Inspiration – Page 5 – 1 Timothy 4:12 Girl

Choices

September 14, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney15 Comments

Hey everyone, my good friend Mfon from Dainty M. just submitted an awesome article that I think you guys will love! It’s the first of many guest posts that I plan to have here, so keep your DMs open and regularly check your inboxes! I plan to have more guest posts in the future!

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I watched this movie ‘The choice’ and I think it was pretty good. Though my over analytical mind kept asking questions and trying to solve an unknown mystery. Lol. Suffice to say, everything we do in life hinges on our choices. Each choice has pros and cons. If you’re like me, you probably have the pros and cons list where you weigh every option. But even with that obsessive need for perfection, we still make mistakes!
So yes, choices are important. And God liberally gave us the chance to choose. We get to choose life or death, happiness or sadness, black or white. And sometimes these distinctions won’t be so clear- like picking between different shades of grey for instance. It gets really tricky and we need God even more!

I watched a romantic movie today from Hallmark. I like Hallmark movies, clean and brilliant! So yeah I had the whole ‘coil up on my carpet and eat chips’ moment while watching the fairytale unfold and letting out the ‘awws’ and ‘I want that!’. Well there you have it, I’m a hopeless romantic. Lol. So after the movie I went all whiny to God like ‘would I ever have that perfect love relationship?’ Long story, I decided to look at Ruth in the Bible. And I found something interesting.

She made choices. First was to follow her mother in law even when she knew there was nothing left for her. Second, she didn’t just sit home as a sad widow, she chose to go get a job. Third, she chose to follow her mother in-law’s instructions of making the right move. Starting from there, I probably wouldn’t have done that cause I always expect the guy to make the first move. Then secondly, why go out when you can just stay home depressed at how unfair life is? And yeah, I also may not have followed Naomi knowing she had no sons left.

So what if she hadn’t taken the job offer and rather wandered to other fields to glean? What if she hadn’t even followed Naomi? We probably wouldn’t be reading about her in the Bible.

Choices are so powerful!

Eve chose to eat the apple… Adam also chose to eat it. No one forced them. There could be some convincing and nudges here and there but at the end, we get to choose. God has given us this chance to choose but He tells us to choose right.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live- Deut 30:19

I’d like us to get a little more cautious about the choices we make every single day. Most of these choices have ripple effects and they flow down a long time.

I pray the Holy Spirit guides us as we make choices.

Love: Because Anger And Apathy Aren’t Enough

September 2, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney13 Comments

“As the church, we are in community together trying to fulfill this Great Commission that Jesus left us with. As we gently press into each other, we form one united thing, His church. As we work together, sharing the space God gives us to do His work, we all become shaped a little different. We all become a little more like Him.” ― Jennifer L. Lane.

As I’ve passed on from high school to college, I’ve noticed a series of distinct difference between the two. Granted, this may not be the case for all, but considering I’m contrasting a Christian education with a secular environment, there already appear to be a world of dissimilarities.

When I was in high school, pretty much everyone said exactly what they thought—for better or for worse. Classes were small and typically, disagreements during class discussions were fairly common. When it came to views on important matters, everyone had an opinion. Sometimes the opinions were loud, and sometimes they were quite militant, but they were opinions nonetheless.

Now that I’m in college, the dynamics have done a 360. Few people really seem to have strong feelings about anything, and if they do, they manage to hide it well. The hallways are quite sterile, and it’s infrequent to even really make eye contact with anyone. The overall mentality seems to be “You stay out of my business, I’ll stay out of yours“. I hung out with one of my friends recently who’s still in high school at a local public school and she said that she rarely shares her opinions with anyone, as that only causes drama.

From what I’m noticing, it seems that the general consensus in Christian environments is “I’m going to give my opinion very loudly whether you like it or not” and the general consensus in secular environments seems to be “Stay out of my business and try not to get in anyone’s way“.

Both approaches fall short in interacting with the world as Christ would.

When someone only wants to yell and point fingers, they fail to care about the very people they’re supposed to be loving. When someone never stops to give advice or to try help someone work through a problem, they communicate coldness and apathy. As Christians, we’re supposed to love and be a family, which presents an entirely different vision than either approach offers.

When you’re in a family, you don’t just spew off disagreements without a relationship and the other person’s best interests at heart. You also don’t only chat casually and avoid any subject that could potentially bring conflict. Both of these approaches are dysfunctional and both fail to live up to Jesus’ calling to “Go and make disciples” (Which could also be thought of as, “go bring people to the family“).

