Recently I was reading the book, “The Fight to Flourish” by Jennie Lusko.  There was a chapter where Jennie described how she was struggling and getting upset by her husband, Levi, when he wasn’t giving her everything that she needed in order to thrive.  However, through a night of reading Psalm 73, she realized that she had been depending on her husband as opposed to God to truly fill her in life.  Then came this quote that really struck me and showed me how I tend to view some of my own human relationships.  “I can’t expect my human relationships to be what only my relationship with God can be.” I often do expect my human relationships with people to be everything that I need, and I also can get upset when they aren’t able to give me that exact thing. I often call my mom (and by often, I mean everyday or a few times a day).  While I think that it is great to call my mom for advice, (she may not think so :)) however, when I have a problem such as in my teaching job, I should also look most importantly look to God in prayer.  I should ask for advice from others,  but ultimately find my advice, energy, patience, and care from the Lord.  

I will say that the quote continues with the next sentiment by saying, “God is all we need, yet we’re better and stronger because of the people He has put in our lives.  We just can’t let them take the place only reserved for the King.”  God has blessed us with our human relationships.  God has blessed us with fellow believers that will help us grow as people and become closer to God.  Iron does truly sharpen iron, just as believers need other believers. However, when we start to look to other people as a necessity, or when we start to depend on our relationship with God depending on how we look to others, then we are going too far in the one direction.  There is a fine line between using others to help us grow strong, iron sharpening iron, and depending on them.  

I believe the best way to remember to depend more on God than the people around us is to remember prayer.  I was often reminded of this when I was in youth groups growing up, of who is the first person that you go to when you have a problem.  Do you go to God in prayer and read the Bible while looking for the answers, or do you go to someone around you?  Again, this is where I will say that I often go to my mom or to the people around me.  God has blessed me with wonderful people in my life.  However, I don’t always go to God in prayer when I have problems.  I believe there is a part of me, as much as I don’t always admit, that really doesn’t believe that God can solve all of my problems.  There is, of course, the part of me that knows that God is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, but then I have moments when I don’t know if God can really solve my personal problems.  Either that, or there is a part of me that doesn’t want to give the problem to him because I may want to handle the situation in a sinful and selfish manner.  Sometimes, I may not feel ready to give up the problem to God because that may require me to move past my pain and handle the situation with prayer, grace, forgiveness, and love, when I may want to actually lash out in hate.  I don’t want to admit that, but it is a battle that we continually face. We all have our inner sinful desires we have to fight over.  It is just important that we really do remember to continually keep fighting them.  

Recently I have been struggling with my anxiety over being a speech coach as well as my teaching job.  I have been constantly questioning whether or not I am doing a good job.  I often over analyze every piece of my job and start to really criticize every choice, loss of impatience, or every assignment/punishment that I have to give out.  I often talk to my mom and other teachers about how I am feeling and am seeking advice.  However, the thing that has been really starting to make me feel better and less anxious has been going to the Lord in prayer.  Everyday that I go to school, I try to pray to God that I handle school situations to the best of my ability and in the most loving, Christ like manner, (even if that does yes include punishments). 

I have an example of how I tried to remember this recently.  Granted, this is not me being perfect, but I think it at least shows progress.  Most mornings,  I do my devotional before I go off to school.  While I was about to do my Bible study, I also decided I should maybe check my email.  I read one email and then I was instantly fuming angry.  I did decide to call my mom and vent to her/ask for advice (so yes I still went to her first).  However, since I was still planning on doing my devotional, I spent some of my prayer and journal time discussing my anger and asking for God to help me calm down.  (See, work in progress!)  I learned to go to the Lord when I was upset, and I needed help to calm down and be with me to make the smartest choice moving forward.   (I also learned that one shouldn’t maybe check emails before doing a devotional.  It might distract you from your Jesus time).  The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful relationship with my mother, but she also can’t be my everything and the only one that I go to.  I need to make sure that I am depending on the Lord first and foremost.  

The Lord is so good that he doesn’t want us to be alone, and he wants us to have great relationships.  However, like in all things, there is too much of one good thing, except for the Lord, he is the only thing that we can have too much of.  I personally am going to try to make sure that I look to the Lord first in prayer before then I call my mom or talk to anyone else.  I also am going to challenge the same of you.  Maybe take some time thinking about who you defend on besides the Lord, and then take some steps to realize why you seek that person out before the Lord. 

This past year I was the head speech coach at the school that I teach at.  This was the first time that I have ever been a coach, and I will not lie when I say that it has probably been one of the most stressful experiences of my life.  While I love speech, I learned that being a coach, especially at a small school where students are involved in many other things, creates many challenges.  However, even though I would chop this up as a very stressful experience, there were so many things that brought me a great deal of joy, even if I didn’t quite realize that at the time. I learned, once again, that even though this was a stressful experience, God can teach you some amazing life lessons.  

The first positive is that I have been given the chance to learn how to be a coach.  I have had many leadership roles throughout my life.  However, one thing I have never had the chance to be was a coach.  I absolutely loved speech when I was in high school and now I had the opportunity to coach students in something that I really love.  I was able to take a script and put together a Reader’s Theatre role which is traditionally where people read on stools or chairs and then use their voices, expressions, and some very small movement to tell the story on the scripts.  You need to use scripts because it should not be memorized.  This isn’t a play, but it should have moments of being a play and or being like a choral reading.  I love Reader’s Theatre, and it was fun to have my speech students reading it out and thinking of ideas that they should add when they are reading the script.  

