Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

Living Life’s Blessings

This past year has been hard. I spent it walking through a season in my life that was just sad. It felt as if the joy had been drained out of my life. I had many sad days that the tears flowed easily.  I was withdrawn and lonely.  As times, it felt as if this season would never end.  During my days of walking through this valley, He was working on this girls heart.  Even though my days were sad, I clung to His promises.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Then came the spring, whirling it’s sweet smells around me and shining it’s warmth on my face.  Such peace came with each new bud.  Everything was beautiful again, including my heart.  And with that, a new season of life started.

I have spent the past few weeks feeling as if my life is blessed beyond blessed.  Have you ever had that overwhelming feeling that your life is exactly where God wants it to be?  That’s where I am.  Basking in the light of His love.

The past few years of my life have been filled with many valleys and mountaintops.  Surgeries, sickness, hospital stays and an early retirement.  But through it all, He continually gave me blessing after blessing.  He never left me where I was, He met me there and carried me through.

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.
Proverbs 31: 28-29

My life might be crazy at times, but it’s beautiful just the same.

I have a husband, two kids, two cats, two dogs and eleven chickens. My husband goes to work everyday and I own my business and work from home. My husband has a mens group at church and I teach Sunday School. We are both lovers of music. Our dogs are obnoxious and bark at everything. My chickens are still in a brooder and “chirp” constantly. I have two teenagers in this house as well. Our house is full of laughter daily. Our house is alive and loud with living. My heart loves the sometimes chaotic evidence of God’s goodness and blessing in our home.

When I look around our home, I see things we love. I see reminders of my family, their joy, their memories, their sweet presence in our life. Those things are beautiful to me! I love living surrounded by things I love. I am living in the midst of life’s blessings.  And oh, what a sweet mountaintop this is!


God provides wonderful things in life for our enjoyment!!  The sound of your childrens laughter.  Flowers in the spring.  Your husbands kiss.  So many wonderful things we experience every day!  If it sounds like my life is filled with beauty, it is. It’s filled with beauty and noise every single day! That is mostly because of how I choose to see it. My home and my life aren’t perfect. They aren’t without trails. But God is still good and worthy of praise, even when difficult things happen.

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I Quit Sugar {Book Review}

I Quit Sugar
Your Complete 8-Week Detox Program and Cookbook
by Sarah Wilson

About the book:

A New York Times bestseller, I Quit Sugar is week-by-week guide to quitting sugar to lose weight; boost energy; and improve your looks, mood, and overall health, with 108 sugarfree recipes. 

Sarah Wilson thought of herself as a relatively healthy eater. She didn’t realize how much sugar was hidden in her diet, or how much it was affecting her well-being. When she learned that her sugar consumption could be the source of a lifetime of mood swings, fluctuating weight, sleep problems, and thyroid disease, she knew she had to make a change. 

What started as an experiment to eliminate sugar–both the obvious and the hidden kinds–soon became a way of life, and now Sarah shows you how you can quit sugar too:
* follow a flexible and very doable 8-week plan
* overcome cravings
* make food you’re excited to eat with these 108 recipes for detox meals, savory snacks, and sweet treats from Sarah Wilson and contributors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Curtis Stone, Dr. Robert Lustig (The Fat Chance Cookbook), Sarma Melngailis (Raw Food/ Real World), Joe “the Juicer” Cross, and Angela Liddon (Oh She Glows) 

I Quit Sugar makes it easy to kick the habit for good, lose weight, and feel better than ever before. When you are nourished with delicious meals and treats, you won’t miss the sugar for an instant.

“When I quit sugar I found wellness and the kind of energy and sparkle I had as a kid. I don’t believe in diets or in making eating miserable. This plan and the recipes are designed for lasting wellness.” — Sarah Wilson

I’ve been dabbling with not eating carbs and sugars over the past few months so when I saw this book up for review, I knew I wanted to read it.

One of the first paragraphs I read said this:

I was eating three pieces of fruit a day, a handful of dried fruit, a teaspoon or two of honey in my tea, a small bar of dark chocolate after lunch and after dinner, honey drizzled on yogurt or dessert.

This was her “too much, obviously addicted to sugar”.  Fruit and a teaspoon or two of honey?  Are you serious?  Right off the bat, I was irritated.

Firstly, I just can’t for the life of me deem fruit bad in my mind.  God created fruits and vegetables for a reason, for us to consume. For years and years we’ve been told the health benefits of fruits. They reduce risk for heart disease, protect against certain types of cancers, reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

Secondly, Wilson says all fruit MUST go.  But then a recipe of “Sweet Green Meal in a Tumbler” has grapefruit, lemon and green apple in it.  What in the world?  Talk about confusing people.

Overall, I wasn’t really impressed with this book.  It makes me sad to say that because I really really wanted to like it and to gain tons of knowledge from it.

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group provided this book to me for free in exchange for this honest review as part of their Blogging for Books program.

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Allowing God to Write my Story {and accepting it}

I woke up and rolled over to find my husband not there.  Once I crawl out of bed and feel the temperature in the room, I instantly know where he is.  Often times he is driven to the couch by a sweltering hot room {and a wife that likes to snuggle}.  I head down the steps to double check and sure enough, there he is on the couch.

I took a slight detour before going back upstairs and I headed to the downstairs bathroom.  The one where the scale lives.  I sleepily turned the light on and pulled the scale out.  As I stepped onto it, I whispered a tiny prayer, “Lord, I’ll accept whatever it says”.  Nothing can make me fold in on myself quicker than an unkind scale.  I’ve learned over the past year this tiny prayer, though only six words long, makes a huge difference in me.  I glanced down and to my dismay, saw the same number I’ve seen time and time again.  Stepping off, and slightly frustrated, I climbed the stairs and headed to the shower.

Now I have a confession to make, for some reason I adore speaking to the Lord while I’m in the shower. For me, it’s my quiet peaceful place where I hear His voice. Is that weird? If it is, please don’t tell me, because I sure do love my alone time with Him while I wash my hair and shave my legs.

As I began my shower, I also began my God talk time. “Lord, I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’ve faithfully, for the past month, not had a single carb or bite of sugar. Why does my scale not move like others? Please Lord, I can’t do it on my own. Let me follow You”.

In that moment, His answer was so clear. Right now my answer is no. And in that same moment I knew I had to accept it.

I don’t know what His plan is for me, but I must be brave enough to follow it. I must have the strength to accept His no. I have to know that God hasn’t abandoned me, He is growing me. His no isn’t a punishment.

God grows those He loves through difficult times. And He loves me. And He loves you. And since He does, He walks with us through difficult trials. And I am here to tell you, this weight issue is one of the biggest trials I’ve ever faced. The beauty of the Christian life isn’t that we’ll live trial free, but that we’ll have the hand of Jesus through the trial. 




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