How To Control Your Emotions - Review and Giveaway!

I'm no stranger to roller coaster emotions. Life is full of ups and downs, and my emotions have a way of changing as fast as the twists and turns.

I can pinpoint big events that made my emotions go crazy: seven moves in my first seven years of marriage; a big pregnancy scare and the premature birth of our second child; going back to school at 30 to finish my degree and launch a new career; and my parents marriage almost crumbling just as I returned to college.

Sometimes, though, it 's not the big things that put my emotions in overdrive - it's the little everyday stresses. I'm guessing it's the same for you. It's when you're running late for work, or the kids won't stop fighting, or you can't stretch your budget any more. Emotions can overwhelm you when you can't make the number on the scale change, or you don't like the reflection staring back at you from the mirror.

You may feel defenseless against your emotions - but you don't have to be.

I've been a fan of Brooke McGlothlin for several years, since the first time I read Warrior Prayers. I was so excited to have the chance to review her newest book, How To Control Your Emotions So They Don't Control You.

If you've ever struggled with your emotions, you need this book. Brooke outlines simple strategies to help you bring your emotions under control, along with Scriptures to help fight off the lies of the enemy. She also shares examples of her own struggles - and sometimes, all a mom needs to know is that she's not alone in her fight!

Best of all, you can WIN a free copy of it this week! Just leave a comment below to enter. The winner we be announces Sunday, October 6th.

Living and Active

I never thought I would struggle with my weight. As a kid, I was always skinny. When I started taking karate and horseback riding lessons in junior high, I built muscle and toned. In high school, my weight yo-yoed but never got above 135 pounds. My freshman year of college, I became a vegetarian and lost the "freshman 15" instead of gaining them. I spent my days in class and my evenings working out, riding horses, and taking ballet classes.

Then life happened. I gave up being a vegetarian and worked out less. I got married. I sold my horse. I had kids. I gained weight. I lost weight. I went back to school and gained a lot of weight. Now, I find myself hovering (a second time) on the edge of my heaviest weight ever. And I don't like it.

The Bible says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ~ 1 Corinthians 6:19

 

It says we are to do everything for the glory of God:

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ~ 1 Corinthians 10:31

 

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. ~ Colossians 3:17

 When it comes to my health, I'm not following those commands. Instead, I'm abusing my body. I fill it with unhealthy food. I overeat. I neglect my workouts. I have not glorified God with my physical health. And it's not okay.

Today marks a fresh start for me.

I'm starting the "Living and Active" challenge with Claire at Peak 313. For me, this challenge isn't about being supermodel skinny. It's not about getting six-pack abs or building big muscles. It's about giving God my best - spiritually, mentally, and physically.

My faith is everything to me. It's not just part of me - its all that I am. I know that if I skip my morning time with God, or if I don't have Christian music playing during the day, or if I skip church and feeding my soul - I can't do all that He calls me to do. I can't be a good wife and mom, be my best at work, or lead children's ministry if I'm not spending time with God. I can't give to others unless I fill up first.

Yet that's exactly what I've tried to do physically, and it's not working. I feel awful. So many days, instead of being at my best, I'm bloated, sluggish, and achy. I'm always exhausted. I'm stiff and sore in the mornings. I don't sleep well. I'll admit it - I don't want to live my life this way. I want something better.

I'm ready for changes, and this is the perfect place to start. I love this challenge because it's doable. This isn't extreme - and I have been to both extremes. I have eaten until I gorged myself, day after day, hiding my feelings behinds food. I have gotten scary skinny, hovering on the brink of an eating disorder. Extremes don't work. They don't last. I'm ready for consistent, healthy changes. I'm ready for to be living and active.

Me, Pinatas, and Epic Mom Fails

I've had my share of "epic mom fail" moments. Seriously. Like the time I sent email invites instead of real invitations to my oldest son's birthday party and no one showed up. Or the time forgot the big event my kids were desperately hoping to go to.

Or a few weeks ago, on a Sunday night, when I was working on a blog post. To make matters worse, I was working on a post about a verse I love in Psalms. I had started the post earlier in the day, and late that Sunday night, I was trying to edit it from my phone. (You can see how fast things are unraveling here.) My kids were both talking. They should have been in bed. I should have been in bed. But instead I was tapping my iPhone screen in a desperate attempt to finish a post that was already scheduled.