The second positive is that I really learned how to problem solve in a very quick manner.  There were many, many things that popped up during this speech season that was not ideal, to say the least.  First, of course, was finding time to practice.  There were many students who were also a part of basketball and a few that were involved in cheerleading or had a job.  Therefore, I had to find a time where a majority of students could make it a few days a week.  Then there was the problem of having students coming to practices.  Because I chose some practices at 7:30 a.m., there were many students who just did not get up on time for practices.  There were a few other problems such as people deciding they needed to quit or were gone for a long time in quarantine that I actually had to change a part to only being a one person role as opposed to a two person role before performances.  There was someone who found out they had to be gone for the first contest, so I had to find someone to fill in at the last minute (being the day before).  Basically, this was not a smooth ride, but I learned how to take a problem and fix it quickly.  Often in the past when problems arose that I didn’t know how to fix, I would have a break down moment and not touch the problem till later and therefore waiting on the problem solving process.  I didn’t have that option here, so I am hoping that will teach me to handle problems at a quicker pace in the future.  

The third positive is that I was able to spend some time with students.  The reason that I became a teacher was so that way I could grow relationships with students and hopefully make them feel accepted and loved to then help them grow to be the best person that they can possibly be.  There were many times whether it be at practice, on the suburban ride on the way up to the competition, or lastly at the competition itself, when I was able to have some great conversations with students.  Some were asking for advice and telling me about the big things in life, but many others were just little conversations like prom dates, hair, makeup, basketball, volleyball, stories from childhood, etc.  There were also sometimes when we were able to just laugh.  There are not enough times in the school day to just spend in laughter with my students, and I am happy that I had some of those moments during this speech season. 

To go along with the third positive, I got the chance to work with students who may not have usually done something like speech before.  There were a few students who chose to be a part of speech this year who had never done anything like speech before.  They were not usually a person who was a part of plays or would always be the person who is known for standing out and talking in class.  However, I got the chance to watch them grow to be a person to speak in front of others.  Being able to speak in front of others and communicate well is definitely a life skill that many students should be taught, and I am so proud of the students who were willing to try and learn that life skill.  

In conclusion, while I will still say that this is one of the most stressful situations I have ever had, I am learning to look at these hard situations or hard moments and still finding the joy in it.  It turns out while I was looking at being a speech coach as being an incredibly challenging and anxiety filled experience, there were many joyous moments that were happening the entire time.  I am now set to do individual speech, and I am going to try to remember that even though that also may be stressful, I will continue to look for the joyous and wonderful moments. 

In the year of 2020, I decided to start writing a blog, and wow, what a year 2020 has been.  Obviously, that is something that everyone is talking about, and there were many who just wanted the year of 2020 to end and 2021 to begin.  There is a hope that everything else will start to fall into place with the beginning of this new year.  Therefore this blog was such a great blessing to have around in a year like the one we just experienced.  When everything seemed to be falling apart, I had a new passion of writing to continue to work on and develop. Not only was it something that brought me a lot of joy, but I think the idea of writing, whether it be a blog, journal, letters, or prayer can have great benefits for anyone- even if you have not ever seen yourself as a person who writes or who ever wants to write.  

Words have wonderful power.  They can stream together thoughts that are in our brains, so that way others can understand them.  Another person could digest the thoughts that you were also thinking by just simply hearing them spoken or reading them on paper.  The Bible even talks about the importance of words including Proverbs 16:24, which says “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”  I was also recently reading this book called, “The Fight to Flourish,” by Jennie Lusko that points out that God also really loves words.  “God loves words so much that he filled a book with them.”  Those words are filled with such wisdom that can be life-changing to the person who reads and meditates on them.  Great words do have a great power to impact not only the person who spoke/wrote them but also the ones that are hearing/reading them. Granted, that can be for a positive or a negative, so it is always important that we learn how to use that power in a very positive way. 

Another thing about writing that makes it incredibly important is that writing is a communication skill, and the skill of communication is incredibly important for any job or career that one can have in the future.  I know that even in my job as a teacher, it is incredibly important that I have good writing skills while writing my emails, or writing in my directions for every assignment/activity that students are participating in class.  This way my students, parents, co-workers, etc. have a complete understanding of what is happening in my class.  I have definitely created an assignment where the directions were not clear, and it ended up being such a distraction from the learning environment in the classroom because I had to try to re-explain what I was looking for.  (Granted, there are times I make really clear instructions and the students don’t read them anyway, but that is a conversation for another day. : ))No matter what job, leadership role, or volunteer position a person may have, they will need to communicate to achieve the job.  

There are times that I have to work through my writer’s block.  We all have to work through hardships or struggles in anything we do, and that can even go for me in my writing.  Even now as I was writing this blog post, there were times that I just got stuck, and all I wanted to do was put away my blog for the foreseeable future.  I had to dig deep to think about what I really wanted to say and then write down those items on paper.  However, I have found that even though I absolutely hate trying to write when I have a writer’s block, I also have felt that when I can push through, I can discover even more about the passage I am looking at, or I can make more connections that I would never have made otherwise.  Plus, learning how to work through problems no matter the situation, even in something as simple as writing a blog, teaches us to persevere in any problems in the future.  

