Author: linvazquez

Your Personal Journey

Every single day that we are blessed to wake up, we begin a journey. Whatever that journey may be, however we begin our day can literally motivate us or bring us down to act like sadness from the movie Inside Out. That is definite the last place we want to be. I honestly just want to encourage you in your journey, keep going. If you’re going to school and you have that last stretch to finish, get it done, you got it. If you’re trying to get to the work week, get to work and do your best possible and if you’re tired of working where you are, then maybe it’s time to start exploring what other available positions are out there. Put that resume out, network and get your butt moving forward, don’t be stagnant at a job that you hate. If you’re on a weight-loss journey (for some of you a weight-gain journey), don’t get upset when you mess up on one meal. It’s going to happen! Just put in a bit of extra work and bounce back from that hiccup.

Your personal journey matters, YOU matter! I honestly want to know what journey you are on, however silly or serious it may be. Let me know your journey, I might have some tips or I might be completely clueless but I still want to know what you are doing. The contact button is right there and it’ll come directly to my personal email, let’s encourage each other and see the places God will take us.

0

This is to the One

To the one who I have failed. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there or that I may have pushed you away. I probably said that I would always be there but we both know that it wasn’t true. We grew apart somehow and I can’t make up for any of it, I can’t make up for missed times or even disappointing you. It’s so cliche when people say, “I wish I could take it all back and do things differently,” because in reality, I’m pretty sure every single one of us would do the exact same thing in life if we were given a second opportunity. For that, I am sorry. 

I just ask that as you read this, that you don’t focus on all the times I have failed you, that you don’t focus on the moments I have left you hanging, that you don’t focus on the moments where I made time for others but not for you. My intention was not to harm you in any way. I want to show you my love and that I can be there for you but it’s impossible. I am sorry. 

In Psalm 118:8 it says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in people,” and I’m the perfect example of that people. Not that I’m unfaithful or not loyal, but I do fail. I want to promise so much to you, but I’m not God and sometimes I can’t keep those promises. I am sorry. You need to know that you shouldn’t put your full trust in me, instead just look to God. He is the one that will take everything into His hands and take care of every single one of your needs. Forgive me for failing you, forgive me for not being there, I can’t promise I will be here forever but I will make an effort to be better…for you. 

This is to the one who I have failed, I am sorry and I still love you.

0

Motivated

In about 3 months I’ll be turning 29 and I had one major goal with regards to my health, and that was to go on a journey to get rid of the damage I caused to myself. In all honesty, it was embarrassing telling people I graduated with a degree in Kinesiology. I would look at myself and see an overweight individual that needed work and I tried but failed miserably.

From the time I graduated in 2013 till the picture on the left, June 2018, I gradually started to gain weight. I let myself go and could really care less of what I was doing to myself until the clothes I really liked started to feel tight and some stopped fitting. I weighed myself in June 2018 and I was a whopping 270lbs! I couldn’t believe it and became that much more embarrassed. In 2013 I weighed around 180-190lbs, it still wasn’t a healthy weight but in a matter of 5 years I had gained close to 100lbs! I didn’t know what to do. I had done Shakeology and it worked while I was on it, but when I stopped, my weight gain continued. I tried numerous weight loss programs and I couldn’t stick to anything.

Eventually I met a sister at my church who introduced me to a detox, I figured I’d try it since nothing else seemed to work and I stuck with this. Little by little I started to notice some weight loss and that’s when the momentum began. For the first six months I stuck to the detox without doing much physical activity and I was amazed that I had lost 20lbs without much effort. That’s when I made the decision to go ham 🤭 and start hitting the gym again as well as put more effort to eating better. Eight months later here we are with the picture on the right, as of August 13, 2019 with a total weight loss of 48lbs.

I am definitely not done with this journey but I’m motivated to keep going. First and foremost to honor God and secondly for my health and well being. I can’t keep damaging my body the way I did, it will be one pound at a time and I’ll be sure to share the victories with you. If you’re in the same boat I’ve been, don’t give up, keep moving and stay focused, YOU GOT THIS!