Many times in the media, we hear the word empowerment being used frequently. I believe this word best sums up my point here. Our goal as Christians is not to condemn or to be cold and uncaring, but to empower people to find their best selves in Christ. This means caring about forming relationships with other people, helping them sort through the messiness of life, and helping them to find God’s will in their lives. Clearly, there are many matters where it’s best to “agree to disagree” but we should never, in our pursuit of kindness, default to the booming, loud apathy of disconnection.

Our love needs to come from a deeper place than silence and rage, it needs to come from our living breathing Savior, who loves us and has adopted us as His own.

We can only become all that God intended us to be through caring, building up, and watching over our family and potential family-to-be.

Anger and apathy will never be enough.

My First Ever Vlog: How To Stay Strong In Your Faith

September 1, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney10 Comments

Hey guys, I’ve thought about doing a vlog for a while now and I finally decided to throw one up on my site today.

I’m just going to warn you guys ahead of time, I probably said “um” about fifteen hundred times…the joys of improv, lol! 😂

If you can think of any other good vlog topics, I’d love to hear them in the comments section!

Reflections On College

August 25, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney4 Comments

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”-C. S. Lewis

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The first week of school is always an interesting time. With this season comes new teachers, new classmates, and at times—a new school. College, I’ve found, contains all of this and more.

As I walked through the glass doors of college last Tuesday, the realization came in full force that this was my first time in a secular environment. I had a Christian education all the way through school, so most of my interactions up until now have been with fellow believers. And, as much as I’ve joked about some of the interesting customs of Christian subculture (e.g. “testamints” are actually a thing), I’ve come to find that there really is something special about being surrounded by other believers.

Thankfully, no one has been hostile about my faith (I honestly thought they were going to confiscate my cross earrings on the first day), but it’s also common knowledge that faith is not a normal conversation topic. Knowing about all of the hip Christian singers and bands gets you virtually no brownie points from fellow classmates in college. For the first time, I’m faced with the challenge of being “In the world, but not of it”.

I’m still trying to figure out what this looks like in real life.

Nonetheless, I believe everything happens for a reason. I’ve learned a lot over the course of high school and I believe that now God wants to teach me something new. He has each one of us in our current life situations for a reason. Even Jesus couldn’t stay in His hometown forever if He wanted to make an impact—He had to venture out in to the world around Him. In the words of an old Kelly Clarkson song “I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly. I’ll do what it takes until I touch the sky.” In order to fly, I must first jump, using my faith as wings to guide me through new and unfamiliar territory.

If you’re at a new school, a new work place, or like me, starting college for the first time, I want to encourage you to cling tightly to God and step into His will with courage and bravery. He has us where we are for a reason. If we had stayed in elementary school our whole lives, imagine how much we would have missed out on! We grow through new experiences, new people, and new places.

I don’t know how God’s going to use me in college or what this season will look like, but I trust that He’ll guide me through this process. I have officially decided to make Joshua 1:9 my “verse-of-the-year“.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

I may be in a new stage of life, but I know that I’m not alone in it. Just because my school isn’t ‘Christian‘ doesn’t mean that God isn’t there. He’s with me in those very hallways, within the walls of each one of my classes. God may push us out of our comfort zone, but He will never leave us alone. He is our strength and our shield, making us warriors ready for anything that comes our way.

If God brings you to it, He’ll give you the strength to get through it—and thrive in the midst of it. If we take one day at a time, and trust God with every moment, we can rise to any occasion and grow in our faith.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Ephesians 6:13-18.

Living In The Quiet

July 1, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney4 Comments

Hi everyone, sorry for the longtime hiatus. Things have kind of been a little crazy for me lately with post-grad drama and working on a book that I hope to publish, but I’m going to try to be more faithful with my blog in the future. In short, it feels good to be back. 😊

. . .

I’ll be honest, I’m an extravert. I’m not necessarily a loud or overly-out-there-extravert, but I’m an extravert nonetheless. To many, I would probably look more like an introvert, due to the fact that I prefer someone else to lead the conversation, but get energized around people, qualifying me for that title.

That being said, I love being around people and hearing the joys-and-noises of life; silence is basic my worst enemy. I typically have music playing, a book in hand, or a TV show on. Sometimes I even do a couple of those things at once.

Yes, I’m a millennial.