Every day I set up a healthy habit of writing, whether this be in my journal or it is more thoughts for the blog posts.  This gives me a chance to digest and reflect on my thoughts that are running around in my head.  This gives me a chance to read a Bible passage and try to understand more and more of it.  This has helped me dive deeper into how I feel about a verse and has helped me make connections between one verse to the other.  There have been some studies that have found that once you write for about ten minutes every day, you can actually feel less burdened by your thoughts.  I have experienced this feeling of becoming unburdened recently when I spent a bit of time writing down how exactly my anxiety made me feel. This was a great time to get my thoughts out and find ways to express my thoughts on paper.  I didn’t even make all the connections in my brain before I started to write, but taking the time to get out any thoughts helped me understand even more about myself and my anxiety. If you ever feel as though you have too many thoughts that are swirling around in your brain, maybe try writing on a piece of paper for about ten minutes, and then you can see what your thoughts were trying to tell you.

My challenge for most of you is to take one day and write for ten minutes. Get out of a piece of paper, set a timer, and just see where your thoughts take you. I know that many of you may not enjoy writing. (In fact, I know that my mother who is most likely going to read this doesn’t like to write.) However, I think that just taking a few minutes this week to write down what you are feeling to give you a chance to analyze, make connections, and help you develop will be very impactful for your future. Some questions that I think could be a good place to start, are the following, “What brings you joy?”  or “What is God teaching you right now?”  I hope that developing a bit of the healthy habit of writing, can make you feel less burdened by your own thoughts and can make you incredibly joyful. 

If you have been in the church for a long time, there are a lot of names that are given to Jesus.  He is a Savior, Redeemer, son of God, Holy, Mighty, Righteous, and many more.  All of these words are wonderful and they all encapsulate the greatness of the Lord.   However, while I do believe that all these words are amazing and do very well describe God in a very holy way, it also can sometimes make it seem like he is a distant figure.  He is a God, so he is definitely Holy, Mighty, Perfect, something that we are not, but he is also supposed to have a relationship with the very people that he has created. I think that while knowing that God is all these things is right and good, it can make it hard to feel as though we can really get close to him.  

Recently I was listening to the song by Unspoken called, “You’ve always been,” and I realized that there are even more words to describe Jesus that I hardly ever think of using.  The chorus song says, “You’ve been my Savior, Sustainer, when I’m at my end; My Healer, Redeemer, again and again; My Mother and my Father, Brother, Sister, and Friend; Everything I’ve needed Lord, You’ve always been.”  I had never thought about describing God as family members, but it is very true that when we are without any particular family members, God can take the place as that particular family member.  While God is the perfect Savior and the perfect Judge, he also can be something that is very close and very loving.  God did not create humans to have these perfect little robots, (if he did, then he would have made it so we are completely perfect), but instead God wanted to create humans to have a relationship with.  

During this time this year of losing two of my family members and a pet, I have needed to have many friends more than anything else.  I have had so many friends be good people to me over the past few months.  I have received some great gifts and some kind words from friends when I have been struggling.  I have also had friends who have just been willing to come, spend time, and listen to me while I cry my eyes out.  Isn’t it fabulous that I also have a wonderful friend in the Lord during this time.  I realized that through this time, I need to look at the Lord as a being that is there for me continuously such as a friend would be.  I can still see God as a Holy and Mighty figure, but I also can see him as someone who is by my side and loving me.    

This, also overall reminds me how important it is to be a good friend.  I think we can often forget how important friends are or how important it is to be a good one.  This, I believe can be especially true as people get older.  God also values the relationship and power of friendship.  Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”  A friend which can be the brother and sister that you choose for yourself and someone may have chosen you as a friend.  When you are chosen to be a friend, you are basically being chosen to love that person for the rest of your life and to be there for them in the times of intense pain and the times of tremendous joy.  It is not an easy task, but it is worthy of the work that it requires.  

The last reflection piece I want you reading this to think about is, “What do you need the Lord to be for you right now?”  What exactly do you need from God?  I think there are many times that we can look at the Lord as a very distant figure and therefore we don’t end up feeling close or loved by him.  However, that is not what he is supposed to feel to us.  He is supposed to be and feel incredibly close.  This is precisely why God is often called, Holy Father.  Father-an intimate and loving figure in many lives.  (Granted, that isn’t true for everyone, but he is supposed to serve as the perfect example).  Do you need God to feel less like a Judge and a distant Holy God to more of an intimate figure? Really take the time to think about what you need the most and what God needs to be to you. 

Rhonda is one of the best aunts in the entire world.  She was always one of the most compassionate and kind people.  Finding out that Rhonda was diagnosed with cancer hurt my heart tremendously.  She was and is such a kind and loving human who shouldn’t have to suffer the pain and the sickness that followed the months after. It hurts my heart that today my precious aunt went up to heaven.  She will be missed by many, including myself.  I know that you promised my mom that you would say hello to my grandpa and Kaiser dog, so I do really hope that you do get the chance.  I also know that you have your father that you can talk to. It will at least make me happy to know some of my family is all together.  