0

I Respectfully Disagree…

That’s a phrase I haven’t really heard in a while. For these past couple weeks I’ve wanted to blast my opinion on my page and leave it here for anyone who would stumble upon it to see, but I wanted to hold off until I processed everything, I wanted to look at how everything has been playing out and all I kept seeing is CHAOS!

I deactivated my Instagram and Facebook accounts about 8 months ago, I was getting frustrated at how much of a distraction it was becoming as well as getting frustrated at things people would post. I would agree with some things and disagree with others, occasionally I would voice my opinion but I would cease to do so if it went from being a friendly disagreement to an outright attack. Since I’ve been off those platforms, I’ve regained peace. The only platforms I currently use are Snapchat and Twitter, which I still try to avoid but as everyone knows, it’s easy to get caught up scrolling and retweeting.

I can still tell people are throwing jabs and punches from both sides of the aisle, and it’s sometimes heartbreaking. We see the abortion debates, immigration debates, gun debates, and all these other issues going back and forth. As a conservative (yes, I’m a conservative but please continue reading), it would be easy for me to say that conservatives know how to keep their cool and those on the extreme left are blowing things out of proportion, but in reality at this point I have to take a step back and look at the big picture. Some conservatives know how to keep their cool, as I’m sure some liberals know how to do so as well, but it has reached a point where evil is overflowing from our hearts.

Jeremiah 17:9 already tells us that the heart is deceitful, and with so much access to social media these days it becomes that much easier to see what comes out of our hearts. I don’t want to end this post by being negative and pointing out all the bad that is going on, but rather to focus on becoming better individuals. I will always stand firm and say that God is the one who can transform our lives and how we respond to the world, but if you don’t believe in God (or even if you do) I will ask this, what good comes from the anger you hold against someone you disagree with? Don’t get me wrong, we will definitely disagree with people throughout our life, but what’s the point of staying angry or even attacking someone verbally/physically because you disagree on an issue? We gain absolutely nothing. Let’s work on learning to disagree; it’s ok if someone doesn’t believe what you believe. Your goal should not be to convince people to believe as you do, share your view and let others share theirs, if you disagree then do so in kindness.

Lastly, some Christians will probably come at me and say, “but Lin, we’re supposed to go make disciples and share the word of God so how can you say our goal shouldn’t be to convince people about God?” Guess what, we’re not supposed to convince anybody to believe in our faith, first we are to live it out and we are to share it, we are not responsible for changing people, that’s what God is in charge of. So again, it’s ok to disagree but don’t build up anger if people don’t see how you see.

0

Easter Weekend Happened – Now What?

Many of us who serve at a church were looking forward to this Easter weekend that just occurred. Some of our churches had special service programs and Easter egg hunts for the children. This was the weekend for us to go all out on social media, in our communities, and promote Easter weekend like crazy. It really is great and incredible being able to do that to reach the community and invite people who don’t know God, but are we really looking at our reasoning behind this? Are we doing this for the numbers? Are we doing it so that we can become the next big church in our state? In our country? In the world? It’s so easy for us to emphasize the amount of people that showed up to Easter service but we need to make sure to take it a step further and follow up with what we committed to.

At every church in America at least one person attended a church that has never been to that church before, well, I assume this simply because it’s Easter and some people probably feel guilty of not going to church all year that they figured it would be a good idea to attend on “Resurrection Sunday.” So now the question is, what are we doing to build that relationship with that individual? I’m pretty sure attendance increased by a good percentage at your church, I know it did at my church, but are we taking the necessary steps this week to make disciples? Numbers are not going to matter if people don’t have a personal relationship with God. If we focus on the numbers we had this Easter Sunday and try to build from that momentum, our churches will die because of lack of discipleship. Let’s make it a goal to focus on discipleship. 

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