Setting Goals for the year...

I have always thought that setting new year's resolutions was ridiculous and just set me up for failure. But I have realized that having goals helps me accomplish things I never thought I could. This year I am finally setting goals that I can reach by composing each one with mini-goals that are easy to reach.
It is time to pull through on my promises and be a dependable person.

My goals for the year:
- Lose 10% of my body weight, starting out slow by adding workouts to my regular day, and being more conscious of my eating habits.
- Pay off my credit card bills and start saving money, I would like to have them paid off by the end of the year.
- Organize and start fixing and maintaining the house I live in. As much as I would like to move out and have roommates my own age, God has blessed me with a house and a loving Uncle and parents who support me. So I would rather begin to appreciate my surroundings and make them my own.
- Make time for God, this is the most important one. I wish I could dive in head first, but I want to make it a strong commitment not a flash in the pan.

For those of you who pray (and read this!) Pray that I can commit to these things and make them a part of my life and that I will become a Godly woman who can follow through on what I promise myself and others. God especially.

Happy New Year!!!

Katy

Hello Mr. Charismatic,

Praise God I have not ever had to deal with the disgusting men that are on the market, and the way they treat women.
Sometimes when I hear stories of treacherous relationships I just want to hide in a hole to avoid all men, or just never look at one ever again.
Some girls I know just came to the realization that they were all "exclusively" dating the same guy. He wines, dines, and beds all of them. They felt special and important and loved until they met one another. The worst part of this story is that all of them have to mask their true feelings. They have to pretend that they don't mind and that they can play the game just as much as him. But as much as they want to give him, "a taste of his own medicine" its sad to know that he can not be hurt in the same way he hurt them.
This is the kind of guy that causes girls to guard their hearts and not their modesty. They try to get revenge by sleeping with other guys when all they do is damage their self worth and their souls.

A nunnery sounds great right about now.

I have a hope for a greater love; when you know love as great as God's and learn more about it every day it becomes harder and harder to settle for someone even close to a mr. charismatic.
Girls, allow yourselves to be truly loved and cherished. A warm body isn't worth settling for.

Connectedness

Connectedness is the state of being connected. Being deeply intertwined with people and places, your roots twisting into theirs.
Lately I have been thinking about this. Thinking about how God made us to be in community, we are made to desire human interactions and those with nature as well. Being connected allows us to see the "me" in other people, allows us to stand back from a situation and think, "that could be me." And it is in those moments that we are opened to the opportunity to love. Love deeply and compassionately and recognize the image of God in other people. Just to get a glimpse of what God sees when he looks at us. What does it take for us to recognize that, to rise above selfish lust and desire and to just truly love. God-Love, unconditional. Loving someone as God's creation, not in spite of their problems.
All we want is to be truly accepted. Accepted and not ashamed. Imagine the amazing things we could do if we were loved like that. Nothing could stop us. We would be able to beat everything.

The covenant of love is such that it recognizes both the fragility and the sanctity of the individual. It recognizes itself in the other. It alone can save us.

Let me live like that. Let me love like that.