Growing up, Rhonda was my girlie girl aunt. On my Dad’s side of the family, I was always called, “the princess,” especially as a kid.  I was the one who wanted to get into dresses, pretend to be a princess, get nails done, have long hair, etc.  Sometimes I didn’t like being called, “the princess” when I was a kid because it would hurt my feelings.  It would make me feel different than everyone else in my family.  However, Rhonda liked those things as well, so she made me feel a bit more accepted.  She loved to wear jeans with a bunch of jewels on them.  She would get her nails done every few weeks and always was getting her hair done.  I had someone who understands loving and appreciating the extra girly things in life.  

There were a few life lessons that I learned from knowing Rhonda that I want to adapt in my life more and more.  The first one is taking time to spend with those you love.  Rhonda was very good about spending time with those she loved.  She cared and valued relationships, whether it be with her family, her friends, or those that she worked with at Hope Haven.  I know that as her niece, my absolute favorite day with Rhonda was when she took me out to the spa in Spencer.  Rhonda loved to get her nails done as I have mentioned before.  I hardly ever saw her without her fingernails or toenails done, so she took me out to get my very first pedicure.  It was awesome, and I loved it.  I never knew that getting your toenails done could be so relaxing and comforting.  Then she also took me out to lunch at Chinese.  She knew to take that time with me would mean the world to me.  She also is incredibly good about doing that when she would go to wrestling tournaments with my dad and cousin Clint just because both of them liked to watch wrestling.  She wasn’t necessarily watching anyone in particular, it was a chance to be with my dad and Clint and just watching a sport. It is important to take time to spend with those you love and to pay attention to the things even that they enjoy.  

Rhonda was also always so good about coming to support me.  She loved to go to my different events when she could.  I know that she made some concerts of mine, volleyball games, dance recitals, and, of course my high school and college graduations.  She was so happy to get the chance to watch me in different events.  I also know that she loved doing that with her son, Clint as well.  A person always needs someone who is willing to be supportive and loving to have their back.  This is something that I am going to continue to remember the rest of my life.  I have learned that I really love to support my students, friends, and family in my life mostly because I have been shown such great support in my life through people like my aunt Rhonda.  

Rhonda was also very caring.  She cared about others.  She worked at a disability service called Hope Haven, where she showed how much she cared about others all the time.  On Thanksgiving Day, we made sure to spend some time with Rhonda for her last Thanksgiving.   Even though she was the one who was very sick with cancer, she was just as loving as she always has been.  I was taking a nap on Thanksgiving day in the recliner after lunch.  I was halfway asleep and halfway awake when she put a blanket on me in order that I would stay warm.  She was showing me love and care for me even when she should have been the one getting cared for.  She didn’t want all the glory and the love for herself, but instead she wanted to make sure that she is taking care of others in her family.

Thanks for being an amazing aunt Rhonda.  I will try to remember to always be as supportive as you, and to value relationships as much as you did.  I hope that I can always remember to be as caring and as loving.  Again, God blessed me with the world’s most wonderful aunt and even though I am sad that she is gone, I have at least the best memories from her. 

Recently I have been reading the book by Lysa Terkeurst called, “ Forgiving what you can’t forget.”  While this book definitely talks about forgiveness and how we need to forgive those who have wronged us, it also goes into how we can best heal from the pain the person has put upon us.  Because if we are honest, often the reason that we don’t forgive someone is because they have hurt us very deeply, and we can’t seem to get over that hurt. They may even bring up some pieces that we don’t like about ourselves or the pieces that we are insecure over or the general fears and anxiety/trust issues that we have from our pasts.  If we can’t heal ourselves, then we won’t be able to fully forgive the other person, and vice verses.  We won’t really be able to fully heal from past or current pain by not forgiving those who have hurt us, even if they never apologize or acknowledge how they had hurt us.  This then will make it harder for us to fully move on and become more joyful happy beings.  

There was a quote that came up in this book that said, “We can’t expect another person to carry the burden of making us feel better about who we are.  They may need to do a better job at loving us… but that’s their journey to take if they are willing.”  This really hit me.  Lately I have been struggling with insecurity and anxiety, specifically at my job as a teacher and as a speech coach.  I often feel as though I am not doing a good job.  Then if I have also been hearing the complaints and groans of students not doing a good job or not liking what they are learning about has been a bit hard to take during this last month.  (We were all like that in high school at times, weren’t we).  Therefore there is a good portion of me that is waiting and hoping for someone to give me a compliment and make me feel better about myself.  However, as this quote showed me, while that would be nice and it would be encouragement, inherently it should not be anyone else’s job to show love to me in order to make me feel better.  

If I am going to be completely honest and vulnerable like I was hoping that I would do with this blog from the beginning. When I started to get my anxiety really bad, I was also starting to hear some voices in my head.  You know the ones that tell you so many negative things about yourself, even if you have never had anxiety, most of us have heard those voices that tell you aren’t good enough, that you are not worthy of love, and that you are not enough.  These are the voices that give us a great amount of self-doubt and make us insecure.  If you have never had any of those voices or thoughts or have any idea what I am talking about, please consider that to be one entirely great blessing that you possess.  However, somewhere along the way, I really started to believe those lies that were being spoken in my head.  I am so afraid of getting into trouble for doing something wrong, because I believe that everything that I do is inherently wrong.   I started to believe that I am always the one that is evil.  This being the way that it is makes it really hard to find joy in all situations, (one of the reasons that I knew I needed to pick the word joy as my word of the year for 2021).  The more that I am believing these lies, the more and more I start to get more stressed, have anxiety, frustration, and ultimately have less joy.  