I enjoy stimuli, and I believe that in some ways, this tends to bleed into my life. As an author at heart, I tend to long for grand moments, the kind that you wait for at the end of a novel. I’ve had a couple of those types of moments this year, but as the year has closed, and summer has crept upon me, I’ve kind of found myself going crazy, battling more OCD than usual.

But, I believe God is trying to teach me something in the midst of it; He’s teaching me how to live in the calm, live in the ordinary. The crazy thing about life, is that it keeps going. Movies close with credits and maybe outtakes, but life continues, making it unparalleled to most forms of media. Furthermore, while we might easily find songs about self-discovery, changing the world, or finding love, we rarely lyrics about eating a sandwich or emptying the dishwasher. Recently, I read a book called Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman, which really resented with this part of me. She does a beautiful job at tackling the challenge of living in the silence, and one quote stands out in particular.

“What gives moments meaning is not the moments themselves but the presence of Christ with us in the midst of them.”

God is alive in every moment.

Not just the mountain tops.

Not just the bucket list items.

Not just the walking-on-sunshine-moments.

Each and every moment of life.

God is alive in the most unusual, hilarious conversations with your friend. God is alive as you brush your teeth in the morning. God is alive in the moments of concentration, trying to find the perfect sentence for that novel or essay.

God is alive in the silence as much as He’s alive in the excitement. This is something that I’m still learning, but I’m believing it more with each sentence that I type. God is still God, from the peaks of Mount Sinai to the lights of New York City to the calm of a small town. He’s working in your life even during the times that feel most silent. God is too sovereign to confine Himself only to big moments. He is alive both the noise and the silence, wherever you find yourself right now.

God is here. In your life. In mine. In each and every moment that we breathe.

And because of this, we can find peace when living in the quiet. Because whether our current life situation feels big or small, God is bigger than it all.❤️

My Struggle With OCD

May 26, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney7 Comments

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4 (NIV)

It was before a big production in my theater class. I was talking with one of my friends, Alex, while another friend was working on setting up the chairs. Finally, both feeling guilty, we went over to help our friend set up. To our surprise, which we both got a kick out of, he was determined that they be set up a certain way. We both teased him, in a friendly sort of way, but deep down, I knew something.

That I wasn’t all that different.

It probably formed early in my childhood, as I remember lining up crayons by color in elementary school, and to this day, I organize my clothes by color and type (though they don’t stay that way for long!). It also causes me to be prone to anxious thoughts, fearful of drinking out of a cup that isn’t clean, and make sure everything is just right when I leave the house. For instance, a simple thing like “is the blowdryer unplugged?” becomes check-it-two-hundred-times-because-if-it’s-not-the-house-will-burn-up-and-we’ll-be-homeless.

I can’t tell you exactly what the root of this is, or exactly when it showed up, but I can tell you that this is my struggle, as each person battles something. Maybe it’s a physical disability that you battle, like diabetes or having to be in a wheelchair. Perhaps it’s something psychological like my OCD. Maybe it’s an eating disorder, or self harm, or an ongoing situation with bullies and drama.

I don’t know what your situation is. But I do know that you’re strong enough to overcome it! Just as I know that I’m strong enough to manage my OCD, I know that you’re strong enough to deal with whatever your facing.

Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” (NKJV)

You have the strength to eat right…Through Christ who strengthens you.

You have the strength to put down that razor…Through Christ who strengthens you.

You have the strength to keep your head held high when they try to bring you down…Through Christ who strengthens you.

We are warriors, because the one who overcame death lives inside of us, and is “ever present help in times of trouble.” (Psalm 46:1) So put on the full am of God and keep fighting (Ephesians 6:10-11). Even when we don’t feel strong, we have His strength to keep us going.

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Because nothing that we’re facing is bigger than the God that we serve. ❤️

That Post About Being Healthy

May 6, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney5 Comments

“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” 3 John 1:2.

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Health. Though it is something that we know we all want and need, it can often conjure up interesting images in our head of crazed exercise trainers and extreme diets. As I’m writing this, I’m remembering an episode of Friends where Monica goes completely crazy training Chandler. Rest assured, that is not what I’m advising in this post.

What this post is about is being all-around healthy. This means taking care of the temple that God has given us and making smart choices to feel great from the inside out. We were made for something great, and we can’t accomplish God’s amazing plans for us if we feel like dog-poo. Because the Holy Spirit is literally living inside of us, it is our job to create a good home for Him. When company comes over, we take care to clean our homes and make them look nice for our guests, so how much more effort should we put into the place where God resides? Thus, here are some tips for living healthy and being healthy!

