Hello, my beautiful people!!! Welcome to my first blog post of many. This is where I’m going to be sharing with y’all everything that’s going on in my little brain, what’s about to go down digity down in my life and everything in between. I’m not a very serious writer, so get ready for more cringy sayings like “down digity down”, sarcasm, messy writing, oh and a whole lot of Jesus!
My life has been nothing short of “normal”. I went to public school for a semester and two days (never forget that extra two days) homeschooled the rest of high school and then took a gap year and lived in Seattle. I am now living in Chattanooga and am finishing up my second year of college. Okay, now lets rewind a bit. School has never really been my thing. Ever since I can remember, I always felt pretty behind. When I reached high school it became my MASSIVE, GINORMOUS, BIGGER THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE insecurity. I really and truly believed that I was stupid, and you can bet your cute little bottom that I spoke that over myself all the time. Yep, I was afraid, constantly. I had zero hope that I was going to get into any college and my future was just a big mess if you asked me. My identity and worth were based off what I believed were true about myself, and the grades that I made. Imagine finding a painting at a garage sale that’s 50 cents. You buy the painting and find out years later that it’s actually worth a million dollars. Okay WHY would someone sell a million dollar painting for 50 cents? Because they didn’t know its value. That was who I was for a long time without even realizing it. I sold myself short because, well, I didn’t know my true value.
Okay okay, enough with the sob story here’s where it gets good. My sophomore year of high school I started going to a bible study that was based off a study that my dad wrote but was taught by a family friend (hi Ashley!! I love you!!) I was told every single week that I was loved. I was told that there was absolutely nothing I could do to earn or deserve it. Week after week I was told that because of Jesus I had right standing with God and that I could never fall out of my position of favor with him because of something I did because there was nothing I did to get it in the first place. WOW! Okay yeah I wish I could say there was this AH HAH moment and I immediately understood the depths of this good news but hey, my slow little noggin took some time to really process it. After three years of hearing this (yeah you heard me, THREE YEARS) I noticed that I didn’t really think about myself that much anymore. I noticed that I hadn’t called myself stupid in a while. I noticed that my anxiety and fears had completely gone away. I realized that the second I stopped focusing on MYSELF and started focusing on JESUS all those things that were weighing me down just faded away. Instead of claiming the things that I said were true about myself, I started claiming the things Jesus says are true about me. Instead of calling myself stupid, I called myself righteous (right with God) and loved. This might not sound like a big deal, of course God loves me, God loves everyone. Okay, this was head knowledge for sure. I always knew God loved me. That’s like bible 101. But the second it went from being just head knowledge to it actually sinking in and I really truly started to believe that Jesus loved ME, yep, that’s when everything started to change. This was the beginning of a major transformation in my life, my mind and in my heart. I am no longer driven by fear but instead driven by confidently expecting good. I know that God is for me, not against me and that his plans are to prosper me, NOT to harm me. This sounds pretty good, right? Wow, no more self-doubt or anxiety? Well here’s the best dang part. It took ZERO effort on my part. I didn’t try fixing myself I simply just stopped staring at myself all the dang time and started hearing the TRUTH about who I am in Jesus and everything changed. My identity is no longer contingent on me but contingent on Jesus. It has nothing to do with what I do but has everything to do with what Jesus has already done. Jesus didn’t CHANGE my identity. I wasn’t stupid and then he made me smart. He just revealed to me who I was all along. I devalued myself because I created my own imagine before I had the ability to see myself. I had to re identified for how God see’s me. Jesus is in me, and I am in him. I am literally a reflection of someone who is PRICELESS. When God looks at me, he sees the finish works of the cross. Because of the blood of Jesus, my value has been set. I went from believing I was worth 50 cents, to simply declaring my worth in Jesus. My value is set in stone at THE highest price. BLESS FREAKING UP AM I RIGHT?
Okay so now we’re up to date. The good news of Jesus can’t stay bottled up inside me any longer. Nope! It’s just all too good to keep to myself. My world literally revolves around knowing how loved I am. So here’s why I’m writing this post. I’ve decided to get out of my comfort zone, to extreme measures if I do say so myself. AHH YA GIRL IS GOING ON THE WORLD RACE! SAY WHAT? I will be traveling to 11 different countries in 11 months. During this time I will be staying with host families helping with anything and everything that they need. It ranges from teaching English, playing with kids at orphanages, sharing the gospel and EVERYTHING in between. I could spend a month cleaning up pig poop on a farm for all I know! So starting in January of 2019 I will be traveling to Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. It’s going to be a year of sharing the love of Jesus, getting out of my comfort zone and traveling the world! I mean hey, 11 months of talking about my favorite subject, JESUS? I’m in!!!! I could not be more excited even if I tried! I got nothing but confidence that Jesus has got this. Prayers would be greatly appreciated as I prepare for launch and if you feel like helping financially you already know that would be appreciated as well!!! More updates to come so feel free to subscribe that way you get updated every time I post! Peace and love my friends!!!! Let’s see where this journey takes us!!