Satan is a very crafty and evil serpent.  He had a terrible idea that besides just fighting people with wars, fights, death, lies, and physical pain, he will also attack us in the one place where we should feel the most secure—our own bodies and minds.  Have you really contemplated that thought?  When struggling with anxiety, depression, or any other mental health issue, it is really your own mind fighting against you.  It isn’t someone else.  It isn’t someone else talking to you or any other voice in your head, but rather it is voices that are constructed from your own brain. Granted, there are times when other people don’t help out the situation, but at the end of the day, the mental battle here is more on a personal level.  The devil, that sneaky devil, knew how to use our wonderfully God given creation of our mind and brains to hurt us. 

There are many times that I believe there needs to be other people who should make my life easier by giving me a lot of compliments and making me feel better about myself.  However, that is really not their job.  It is my job to find love and joy in myself.  This, of course, is with the help of the Lord.   I can’t expect others to help me love myself if I am not willing to put into the work as well.  While it is nice to be encouraged and supported by others, and I do believe that this can have an impact on a person, it is very important that we don’t start to fully depend on others.  

At the end of the day, we are not responsible for anyone else’s responsibilities.  We are only ever responsible for our reactions or our actions.  We need to always be willing to love others even when they are not the ones who are showcasing how to love in the best way.  We also can’t as easily do that when we are really against the personal self.  I have noticed that when I am upset with myself, anxious or stressed about something that I am involved in, it is a lot harder to love the others that are around me.  With the Lord’s help it is my job to forgive myself from the mistakes that I make and the sins that I commit, love myself the way that he made me, and finally be able to grow as a person and love others.  I hope that if you are another person that has been struggling with mental health, hurt from others, or just simply loving or forgiving yourself, that you will be reminded that you are valuable, cared for, and loved by a Father above who also wants you to love him and yourself in order to better thrive in this world.  He does not want you to have this pain from anxiety or the voices in your head.  I am hoping and praying for you to find that joy and love, as I am hoping for that myself as well.  

Recently I have been driving in fog.  I don’t love driving in fog.  I suppose that not many people do.  However, while I was driving home, at about the halfway point of driving, the fog was lifted.  It was a very beautiful sight.  It was like the world was cleared.  The sun looked so beautiful.  It was most definitely just double as beautiful because it had been so ugly and cloudy outside a little bit before.  This really gave me a great perspective to the beautiful sight and the beautiful world that is around me.  

Then the day after, I went to church (on a cloudy morning as well) where we sang one of my favorite hymns, “Be thou my vision.”  I made a bit of a connection while listening to this song.  I realized that the song was discussing how God should be our vision.  He should be the one helping us see the things that are pure and holy in the world.  Just like my vision was cleared from the ugly fog, the Lord wants to clear my vision from the ugly things of this world. The lyrics will say, “still be my vision, oh ruler of all.”  He is the one that is ruler of the whole world.  He is the one who is in control of everything, so he can see everything clearly and he wants us to be similar.  This is a prayer that we keep the Lord as our main set of eyes for our entire life.  

There are so many lyrics in this hymn that provide a great deal of wisdom.  Including, two lyrics back to back of, “waking or sleeping, my presence, my light;” and then “Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word.”  The Bible should be the light that guides our steps or light to our path.  There is even a verse in scripture that says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” We should really ever only look for one book for advice in our life, and that is the Holy Bible. There are many times that we can look to other people’s advice, other worldly books, and many multiple other things to have the best life, but at the end of the day they will not provide the same wisdom to us as the Bible can.  Not to say that other books and other advice can’t be helpful, but they only can when they are based out of the Holy book, not based on the things or the wisdom of the world. The things of the world will not be a sufficient lamp for our feet as one day they will fade and grow dark like all other things of this world.  

Another lyric is, “I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord; Thou in me dwelling and I with thee one.”  Once we have become a Christian, the Lord is always with us.  We have a part of the Lord in us and that is the Holy Spirit.  This should be a constant great comfort and joy from the anxiety and evil that comes from the world because we are one with the Lord.  We know that we have a part of the world beyond inside of us no matter what time it is and no matter where we go.  Listening to the Holy Spirit also reminds us to make wiser choices.  When we lean into what the Lord tells us, we can grow more patient, more compassionate, more joyful, and more loving.  This is really only going to happen with the Lord and the Holy Spirit (who are one and the same) guiding us.  

The song also has the lyrics of “thou and thou only first in my heart.”  This is my favorite lyric in the hymn.  This is a reminder that when God is first in our hearts, being able to see clearly is significantly easier.   This comes right after the lyrics in the same stanza of “Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise.” There are many times we can start to look at almost everything else as the first in our hearts.   This may be a significant other, jobs, sports, clothes, cars, and riches.  That is when our vision can easily get cloudy.  I often do this with my job.  I love my job as a teacher,  and I dedicate a lot of time to it.  However, I can also so easily get wrapped up in my job, I also start getting a lot of anxiety that I am doing my job incorrectly and that I am really not serving my students correctly.  I may even be seeking that vain and empty praise from doing my job the best. When I start to focus more on the Lord, then I am seeing clearly and letting go of the pieces of my anxiety and look to the Lord to do my job to the best of my ability to serve him and the people around me.    

