Misplaced Identity

When I was a little girl I couldn’t wait to grow up, there was nothing that I wanted more than to be an adult. I knew exactly who I would be, and what I would like to do with my life.  I thought being an adult meant I could have fun doing whatever I wanted to do. I didn’t seem to factor in the parts about working, or being completely responsible for myself, and let’s not forget the part about paying my own bills!

As a kid I only imagined having fun as an adult, going to cool places and having nice things. However, it didn’t take me long to discover that my dreams need a financier and that was going to be me! If I wanted nice things I was going to have to work hard to pay for them and if I wanted to travel to cool places I had to pay for them.

So, I did what most people do after high school, I went to college and I chose a major that I thought would be a good fit for me. I majored in secondary English education and I loved every moment of teaching and being in the classroom. I really truly enjoyed teaching and I loved working with my students. And yet, here I am not doing that! My life went in a whole other direction, and I can’t say that I’m upset about that.

If someone would have asked me six weeks ago if I still wanted to teach some day I would have said, “Of course!” I actually still planned to get a job teaching in a few years. Partially because I thought that I had to teach because that’s what my degree was in and I kind of felt like I had no other options. However, I recently started thinking about other things that I want to try and the thought of doing something so totally different from what I originally wanted actually gave me butterflies and scared me at the same time. I was excited about reinventing myself, but then I immediately thought, “What if it’s too late to try something so new? Am I too old to learn new things?”

I don’t know how a person can be excited and afraid to try at the same time but I definitely was. I don’t know if you guys are like this, but I sometimes have to hurry up and do something, otherwise I might talk myself out of it! I have to sit myself down sometimes and give myself a good old fashion pep talk and encourage myself. I told myself that I have grown and matured and that I’m allowed to want something different. People can change. They can reinvent themselves as often as they want to, there’s no age limit on growth. It’s hard to imagine stepping outside of the walls that I built for myself, but I’m ready for a change in my life.

I won’t be doing anything wild and crazy, but for me this is still a surprise. I even shocked my husband, which is hard to do by the way. I feel like I’ve been stuck in a momma rut and all my days just run together. I do the same thing day in and day out. I am such a predictable person, I shop at the same stores, I wear the same clothes, my favorite lipstick hasn’t changed in years! I have to get some freshness back into my routine. I feel like a person who has lost their joy for living. Don’t get me wrong I’m not depressed, just boring!

Somewhere along the way between getting married and having children I lost my fire. I’ve fallen into a very comfortable existence and I just can’t live another second in my beige world anymore. I was beginning to think of myself as only my children’s mother or my husband’s wife, until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and my inner adventurous self shouted out, “Your name is TORRE!!!” I was tired of being one dimensional.

That’s when I woke up and said to myself, ” I gotta get outa here!” I realized that I had buried myself in a box labeled old me! I literally woke up one day and said I want to have interest and hobbies besides taking long walks through Costco and changing a diaper without getting my seat dirty in the truck! I finally see that I can’t completely blot out my own desires and still be a great Mom. I actually need to have joy that is separate from being a wife and mother.

I honestly feel like the last person in the world to get this concept, but I want to hear from you! How long did it take you Ladies to realize that Mother and Wife should not, and could not, be all that you are? Tell me about it in the comment section!

The People Want a King

The prophet Samuel is one of my most favorite men in history, and definitely from the bible. You don’t even have to be familiar with the bible to know that Samuel was a great prophet and that none of his words fell to the ground (1Sam. 3:19).  His mother, Hannah has a testimony we hear about often, how she prayed fervently to God for a child and how she vowed to give him back to the Lord so that he would serve God for the res of his life.

No matter who you are or where you live in the world, you can’t help but to notice all the changes in leadership that are taking place right now. Everyone has an opinion on their country’s leaders, or another country’s potential leaders whether we make them known or not.  And yet, I wonder has anyone asked God what his thoughts are about the direction that we, his children, are going? In 1Sam.8 the people come to Samuel because they are displeased with their current leadership; truthfully they were terrible judges by the way, so the people had a right to be displeased with them, and asked for a king to rule over them.

Now, if you go back and read the whole chapter you will see that Samuel was very against having a king. He had several good reason but his main reason was because they should already see God as their king and realize that no one could be better at ruling over them than God. God was and should be the only one that we entrust with our hearts and complete confidence to represent us, while leading us at the same time. The funny thing is when Samuel pressed them about why they wanted a king their response was,” because we want to be like all the other nations.”(1Sam.8:19-20)

Wow, that is mind blowing in the fact that it’s the root of so many problems that we have because we want to be like other people! Topic for another day though. The point that I want to make is that we should have one King, one true Leader and only One True God! God told Samuel that the people had not rejected him as a prophet, God!(1Sam.8:7)  Folks, I know that seeing all these breaking news stories flying around our head everyday can steal our attention, but lets not allow our hearts to be troubled. We can not get distracted from the real thing, the more permanent issue. We absolutely must not reject God trying to find some person to represent you in Congress or Parliament!