Eat well-Few things can affect our physical well being more than the fuel that we put into our bodies. This isn’t just about adding fruits and vegetables (Though that’s important too!) but also knowing what your body can and cannot handle. Some people have allergies and intolerances to certain foods; which could either require a cutback on those foods, or a complete cut-out. Recently, I found out that I was gluten intolerant. It’s not severe, like an allergy, so it took me a while to figure out that it was causing problems. At the beginning of this year, I noticed that was sluggish, having trouble concentrating, and generally feeling down. One morning, I had a gluten-free waffle and realized that I felt better than I had in months. From there, I began cutting gluten out of my diet and have felt much better since then. And, they make gluten free desserts like cupcakes and cookies so this doesn’t mean that I have to give up my sweet tooth! 🙂
Exercise-This is probably this most difficult one for me. If you’re the kind of person who would prefer a book to a day at the gym, exercise may very well feel like a drag. But, there are other ways to get exercise besides typical working out stuff, like swimming, playing a sport, or dancing. Basically, the point of exercise is to get moving, feel good, and stay healthy!
Be spiritually healthy-I cannot stress this one enough; honestly, it should be first. Staying spiritually important means staying close to God, reading your Bible and praying. Admittedly, I’m not always great about keeping up with daily Bible reading, but I’d like to get better! Being spiritually healthy also helps you stay emotionally healthy, make good choices, and have good relationships with others!
Be emotionally healthy-This means enjoying and savoring the life that God has given us and taking care to work through problems rather than letter them fester. Some things that can help with emotional health are enjoying a good book/movie, spending time outdoors, listening to music, and spending time with family and friends, with brings me to my next point…
Surround yourself with family and friends-It is so important to have close relationships with other people. God didn’t create us to be cut off from others, that’s why He created both Adam and Eve. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to get married, but it does mean that everyone needs people. Even the most introverted person needs friends. Take the time to invest in your friendships and keep them strong. There are few blessings greater than the people that God has placed in our lives!

How about you? What do you do to stay healthy? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section!

1 Timothy 4:12 Girl Mission Statement

April 18, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney4 Comments

I have been blogging for a while now, and one of my hopes for this blog is that it is each thread of writing is a piece that inspires.

I’ve read many bloggers and authors who have inspired me in my own faith, including but not limited to Emily P. Freeman, Neta Jackson, and Sarah Bessey. These authors all focus on the beauty of living into God’s best, and that is a theme that I try to emphasis on 1timothy412girl.

Each one of us, regardless of are callings, backgrounds, and life situations are called to something beautiful by the God and Creator of the universe. This may look different for everyone, as we live in an incredibly diverse world of various callings and vocations, but I believe that whatever God’s plan is for our lives, it is bound to be out-of-this-world, which brings me to my next point…

I believe that we are living a story, and God is our author. We all have individual stories, but they are all connected, which is why I try to highlight different testimonies on this blog by posting links to the experiences of fellow believers. When I address different social issues on my blog, I try to take in account real-life stories that correlate to the topic. In one blog entry, I posted a link about a girl who overcame cancer. In another, I posted a story of a guy who found incredible friendship and community in college. Most of the time, I try to focus on positive accounts, but at times, I have linked to more downtempo stories to raise awareness for situations that I don’t believe are being handled well.

In many of my topic-centered-posts, I’ve chosen to focus on topics of faith, staying true to ourselves, and following our dreams, as those are all topics that are very important to me. We are all called to shine for Jesus through both our unique shades of personality and through our hopes and dreams. Thus, this is also a point that I have emphasized throughout my time blogging.

Ultimately, in each post and each letter, I try to glorify God. I try to follow where I believe that He’s leading and make my blog a song that sings to my Creator.

I look forward to continuing my blog and would love any suggestions that you have for future blog-entries. Feel free to post your ideas in the comments section! 😊

One Poem

April 4, 2016February 4, 2017 Courtney2 Comments

One

From the first two people made

To those standing here today

We are one

From the southern country hills

To the towering skyscrapers built

We are one

From the wealthy one-percent

To those struggling to pay rent

We are one

From those looking for a place to stay

To those who hide away

We are one

From the woman to the man

To nationalities of every land

We are one

God came down as person

Though none of us deserve Him

He sent His Son

And because of His amazing grace

We’re one big family in His embrace

We are one.

Written by Courtney Whitaker at 1timothy412girl.wordpress.com

Feel free to share this poem, but please link back to my blog for credit. 😊