God wants to make everything clear in our lives like it was when the fog cleared on that sunny afternoon.  He wants us to be able to see completely clearly.  The next set of lyrics says, “High King of heaven, my victory won; May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun.”  This song is also looking to the future when we reach heaven and get to spend our eternity with the Lord.  This will end up being our final victory.  This then will be the clearest and the most sunny place in our entire world.  When one focuses on the clear items of the world, and keeps our focus on God as first in our hearts, we are rewarded with the ultimate victory of heaven and being able to see clearly for the rest of our lives. 

There are many times that I don’t always pay attention to the simple things in the world around me.  I don’t always pay attention to the beauty of the nature around me, even though there is so much happiness and realization that can come with it.  I also don’t always pay attention to the lyrics in the Christian songs or hymns that I sing or listen to, even though they provide such great wisdom, joy and thankfulness.  There is a lot that we can learn from the music that we chose to listen to.  There are times that I don’t listen to the music that I should, and hearing this song was a reminder that I need to spend more time in devotion to the Lord through the worship and songs that I seek. 

If you followed my blog last year, then you may have read my blog post where I wrote that freedom was my word of the year for 2020.  For the year of 2021, I have decided that the very short, yet very important word of Joy would be my new word of the year.  I did some brief research and found that there are at least 16 Bible verses about joy in the Bible, so clearly this is a word that God and many other Christians care about very deeply.  One verse that I want to highlight this year is Nehemiah 8:10 that says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  Having joy in the Lord is a great strength, and I want to continue to develop that strength over the year of 2021.   

For a vast majority of my life, I associated the word joy with happiness.  It is very easy to do, and I believe that a majority of the world does this as well. When we think of someone who is joyful, we often think of someone who is happy most of the time.  You may never see this person as sad or upset, etc.  Now while I do think there is some truth or connection between happiness and joy, I do not think that joy is merely just being happy.   Happiness easily for me comes and goes.  While I am very happy when things are going my way, there are times when things that aren’t going my way and I, of course, I get disappointed, sad, or even angry.  Those emotions are healthy and natural, but I know that joy is something that can be found amidst all those different emotions.  That even when we have a bit of sadness, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, even depression, there can be joy that will continue to see us throughout.  While continuing to still focus on the joy, we often can start to look through those other emotions.  

The world just celebrated Christmas and often throughout that season, there will be a phrase discussing how Jesus is coming to the earth to bring great joy.  We sing songs like, “Joy to the world.” Why is Christmas such a joyful holiday?  Because the idea is that Jesus is coming and eventually will die on the cross for our sins so that way we have an opportunity to live with him forever in eternity.  This joy is a celebration of God being on earth and being with his people again. That relationship that is developed through knowing the Lord, the love that he has for us, and the eventual promise of an everlasting life produces great joy. This again is not merely happiness, but joy, unending and continuous joy. 

I have written about this before, but I am still continuing to read the book, “Forgiving what you can’t forget,” by Lysa Terkeurst.  In this book and journal there is a quote that is great to think about when one is thinking of joy.  This quote says “He (God) promised the grief would turn into joy.  The grief would produce the joy.  The grief was a part of the journey, but it would not be the way that it would all end.” This put a lot of things into perspective.  The Lord does not necessarily promise to take away all grief from our lives here on earth.  No matter how much we would want that.  However, he does promise that he will use that grief and those problems that we have faced or are continuing to face for our great good and that eventually we would experience great joy.   Again, this is very different from happiness as it is something that is everlasting and something that does not just come and go with differing emotions.  

I have chosen this word because there has been a lot this past year that has made me at times question my joy.  Like many people, I was struggling at times through the Quarantine.  I was trying to tell myself to be more optimistic and to find the positives, but then the weeks moved on and on.  I still wasn’t with my students and I still wasn’t doing my job like normal.  I wasn’t getting the chance to talk to people, and I was starting to have more and more anxiety.  I did not feel the joy that I usually do.  Now I feel like a lot of people were there with me.  We all in some way, shape or form were impacted by this past year of 2020 and all of the things that came with it.  Because of this, I want to make sure that the grieving and anxiety over the present will continue to develop this promised joy in the future.  

The other reason that I have chosen the word joy is that if I am honest, there are times when I am a complainer. I am a planner. I love to make plans for the days, set goals, etc, which is one of the things that I love about myself.  However, I HATE when plans change.  I don’t like being asked to do things last minute. (unless I’m asked to go out to a movie, because I always want to go out to a movie!) So even if I agree to the last minute plans that I don’t want to do, you know that I am going to grumble to myself about it or to anyone who is close by.  (It’s hard to not have things go the way that we want them to, isn’t it.) Learning how to do all things without complaining is one of the things that I want to grow as a person, just as the verse says in Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing.”  I want to continue to find joy even when it is through things that I don’t want to do or like.  

