Something New: How blogging Has Changed My Life

To begin this post, here is a random picture of some of my Essie nail polish. I just bought the peach color and I'm obsessed! The peach color is tart deco, and the turquoise color is turquoise and caicos. I love Essie because it stays on forever and all of their colors are each so bright and pretty. 

This photo below is another random photo of some of the different makeup that I use.  Starting from the left is my Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in Strawberry Shortcake, my Sephora long-lasting liquid eyeliner in noir black, and my Loreal Voluminous Mascara in carbon black. The eyeliner never fades and stays on all day, the mascara always makes my eyelashes look super long and pretty, and the lipstick is not only is a pretty shade of pink but it also makes my lips feel smooth and it doesn't feel like I'm wearing lip stick at all!

Hey friends! Today marks my FOURTH post for the summer of something new blog challenge. For those of you don't know what this challenge is, it was set up by my wonderful blog friend Annaliese at Southern Belle in Training, and for this challenge Annaliese, Elle, Jenna,  Michaela, Gina and I will be sharing with you guys something new every Friday for 6 weeks! This week, I decided to switch it up from my normal crafts and DIY and share with you how starting a blog took courage and has challenged me beyond my limits. It's been a life-changing experience!

As I was scrolling through the blogging world today and reading many of your wonderful posts, I couldn't help but think to myself where my own blog has brought me. When I say where, I mean a place full of new friendships that I never imagined I would make. So many new friends leading me closer to Jesus and encouraging me to seek Him more and more. So many friends writing about their struggles in their walks with Christ that I could so easily relate with. So many women LIFTING my spirits, and filling me with joy.

I remember the exact moment of when I first decided to make my blog. Before that point, I had been talking with friends about how I was thinking about making a blog, but I didn't really know what to make it about. My first idea was to make a blog about healthy eating. I honestly didn't have enough passion though to make a blog like that, because although I am still very proud of myself for losing 50 pounds and keeping that weight off today, I really was never into the idea of making a blog only about that topic.

It was about 12:30 am on a Saturday night, and  I was scrolling through one of my favorite blogs, Bloom by Nicole. "Thats it!" I said to myself. "I HAVE to make a blog." I loved Nicole's openness in sharing her relationship with Jesus, and she so much reminded me of myself in a lot of ways through that aspect. 

I was so nervous when I started my blog. I didn't know anyone, and I didn't even know what the heck to write about. At first I would kind of flip flop and write about random things, and I was a little nervous to share my faith. I didn't think people would really be able to relate with my posts. I actually didn't even figure out how to add the "follower" button to my blog until a month and a half into making it. That really frustrated me because I had written a few posts up to that point that nobody was really reading. Once I found the follower button, I was happy but annoyed that it had taken me so long to figure out. 

Then amazing things happened. People would write posts that were exactly what I needed to read. God would speak right through them. I started to meet some new blog friends, and what was unique about these friendships was that I could tell that we clicked. No, I haven't met any of them in person (YET), but I just know that if we were able to meet in real life it would be full of laughs and pure happiness.

So friends, if your reading this and you are thinking about starting a blog but you haven't yet, DO IT! Or maybe your new to the blogging scene and you are frustrated or overwhelmed about getting it going: DON'T GIVE UP! I definitely cried a few times when I was trying to figure out how the heck to set up this blog up, it was SO confusing! But... I still did it. I persevered. It has been a true challenge with starting this blog up, but it has been totally worth every ounce of effort. I am challenged every day to write what is really on my heart and what I feel compelled to share with you guys. I still have a long way to go with building my blog, but I am so happy that I have made it this far. Blogging has definitely become a big part of my life, and I have been blessed beyond belief with becoming part of a community that I am unbelievably thankful for.

Here are my blogging besties whom I love dearly and pray for the opportunity to meet in real life one day!

Francesca at Beautiful Things

Katie at Hope Engaged

Annaliese at Southern Belle In Training

Gina at Gina Alyse

Hannah at Wonderfully Sewn

Julie at An Anchor For The Soul

Brittany at Happy Is a Choice

Cassie at Sage

Kiki at In Its Time

 Bailey at Anchored in Love Divine

Abigail at Abigail Jasmine

Lauren at Marked By Grace

Kellie at Nothing Less

...and I also happen to have a REAL-LIFE friend who started a blog at the same time I did, her name is Allison and she blogs at a A God Fashioned Life- Love her & her blog!

