A Life of Adventure

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-->> "An adventurous life does not necessarily mean climbing mountains, swimming with sharks or jumping off cliffs. It means risking yourself by leaving a little piece if yourself behind in all those you meet along the way."

Goals right here guys. Life goals.

When I first read this I was convicted because to me that is what adventure is. Adventure is doing the crazy, insane, wild and unheard of things in life. To me adventure is spontaneous actions, uncertain situations, unique ideas, different places and crazy things. While that is true, adventure is SO MUCH MORE.

True adventure is . . .

- Living with an attitude of adventure -

It is not waiting for the perfect time or event to suddenly become actively adventurous. It is a mindset of living each and every day with the people around you striving to impact them.

That is adventure. Giving of yourself to others. It is taking a risk on that person or thing without knowing the outcome. It is giving your all in every situation. It is living in the present and not searching for the crazy “things” to do in life. Part of the adventure is experiencing those things. However, it is giving your time, your money, your resources, your knowledge, your insight, your love and your self to others wherever you are without hesitation. That is what is going to change your life and change the lives of those around you.

Isn’t that our goal in life? To impact others? To encourage others? To take risks on other people because we care about them and not about the outcome of the situation?

My goal in life is to go on tons of crazy, fun, spontaneous and uncertain adventures to the beautiful places I’ve only dreamed about. However, those are not the only adventures I will be taking. Wherever I go, whoever I am with, whatever circumstance I am in, I will be living an adventure.

I choose to live this life where I am at. I choose to explore and experience all the wonderful moments around me, even if it is in my own front yard. I choose to not be worried about what others think of me or scared about the outcome of a situation because that is out of my control.

Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,” (NIV)

Christ wants to blow our minds. He wants us to capture the craziest adventure we can think of and He will completely take it to a whole new level. We cannot imagine what He has in store for us. The adventures and possibilities are endless. But they start at home. They start with Christ working inside us. They start with investing in others and embracing our daily adventures. Even the small ones. They are just as important as the big ones.

- We need to look at every moment, in every place, with every person for whatever reason as its own adventure worth taking -

Blessings,

~Gracie

Do You Want an Easy Life?

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“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Generally speaking I have not wished for this. I have always wanted an easy road to follow. One that I thought would mean happiness and success. But the truth is no one should want this kind of life. An easy life in reality equals a meaningless one because it never required effort. No sweat, no tears, no anguish, no fear, no pitfalls, no drama, no progress and no heart.

While these things may not be desirable per say, they are essential parts. Whatever we want to do in life will require some part of us— whether it be mentally, emotionally, physically or spiritually that we may not get back. Therefore, might as well take this opportunity and learn from it. Throw yourself in 100% and take pains with whatever it is. Think of how much greater the reward will feel once the goal is accomplished.

We all have to realize that life is a process. Many times our journey has several different parts. We will come upon the first step, then the second one that takes twice as long, and the detour, then the third step that gets flipped upside down and we finally reach the end. This is how our lives go and many times we get frustrated that they aren’t perfect.

But no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to attain a perfect life. We may look around and think that others have wonderful, easy lives. Maybe they chose the easy road and their life appears great, but inside they will be missing something. Something that they cannot find. That would be Jesus.

Life with Him is worth so much more than just a life. Life with Jesus means to actually LIVE life. It may be a difficult life, but with Christ life has meaning, it has purpose and hope in the future.

Instead of praying that all these struggles and pains go away we need to pray for STRENGTH to get through the hard days and difficult times of our life. Without these trials, life would get boring. We wouldn’t see God’s hand work and we wouldn’t have stories to tell or memories to share. 

We need to bring those difficult moments into a new perspective. Think of them as opportunities to learn and grow. Opportunities to strengthen our faith.

Embrace life’s struggles.

There is always room for improvement. Ultimately the storms and bumps in the road make us stronger, wiser and more appreciative of the joyful, satisfying moments we experience. Once we learn to embrace the struggles they will become easier, because we will understand that they do have a purpose. Nothing in life happens by mistake.

Christ is the only rock to lean on

I hope whatever trials are being thrown your way today you will be able to see the bigger picture that life is worth so much more than the struggles of today. I pray that you all will have hope knowing that God will forever have you in His hand.

Blessings,

~Gracie

Even Slow Old Computers Are A Blessing

Meaningful Mondays is something that I am starting and hope to use as a tool of encouragement for all of us to look at the important things in life—the moments that take our breath away. Many Mondays I feel like we tend to see the difficult moments of the upcoming week and fail to recognize the beauty before our eyes. Each Monday is a new day. A fresh start. No mistakes. I hope that through these weekly Meaningful Monday posts you all will be encouraged and able to start your week positively.

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A few nights ago I was up late rushing to finish up scholarship applications due the next morning. It had been a long, exhausting day and 11pm was rolling around. All I had left to do was fax two things and print off a whole bunch of pages. All the hard work was done… so I thought.

I started to bring up the files on the only computer I could print from. A minute later the page was still loading. I tried deleting it and starting over but came up with the same results. Now, we have all had this problem before. Whenever we are in a time crunch our printers or laptops seem to suddenly stop working. In this case our computer. It is ancient, I think it still has the Windows XP version on it and often it chooses to just stall without rhyme or reason.

At this point I was frustrated. I had worked hard all day and was so close to being done but I could not get it to bring up the documents I needed. Yes, after a few moments I burst out into tears. Then through the tears I prayed. I just asked God to let the computer work so that I could be done and go to bed. I knew He could make it work but for some reason was choosing not to.

Soon I recognized that my brother’s laptop was also sitting on the desk so I tried to fax, load the documents on his computer and print from it. It all worked. I was astonished. I did not know that was possible. I thought that our printer was too old to connect to my brother’s new laptop. Then I realized that if it worked on his laptop it has got to work on mine. So, I tried my laptop.

AND IT WORKED!

I was so thankful and relieved. Later I realized that this was a God moment. He had my best interest in mind and did not want me to continue to use the old laptop to print from because it was such an inconvenience. He said no to my original request (to allow the old laptop to load) because He had something better in mind—a blessing.

Now this was not a life or death situation (although at the time I would have argued for it). It was a pretty insignificant technical difficulty. I could have waited for an hour or so and eventually the old computer would have worked. However, God had something greater in mind.

Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

God used this "problem" or "trial" to bring me close to Himself. He gave me a blessing. He taught me have a different perspective through this situation. He taught me to pray about the small things in life. He wants to communicate with me and you always. Even about the seemingly insignificant things, because nothing in life happens by accident.

Wherever you are, whoever you are with, no matter what is happening , God is there. He is giving you opportunities to show Himself to you and for you to be an example to others. God's timing is ALWAYS perfect. His plan is ALWAYS perfect. We just need to have a little faith, a lot of prayer with some patience and peace to trust that He's got everything under control.

I hope this Monday you will be able to have a little perspective change and see that God can use something as weird as an old, slow computer to bring you closer to Himself.

Blessings,

~Grace