Some of the ways that I am going to learn more about joy this year is I am starting a joy journal where I will write something down that fills me with joy.  I will use this also as a way to reflect on how I am feeling in regard to joy.  Then I also just bought a devotional that I am planning on working through called, “Happy Today; A guided journal to genuine joy.” by Max Lucado.  I am very excited for this as a way to reflect and learn more about joy through a devotional as well as some questions.  I am really excited to grow in joy this year.  My challenge for all of you is if you have not thought of your word of the year (or a few) of 2021, that you would consider finding one word that you can personally grow and focus on.  What is something that you want to develop better or work through?  Please let me know if you do think of one! I would love some good ideas for the future years!! 

The year of 2020 has been a very long one.  In many ways, I can’t believe it hasn’t been over for a long time, but at other times I can not believe that this year, the year of the pandemic, the rioting and protesting, and personal struggles is about over.  While I know that it can be very easy to push this year away as a total wash and hope that we never have a year like this one again, (I do definitely agree with that last part), there are also many positives that have come out of my personal year of 2020.  I actually feel as though this is one of my biggest years of growth, even amidst the struggle.  Maybe it was the struggle and adapting that helped me to grow as a person.   

This year I had my first real heartbreak, a couple actually.  I have talked many times throughout my blog posts about losing my grandpa.  Wow, did that shake my world and it still does in many ways today.  I would love nothing more this Christmas than to have my grandpa back. Only my mom, grandma, and I went to the Christmas Eve service.  I remember just a year or so ago, there was my grandma, grandpa, mom, and a couple sets of aunts and uncles that all went to the Christmas Eve service.  It was hard sitting there without Papa being there listening to the songs along with me. There would have been so many things that I would say to my grandpa if he could also come to our family Christmas.  I would tell him how school is going, that even though it has been exhausting amidst mask mandates, teaching online and in person, there are still so many great stories about my students and what they are learning.  I would tell him how running my Middle School study hall is going, that there have been ups and downs, but overall I believe we have gotten into a great rhythm.  I would tell him all about learning how to keep score-book for Basketball in order that I can go to at least some basketball games in person.  I bet he would think that was cool because he was interested in sports.   That is just a small list of the things that I all really want to tell him.  

I also struggled through the death of my dog, Kaiser. I really loved that dog, and when my mom called and told me he was run over, it brought me to my knees in tears.  I have never felt pain like that where it literally weighed me down to the floor.  Granted it was probably everything from the pandemic, my grandpa, and finally the death of Kaiser that was enough to bring me to my knees and make me wonder if I will ever be able to escape the pain of my current circumstances.  This blog post is not supposed to be about my pain as I have already written a lot about that, but those items were very much present in my 2020 and I can not easily forget it.  I will say that those hardships have helped me grow even more throughout this year.  I have decided that I am very grateful for the people, dogs, and things that are in my life and now I know better than to take them for granted. 

I grew a lot professionally throughout the year of 2020.  This year was the first year where I taught in the same school from the beginning of the year to the end.  I started in January still in my first year of teaching, and now I am in my second year of teaching.  I have learned so much over this past year, including how to teach online.  I still have a lot to learn, but I can see where my handouts, presentations, practice exercises, and units are overall so much better from this full year of teaching.  I also was blessed this summer with the chance to be the one in charge of the summer program at the Bridge of Storm Lake.   I absolutely love the Bridge, and I have loved all the summers that I have gotten the chance to work there, so I was very happy to help the team out for another year.   This summer definitely was different as the pandemic was going on, but we as a team found a way to spread love and joy to the kids and community amongst those struggles.  I was by no means the only one involved in these decisions but as the person in charge of the summer program and team, I had to continue thinking of creative ideas to stay involved in the community.  This was a great way to grow in my leadership skills that will no doubt help me become a better teacher and just general worker in the future.  

I have also continued in my passion of fighting against human trafficking.  I am still involved in IJM through helping college students.  I got to be a part of starting the race to rescue event which was a great amount of fun.  Then I also completed Dressember like I do every year that raises funds to anti-human trafficking organizations.  Because of my family and friends support, I finally got over $1000 which is the first time I have achieved that in the four years that I have been a part of Dressember.  There is still the month of January to fundraise, so I will continue to try raising more money for this wonderful cause.  If you would still like to give money to end Human trafficking/Modern Day slavery around the world, here is the link to my personal page or, of course, I would recommend giving to the Dressember team as well. https://dressember2020.funraise.org/fundraiser/courtney-post

I have also grown a lot through the goals that I have set from this year.  The first big thing is my exercise goals.  I have always loved to exercise but the year of 2020 I set a couple of exercise goals that I was for the most part able to achieve.  My first exercise goal for the year was to be able to run 750 miles, and I did it! I worked very hard on this goal.  I have never kept track of my miles for the year, and I am really glad that I did.  I now have a better understanding of just how many miles I can run within a year’s time.  Plus, this just reminded me how much I love running.  I wasn’t able to run much the year before because of knee surgery, so this year was definitely making up for lost time.  I loved getting the chance to run around Buffalo Center and Storm Lake.  Another goal I had was to be able to squat 160 to 170 pounds.  I also achieved this, and I found out that I really feel very strong when it comes to going to the weight room. The other goal was to bench press 110-120, now I will be honest I made it more to 95 pounds.  I never really had anyone spot me in order to see if I could do the higher weight amount.  I will keep working on my bench press, but I have definitely gotten stronger in general in regard to my upper body strength.  

