You pinch me, I bleed. You asked me, I wrote.

When life is NOT what you dreamed.

STOP. DROP and ROLL.

Noooo, wait that’s not it.

When life is not what you want it to be…

Freaking pinch yourself because it’s not supposed to be!!!

Yes, that is more what I am looking for….

One of the major things I have been learning lately is that we are all “given our lives” and everything that comes with them.. The people, the places, the particulars. I almost thought for a second that I “deserved” all these blessings and that goodness needs to knock me over in the morning. I thought that since I was “Natalie”… I got the hook up 24/7 or that it was something like my God given right to have peace and joy and abundance at ALL times. Which in fact is true but it has this clause that goes something like… “and the heat, stress and pains of this life…”  Maybe it was the fact that I thought I was exempt because I already went through a stage like this…  I had gone through a valley of death not very long ago with the loss of my parents and there is NO way to face another one so soon. Yes 5 years is too soon for “deserts”. Ten probably is too. Doesn’t He space these  “experiences out” or something??? Whichever it was or all of the above, I was gravely wrong. Wrong to the point of harming myself maybe. I mean if I wouldn’t have expected such unrealistic everything maybe the blow to my chest wouldn’t have felt so hard!

Don’t get me wrong… EVERY OUNCE HAS BEEN USED… The other day a dear friend of mine always makes the most drastic of things in my mind seem as a drop in the bucket. Her words are soft and her love is deep. After “gushing” to her the other day she said to me ever so sweetly, “I hate that you are being squeezed”… Like a grape? Really. That’s it. Squeezed. After I thought about it for a bit I realized her words were True though. Who is exempt from a squeezing?

Since the spiraling down of this lie I have awakened to the reality that “it”, this grand life we get to partake in, is less about my self-made ideals and desires and hopes and more of a receiving of His bests and worsts and everything in between. That my friends is “our God given right” for sure.I mean look at the hundreds of examples we see. Pastors didn’t start in a fully populated church. And it surely wasn’t packed with extra, “cream of the crop” saintly Christians. No I am sure the path of walking for that man was more of a incline, decline… bend around and behind sort of deal… less mountaintop ALL the time!!! Or take the typical person in the seat next to you on the boat, on the plane… wherever you might be… I am sure if you took a second to ask them how their day was and after you got beyond all that small talk jargon you could probably get to the meat of their life and hear some pretty grim stories or some stories that are filled with hope and happiness…. Either way you cut it you get two sides.

So simply said, “He is teaching me no matter the side, He’s on it”.

We have all that we need to succeed….

But are we using it, are we tapping into that resource, are we using all that we have been given… probably not… but it’s not too late for sure.

You didn’t think abundant life just knocks on your day and says, “let me in” now do you???… No, joy comes when relief from the pain comes or when you realize that it’s been worth it all happens. It comes from the people we share our life with, from the people we “make moments” with and yes you do have to make moments because my friend before you know it you are 27 and have almost lived a 1/3 of a lifespan and you can’t remember half of what you have done. So yes make moments, be uncomfortable. Do something you usually wouldn’t and stop trying to figure out why’s, how’s and when’s…

_LIVE WITH PURPOSE. DO IT BEFORE IT’S ALL SAID AND DONE_