. 4:16-18

a thankful heart

On Sunday morning I woke up feeling like rubbish. Physically, I was actually pretty healthy. But emotionally I was feeling a bit like garbage. It was only a few minutes of dumpster feelings, but it was long enough to remind me of something VERY important.

I NEED TO BE THANKFUL.

See, the source of my funk was the idea that I had fallen behind and I was overwhelmed by all of the things I wanted to change in my life. I was focusing on all kinds of things that either weren't true or just weren't productive.

To invite you deeper into my heart, here were some of my struggles:

- Feeling physically unattractive

- Feeling like I dress badly and am not stylish

- Feeling like my house isn't decorated nicely

- Feeling constantly behind in my work

- Feeling like I should be doing more to learn Spanish before I go to Chile in December

- Feeling like I don't do a good enough job loving Shaun

- Wondering what people think of me

- Hoping I am making God happy

- Wondering if I am wasting my gifts

Those are just some of them.

So that morning when I woke up and felt terribly, I immediately had the thought

'Jessica, You are so focused on what is wrong you have forgotten that you actually have a wonderful life.'

I think that was a gentle reminder from God to get my heart back on track.

After brushing my teeth I sat down with my Bible, my journal, and began a list of all of the things that I was thankful for. It was so refreshing to remember again how much there was to be grateful for! Then as I went throughout my day I also asked my friends to tell me what they were thankful for, and together we practiced gratitude.

There is so much power in being thankful, because as we meditate on all of the gifts in life we realize just how blessed we really are... and all of the other stuff just dissolves. Gratitude also brings humility, it reminds us that all we have is a gift from God, and we are to praise Him for His constant goodness. 

So I encourage you today to listen to God's word in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 when He tells us,

^"Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."