Another goal of mine was to be able to read 25 to 30 books.  I achieved this goal and I definitely read some great books this year.  I tried to read books this year that fell under different genres including reading all the autobiography books of Maya Angelou.  Maya is known for many things, but one of those is her book, “I know why the Caged Bird Sings.”  However, it may not be commonly known that she continues her story through 6 other books.  Her life story has many highs and lows, but she writes with such grace and style throughout it all.  This book series was a good reminder to read from a different perspective and lifestyle as a way to grow in empathy and sympathy.  I have never experienced sexual assault, and I certainly never did underage.  I also have never had racial stereotypes or prejudices impact my daily life personally as a white woman growing up in the Midwest of the United States.   I was able to learn more about what that feels like through reading her story, even if her story takes place 70 years ago.  I highly recommend reading that book series if you ever get to it.  

Another goal that I had for this year was starting a blog.  I had wanted to start a blog for a long time, and this year I finally did it.  I have found that writing this blog has provided me with a great deal of joy.  I love getting the chance to take the thoughts I have about a verse, a concept, or a quote in writing that anyone can read.  I love that there are some people who take the time to read what I have to say (Including you if you are reading this right now).  This also has given me a way to express myself when I was dealing with a great deal of pain in my life as well as help me to remember certain experiences and things that I am learning.   I plan to keep this blog up in the years to come and hopefully that will only help me continue to grow as both a person and as a writer.  

The very last Beatitude that I am going to talk about is actually quite a few verses.  The last Beatitude is Matthew 5:10-12, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.  Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  

Throughout the looks of the Beatitudes, I have often brought up that the Beatitudes are not often idealized in this world.  They are often not the characteristics that are owned by people who are in high charge places.  This Beatitude shows us all of that.  The world does not always love those who are poor in spirit, meek, love mercy, those who mourn for others,  a peacemaker, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Because of that, there are many times they will sometimes show anger and persecute what they don’t like including the people who possess those qualities.   That is why this Beatitude holds extra weight including a great reward in heaven.  A person who is willing to be persecuted, mocked, scored, hated, and maybe even killed for the sake of the Lord or for the sake of having those righteous qualities will be later well honored and loved by the Lord. 

The Bible includes many different examples of those who are persecuted.  The verse even introduces that when it says that “the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  One example of a good prophet/follower of Jesus who was persecuted for his following of Jesus is Paul.  Paul started out killing Christians for their belief in Christ.  Then with a blinding light (literally) he sees God, becomes a Christian and then is the one who is being persecuted, through being thrown in prison and eventually many perceive beheaded in Rome.  

However, Paul always takes great joy in the Lord, even if he is suffering a lot from the people of the world.  In Philippians 3:8 Paul says, “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ” Even though Paul has lost a great deal through following God and sharing God’s word, he still considers the love of God as something that means more.  That while in this life, there may be suffering at the hands of others in the form of persecution, in the end, there will be an everlasting life that will be filled with joy and love.  Paul at this time didn’t even know about the grand reward that will come from being in heaven after being persecuted.  His biggest prize is getting to know the Lord.  

The other example of someone who had struggled with persecution is of course, Jesus Christ himself.  He himself was definitely persecuted for his strong beliefs in the Father and also that he came with the prophecies about himself and the future for believers.  Eventually he would be arrested, put on trial, and later of course, executed on the cross.  He does this to die for our sins, so that way we have the opportunity to live forever with God in heaven.  He also then understands completely what it means to be persecuted and killed for one’s beliefs, so therefore, he would be the most understanding and loving to us when we also struggle through this.  

Persecution may, of course, not always end up in death.  There are many times that persecution may have nothing at all to do with any body harm, but instead there is a lot of mental hostility and hurt.  This can be as simple as people making fun of you because you may choose to go to Sunday morning church service as opposed to sleeping in.  Even though that is not a huge deal, for many that can be painful and sometimes hard to endure.  I am not going to ever say that it is not painful to be looked at strangely for talking about Jesus or for having people not understand why you feel the need to go to church on a regular basis.  I certainly have no idea what it means to be heavily persecuted where you are threatened to have your life taken away or even hurt.  I can’t even imagine that.  However, that being said, God has promised that whoever is persecuted for the sake of the Lord and the Lord’s name will have a great reward in heaven.  I have no idea what the award will be, but there is the promise that it will be grand and the Lord always keeps his promises.   

In conclusion, this Beatitude shows us that when you choose to live a righteous lifestyle, you are not going to be loved and adored by everybody.  Similar to how the Lord was not loved and adored by everybody.  There may even be some that really hate those who have that righteousness.  However, in the end the Lord will look at those people’s lives and remember that they suffered a lot for the sake of God’s glory.  This overall concludes my look at the Beatitudes.  It has been really great to look at them each individually.  Each one of the Beatitudes is individually hard to achieve and it is not at all loved by the people of the world, but each one is adored and loved by the Father.  Continuing to have a deep love for the Lord and looking to the world and the characteristics above will be the only thing that helps us achieve each individual Beatitude and therefore the relationship and rewards that come with it.