Then it happened. Distracted by my kids, I hit the wrong button and messed everything up. I yelled at my kids. I got mad at everything and everyone, including my phone, the Internet, and life in general. My oldest son walked away with a hurt look on his face. After all, he was in the middle of trying to tell me something funny he saw earlier that day, and not only was I not giving him my attention, I ended up yelling at him. Not my finest mommy moment. Sadly, it's just one in a long line of epic mommy fail moments.

I wish I could be a perfect mom. I really do. I wish I was a great homemaker (I'm not). I wish I could decorate elaborate birthday cakes, throw beautiful theme parties with the perfect decor and games and goody bags. (I'm doing good to hand out invitations at all, there are no party games, and I forgo goody bags for a piñata. If you want a treat at our parties, you've got to fight for it.) {Click to Tweet that.} I wish I didn't yell at my kids. My mommy wish list goes on and on.

But my kids don't need to see Supermom - they need to see a momma clinging desperately to God's grace, knowing that's the only thing that can pull me through. They need to see my struggles so they see my victories. They need to see me striving to be better so they will know that it's never too late to change and be a better person.

I fail. A lot. But I hope my kids will see that I can't be perfect, and neither can they. But we serve a God who is perfect, and He gives plenty of grace to us, no matter how much we fail.

How To Be Brave

 

I'm close friends with fear - well, maybe "frienemies" is a better description. It's been a unwelcome part of my life for as long as I can remember. Worried, anxious fear. Mind-numbing, can't-breathe, panic attack fear. I know its many faces well.

When I was in junior high, I fell in love with the American West. The time period fascinated me, in part because these pioneers and early settlers knew a thing or two about fear. Families left everything behind for a chance to stake their claim on untamed land and start a new life. They faced droughts, storms, sickness, accidents, attacks, and more. For years, I read everything I could about this time period. During this time, I first read a quote from John Wayne:

 

I've used variations of this quote so many times with my kids, stressing to them that sometimes, you just have to face your fears. They aren't empty words. I've lived a lot of what I tell them. I fought a massive, decades long war against fear. While I overcame a lot, it's still a daily battle. Going back to college in 2010 brought up a whole new group of fears. Graduating silenced many of them - but not all. I still have big dreams beyond college, and big dreams bring bigger fears.

I'm trying really hard to be brave right now. Last week, I worked through the Blog Planning Boot Camp with Kat at How They Blog. Day One was exciting: writing down dreams of the legacy I want to leave behind. Day Two was scary: setting lifetime, five year, and ten year goals. By Day Three, I was in panic mode: breaking down my one year goals into small, doable steps and scheduling those steps on my calendar.

It's one thing to say I want to be a published, successful author and have a thriving blog. It's another thing to actually take steps toward that dream. The scariest part is the very simple act of admitting that I have the dream. (Click to Tweet) If no one knows my dream, and I never achieve it, it's no big deal. But if I admit it, if everyone knows my dream, and I never achieve it, then I feel like I've failed.

What if I tell everyone that I want to be a published author - but I never even get an article in a magazine? What if I share my dream of writing Christian fiction - but get only unfinished manuscripts or a stack of rejection letters to show for my work? What happens if I bare my soul to the world, letting them see the deepest desires of my heart - only to learn I'm not good enough to make it happen?

I've always been a dreamer - but now it's time to become a doer. It's time to push my fears aside and put my hopes into action. I'm shaking in my boots, but I'm saddling up anyway. I've dreamed it. I've planned it. Now it's time to dive in.

Bread and Wine: A Review

It's easy for cooking and mealtimes to become a chore. I love to cook, but after three years of balancing school with work and family, coming home exhausted every day just to spend hours studying, I lost my love for it. I just wanted to find something quick and easy that would get everyone fed each night. After my graduation in May, I was determined to rediscover the joy I once found in cooking. Then I found Bread and Wine. It couldn't have come at a more perfect time.

 Shauna Niequist perfectly ties together faith, family, and food in a book that is part memoir, part cookbook, and entirely wonderful. This is not a book to read in one sitting or even in a couple of days. It's a book to read a snippet from, then mull it over (and try the recipes) before moving on to the next portion. It will make you fall in love with food, cooking, and sharing meals with the ones we love.

