Daily Journal

It's been awhile since I've posted on my blog, mostly because I haven't really been cooking much or really doing much worth posting ;-) However, I started to think that maybe the little things I HAVE been doing would be good to share. 

Recently, I purchased a beautiful journal from an amazing company called Trades of  Hope (Trades of Hope is a company devoted to empowering women out of poverty using the home party model. To find out more about it, click the link above)! When my journal finally arrived, I realized how ornate it was and I actually thought that it seemed too pretty to write in! Eventually, I decided to make it a daily journal. I wanted it to be something relaxed and not very formal. I just wanted to jot down little thoughts or questions I had during the day about life or God or anything at all really. It was just going to be a way of releasing my mind, but it has become so much more than that in the last month...

Something I realized as I started writing was that I have many more questions than I do just random thoughts. My innermost doubts and fears surround things like, "Am I going to be safe?" or "Does God love me even when it feels like no one else does?" I've found such freedom in letting my fears and worries come out of my head and down onto paper. It's like I can examine each thought and process it more fully and the best part is that I can pray over it and open my Bible to look for answers to my questions. 

The Bible talks about bringing our thoughts into captivity (2 Corinthians 10) and for so much of my life I've let my thoughts run wild. I've battled anxiety for a good portion of my life and I've been known to speak my mind a little "too" freely sometimes. Every day I am working on it and I'm growing and maturing and changing, but I don't think I've spent enough time meditating on this idea. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says,  

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 

Something I've learned from writing down these questions is that at the end of the day, the biggest enemy I have in the world is often myself. The biggest arguments I'm having are ones that are stirring in my soul. My doubts and fears are so often contrary to the knowledge of God. If I fail to take those thoughts captive, I'm binding myself to fear and finding no freedom from it. I'm falling prey to the desires of the world and the hopelessness of the world. Instead of taking my thoughts captive, I'm being held captive by my thoughts...

If you're struggling with wild thoughts like I have been, take time to write them down. Get them out of your head so you can release them from your mind and take your thoughts to God so he can give you peace.

I'll be praying for anyone who reads this today.

--Kayla

Charting Our Course

My husband, Jon, and I have been married just over a year now and marriage has been a beautiful blessing full of struggles and triumphs. As a passionate photographer, writer, and foodie, I decided that it was time I started blogging about my life as a way of documenting the journey our marriage is taking us on. First things first, though. You should probably get to know me and my crazy husband.

Jon and I met in 2008 at a church retreat and I basically stalked him for several weeks after that because I thought he was so cute (I also thought he was way too old for me, so I'm just a creeper all around). I finally got up the nerve to call him when I noticed he had his number on Facebook. I called him and told him he was a weirdo (great start) and then proceeded to have one of the best conversations of my life as well as find out that he WASN'T too old for me and a relationship was totally foreseeable. From that point on we were inseparable. I think we managed to talk on the phone every single day for nine months straight until I finally made the move from Michigan to Indiana to be with him. In between all that was a lot of craziness. Several church retreats and parties and a list of dares that had to be completed between the two of us before we could see each other again (Let's just say they involved doing a lot of insane things in public--i.e. eating with your face and dressing up in costume. I think a unicorn was even involved at some point... but that's another story). Needless to say, we are quite the pair.


Jon and I dated for four years before he popped the question (everyone was in on the "isn't it about time you guys get hitched?" joke--even his grandma--for all four of those years). But something you should know about both of us is that while we have the same sense of humor and general zest and zeal for life, we are essentially polar opposites in every other way. Jon is the youngest child of four and I'm the oldest of four. Jon is wild and reckless and I'm steady and cautious. Jon is a people-pleaser and I could really care less about pleasing everyone. Jon has never-ending patience and I have zero patience at all. Jon likes to be prepared for all circumstances and I usually just approach life in whatever moment I happen to be in. You can see how a marriage between two people so incredibly different can lead to chaos and disorder right off the bat, but somehow we just manage to balance each other out for the most part. He tells me when I'm being irrational and I tell him when he's being a crazy person who's going to get himself killed. It's win/win I think. We both end up better people because of each other (Aw. Isn't that sweet?).

So now that you have a better idea of who's going to be writing this crazy blog, we can get down to the nitty gritty of WHY I'm writing this blog.

I'm just a woman on a mission to learn about myself and discover what's possible with the power of the written word. I'm on a mission to become a better wife and a better person overall and I think this blog is going to be a way of looking back on my life and seeing not just the memories we are making as a new family, but also seeing progress in my journey of self-exploration.

Expect posts about fun my husband and I have as well as my recent food creations and projects, and random thoughts on life and faith and everything in between. The course we are on may be a bit muddled by chaos, but it's going to be a worthwhile adventure and I invite whoever happens to be reading this to share in it with me.

--Kayla