Ladies and Gentlemen let us remember to keep watch over our souls and our prayer lives. I pray we remember to watch, fight, and pray.(Luke 21:36)  We must maintain our prayer lives right now and always. Prayer is one of the most powerful gifts/weapons that we Christians posses. It’s our direct line to God. Our relationship with God right now should be paramount. I would say that prayer is not just important for each one of us, it’s important for those of us who are lost or down and out. We must seek God for our peace and direction, but at the same time continue to intercede for those who don’t have the strength or don’t know how to pray for themselves right now.

I have so much more that I would like to write to you all but I will end this post by asking that you all remember to pray for our leaders. God knows that our world will always benefit from the fervent prayers of the righteous. God Bless you all and I PRAY, that each person reading this has a blessed year and many more to come. May God reveal himself to you all in a way that transforms your life and the hearts of the people around you!

 

Rain, Rain, Here to Stay

Here in Northern California where I live it has been raining for a week now, and it’s supposed to continue well into the next week as well. I personally have always liked rainy days, as long as I don’t have to be out in the rain. I love to read a good book, or watch a good romantic comedy.

The abundance of rain in a short amount of time is not that great for our area though, because we’ve been in a severe drought for the past five years. Which means we are now on alert for flooding. It’s like the old saying too much of a good thing can be bad for you. Isn’t it funny how that works? If you’ve been without the proper amount of rain for a long period of time, you would think that getting a lot of rain would thrill and delight you.

That’s not the case though, when you’re forced to live without the very thing that you need you find ways to adapt and to live without it. Here in Northern California we have what they call fire season, that’s when we have the perfect conditions for wildfires that occur naturally or man made. The past two years that I was here we had some pretty bad wildfires and they did a lot of damage and destroyed a lot of trees and homes. With all this rain that we’ve been getting, now we have a mudslide advisory in addition to flooding.

All of this has made me think about my own life. It’s made me question how adversity has made me adjust my life, my level of expectations and even how I perceive certain things. When you lack something that you really need or someone who you really depend on, you learn to live without them. That’s essential for survival, but how do you adjust to life when God starts to bless you and you feel like it’s more than you can handle?

Have you ever had a bunch of really good things happen to you and it made you feel like something bad must be waiting for you just around the corner? I don’t know how it happened to me, but that’s something that I struggle with now. If a string of really good things happen or a huge blessing happens to me I get really nervous that something bad will happen next. I think I know how this unrealistic fear came about, but I’m curious to know does anyone else deal with this unrealistic fear?  I think that this will be something that I try to work on this year.

Fear is so paralyzing and it’s a real thief in my life and I definitely want to be free of that. What are your thoughts? Do you have any fears of being blessed too much? Does good news make you afraid that something bad is going to happen next? Let me hear it in the comments.

 

Happy New Year!!!

Hello Friends,

I thank God that you all were blessed to see another year! What a true blessing it is to know that we get another year to start over, reinvent ourselves, or continue down the path that we have already chosen. I have had a super busy holiday season and honestly I kind of feel relieved that it’s over! I know that’s such a cray thing to say, but when it comes to the holidays I tend to stretch myself a little thin.

One thing that I had to keep telling myself was, “This is not about you, it’s about Jesus.”

I kept wanting to get the perfect gift and the perfect ugly sweater,(which I ended up not even going to the ugly sweater party by the way.) I wanted to cook the perfect holiday meal and I was putting a lot of unnecessary stress on myself. Even though I seem to know that the holidays should be a time for us, my family and I, to spend together just enjoying one another’s company, I always seem to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of getting things that I get bogged down.

I had to sit my self down and have a little talk with the woman in the mirror. I told her she was being crazy and she needed to take a step back. I had to try and re-center myself before I completely lost sight of what the holidays were truly about. I know I can’t be the only one out there who goes overboard with the holiday hoopla…right? I decided that this next Christmas season, 2017, I will do a much better job remembering the real reason for the season.

I know some people truly dislike making new year’s resolution, but I am not one of them! I would like to hear what you guys are resolving to do differently or what you want to keep doing in 2017. I’ll go first. This year I plan to focus more of my time and energy on taking better care of myself. I put all six family members before myself so much that I don’t even know if I can stop! I admit that I have not been doing things for myself that I really should be doing on a daily basis like working out, eating more healthfully and the list goes on and on.

Alright now that I have told you one of mine I want to hear yours. Just leave me one thing that you would like to try or continue in this new year. Thanks for stopping by and welcome back to my blog. I pray that 2017 be a prosperous and blessed year for you and your family!