This is the perfect book for "foodies," but it's about so much more than food. Shauna openly shares her life and faith, including her infertility and miscarriages, her struggles with weight and body imagine, and the struggle to really, fully be where you are.

 

 

 

As I finished this book, it led me down some other trails, pointing the way to other books already on my to-read list. I'm following it up with The Hour That Matters Most by Les and Leslie Parrott (a books bout the lost art of family mealtimes) and The Unwired Mom by Sarah Mae.

 

I highly recommend this book!  I rarely give a book five stars, but this one makes it onto that list.

A New Way To Journal

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that journaling is a huge part of my Bible study time. I've also written about it here on my blog and guest posted about it on Inspired To Action. It has become a way to deepen my faith and get more from my time with God.

A few weeks ago, I started feeling that something was still missing. I knew there had to be a way to get even more from my journaling. Around this same time, I found myself on a scrapbooking kick, checking out Project Life (which I really want to start) and smash books at Hobby Lobby. The morning after my trip, I had a light-bulb moment, and my journal got a makeover.

It wasn't a big budget change. I spent $3.00 in the craft department at Walmart for some scrapbook journaling cards, found some smash book supplies I bought on clearance a few months ago (for a project I never got to), and printed off some quotes I love from Pinterest and my Instagram page. What did I change? I just decided to highlight some things that were playing a small part before, and added a little scrapbooking flair.

For example, I decided to add more of the quotes and Scriptures that inspire me:

So many times, I refer to songs or books when I journal, so I added lists of what I want to read and what I'm listening to this year.

I also decided to start doing a monthly "currently" feature. This goes back to the influence of what I'm reading and listening to. It's a short list of what I'm reading, listening to, writing, and loving the most that month. (For August, I love Ann Voskamp's post How To Live Through Anything: The Fish Principle.)

 

 

The final product is a book that is part journal, part Bible study notebook, part smash book, and all about my faith. It's counting gifts and heart wrenching prayers, dreams and whispers of truth. It's gratitudes, fears, successes and failures. It's snippets of my life. More than snippets, because its about my faith - and my faith is life itself. It's all that I am, and journaling is growing my faith deeper every day.

Chills: A True Story

I'm branching out again today on my blog and linking up with Studio 30 Plus.  I usually link fiction (like Love: A Very Short Story), but this time I'm linking up a true story of an event that changed the way I look at life...

Something was very wrong. A chill crept over me as I stood, staring at the ominous way the light refracted through the glass…the broken glass of a locked door, in the building where I stood alone. Or did I? My heart started pounding as I realized that the break in had occurred recently, within the two hours or so since I had last stood here – which meant those responsible might still be inside.

Adrenaline was suddenly racing through my veins. The first thought running through my head: call my husband, who was next door, and pray my phone could get in a signal in the huge metal building – at least if someone hit me over the head, he would know I was there. My second thought – get out. The only problem was that every door required a key to unlock it from the inside, a key I didn’t have. There were only two ways out for me, and both were on the other side of the building. I made a mad dash for the one I had come in through, fear pulsing through my body.

I raced back out the way I’d come, now seeing the evidence of a break in that I had overlooked – the overturned boxes, the open doors that should have been closed, the lights turned on. My husband was already in the parking lot, running to meet me as he called 911. We waited outside, shaken to the core.

The police came quickly, and caught the would-be burglar, empty-handed and still on the property. He was arrested - so high the police said he’d probably never even remember the events of that afternoon. The police later found out that I was the one who scared him off – he was in the building as I entered, but ran when he heard me, hiding on the property until his arrest.

He may not remember, but I will never forget. I’m really good at playing “what if” – a talent that comes in pretty handy when you want to write, but no so great when you face a terrifying experience. I’ve played the game a thousand times since that day, thinking through all the nightmares that could have come true. Even though it happened more than six years ago, I still remember every time I go into that building.

That single event, spanning just a few minutes on an otherwise normal day, changed me. I’m much more cautious now and aware of my surroundings at all times. I have a concealed handgun license and routinely carry my gun (a Sig Sauer, in case you’re wondering). I’m never without my cell phone. I won't walk blindly into a situation like that again if I can help it. And every time I think of it – even after six years – it still gives me chills.