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Monday Meditations #3 – Moving Forward
[Guest Post by Tyler Braun ] – Before I ever had a GPS navigational unit in my car or on my phone, I made sure to carefully plot out driving directions before moving forward. You remember the drill right? Pull out a map and a piece of paper. Look up the shortest right and then begin jotting down all the different turns. Some people love the adventure of trying to find a specific location without directions, but I’m not one of them. I’m the same way when it comes to camping. Why do we take our comfortable lives and transplant them into a forest? It’s inevitable something will go wrong…
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I Survived My 20s – Dreams
[Guest Post by Caris Adel] – I love the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. When I watch it, I relive my dream from high school. My dreams were to move to New York City and spend my 20s living the city life– whatever that meant. The issue of cost never did resolve itself. My more realistic plan was to get an apartment and go to school in a midwest town near my high school boyfriend. But alas, we ended up pregnant instead, giving birth right before his final exams his freshman year of college. We got married, and by the time we were 26, we had our fifth and…
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I Survived My 20s – Fatherless
[Guest Post by Anonymous] – From a very young age, I knew the Lord. I was lucky to have grown up in the church, and was strong in my faith. God knew that he had to prepare me at an early age for what I would be up against. Secrecy. Shame. Pain. I am fatherless. As a teenager I was forced to hold a terrible secret, one I knew when change my life forever if I ever spoke of it. I did all that I could to hide the hurt of what happened to me. I walked through life as if in a dream or a daze, and put a…
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I Survived My 20s – Rape
[Guest Post by Laura] – Finally at the age of twenty six–I was settling into my own apartment in a country that I loved to do the ministry that God had called me to do. With the help of teammates I had successfully managed to purchase a car, appliances, furniture and other necessities. While these are things that most people do earlier in their twenties, my early twenties had been spent moving between countries and ministries, always living in a furnished apartment or at my parents. The next day was a staff meeting, and I was looking forward to suggesting a few ministry ideas that I had. Plus, I had…
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Monday Meditations #2 – Carrying On The Work
[Guest Post by Marc Fisher] – “Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died” (Exodus 1:6). Yes a generation was now gone but God’s work was not yet complete. His promise was not fulfilled so there was still work to be done. Joseph had continued the work which his father Jacob had picked up after Issac which was built on the foundation laid by Abraham. John Wesley’s once said, ‘God buries the workmen and carries on the work.’ We must understand in whatever work God has given us that it is not for nothing if it is a part of the mighty whole. It is a great…
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I Survived My 20s – Regret
[Guest Post by Kristin Tennant] – What is this thing people call a “honeymoon period?” Because it’s something the first decade of my adult life was seriously lacking. We got married at 22. Sure, we had a honeymoon–a week-long trip to the Massachusetts coast–but it ended the day we pulled back into the driveway of our first home, a small, upstairs apartment in an old house. Within a week of trying to figure out what it really meant to be married–to share a bathroom and a bed, to make daily decisions together for two rather than just for one–I was sobbing on the phone with my mom. What had I…
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I Survived My 20s – Moving
[Guest Post by Marie Osborne] – I survived my 20s by moving over and over and over again. In 2004, I was married to my best friend and at an amazing church. We had a fantastic support system of friends and family. The next 3 years, my job just kept getting better, our friendships deeper, our family closer, and our marriage stronger. Then in 2006, we decided my husband should go back to school. So we moved to Los Angeles for two years as he completed his MBA. Suddenly, our deep roots were gone, and I didn’t know a soul. I had worked hard for 6 years to build an…
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Monday Meditations #1 – 24 Bible Verses
My Favorite 24 Bible Verses. Write them down and memorize for times of need, comfort, and encouragement. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT). “We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, NLT). “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds. In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence.…
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I Survived My 20s – Dateless
[Guest Post by Lindsay Blackburn] – I survived my 20s. In fact, I survived my 20s–dateless. Yep, you read that right. No coffee dates. No dinner dates. And, most of all, no wedding date. This is my story. When I moved back to my hometown after graduating from college at age 21, my priorities were finding a full-time job, moving out of my parents’ basement, and reconnecting with some high school friends. Sure, I wanted to get married and have children someday, but I just assumed it would happen in the perfect linear fashion that most 20-somethings expect. Go to college → Graduate from college → Get a job &…
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I Survived My 20s – Singleness
[Guest Post by Monique Pearson] – Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. If you’ve grown up in the church you’ve probably heard this a lot. For me the desire of my heart was to be married and well it still is. Since I was a little girl I was told to pray and ask God to bring the perfect future husband into my life. I knew I wanted to be married at some point so I had faith and believed that God would bring the right man. When I started to date around the age of 25 I really prayed about who…