Thats them! Go look at their pages, I promise you'll love them just as much as I do. But seriously, go look. I love them all. I also recently have met some other wonderful ladies on here that I am looking forward to becoming better friends with as well. I pray very often that somehow someday I would be able to meet each one of these ladies in person one day! I really want to do a "blog meet up" or "blog trip" but I have no idea how to set it up, let alone how that would work with all of our crazy schedules. Oh well, if its in Gods will it will just somehow happen anyway! Until then, keep doing what you do blog besties, I love you all!

Ps- My blog's Facebook page is could use some love from you guys! Click HERE to like Forever Convinced on Facebook!

PPS-  I also love Instagram and I'd love for you to follow my Instagram adventures by clicking HERE!

Love always, Jess

uplifting friends: centered on God

Hey friends! I hope you are all having a lovely day today. Today I want to talk with you all about something that has really been on my heart lately. Something that took a long time and a lot of mistakes for me to learn the truth about.

"Don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?"

2 Corinthians 6:14

I used to read this verse and think to myself that it was only talking about boys. Yep, just boys, I would think to myself. I already knew and understood how important it was for me to give my heart in the future to a man who passionately loved the Lord, so I figured that I had received every tid bit of wisdom that I could from this scripture in 2 Corinthians. Turns out I was wrong, and this verse is actually referring to every relationship in our life.  This verse is referring to our friends, our co-workers or business partners, our colleagues, basically everyone who we are involved with some type of relationship in our lives. And I had to learn this truth in the verse the hard way. 

I convinced myself to believe that it didn't really matter that some of my closest friends didn't love the Lord and weren't leading me closer to Christ. And no, I'm not saying that you should hide in a cave and run away from every non-Christian friend that walks into your life. I have non-Christian friends, but do I consider these friends my close friends? No. Ones that I spend frequent amounts of time with outside of school or work? No. They are my friends, but they are not the kind of friends that I would seek advice from or anything like that. I'm not calling them stupid or saying that I am better than them, I'm simply living a life based on how scripture calls us to live. God doesn't tell us to live like this to make us miserable, He tells us to live like this and have relationships centered around Him to MAKE US HAPPY. If we are surrounding ourselves mostly with people who are leading us away from the light, then our own individual light will diminish, and eventually our light will be gone.  

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

1 Peter 2:9

I certainly hope that your not upset with me at this point of reading this post, because I know that I became REALLY upset when God confronted me with this issue in my own life. I made up every excuse I could on how I believed that I was right and He was wrong. "But God, my non-Christain friends can simply let me know if they think if that guy was nice or not, whats the harm in that?! and there is nothing wrong with me sharing some of my heart with them!"

The thing is, when I did share my heart with non-beliving friends in the past, I didn't feel good afterwards. The conversation between us didn't leave me feeling encouraged as I hoped it would. They didn't really have much to say at all about the problems in my life, and God seemed non-existant to them. I didn't like that at all. And also, talking about guys with my non-Christian friends was a whole different story. They just didn't understand that there was so much more to a new guy pursuing me than that he was "really cute and nice!" They just didn't get or understand how important a man of faith was to me, and they never encouraged me to pursue a man of faith at all. When I realized these two things, this is about when I started to reel in the anchor on the non-Christian relationships in my life. No I did not let them completely go, I just made them much much MUCH more surface based, simply because that was about as far as I could go with these type of friendships in my life without allowing my heart to go in the wrong direction.

So my friends, in conclusion, yes God does call us as Christians to love everyone, but he also calls us to guard our own hearts by surrounding ourselves continually with people who are leading us closer to Him. I wish I didn't make the many mistakes in my past of surrounding myself with people who didn't loved the Lord, and because of those mistakes I made I was hurt. I learned that I had to be intentional in making friends who loved the Lord, and also that I had to let go of some of the relationships in my life that were leading me in the wrong direction. It wasn't easy, but it certainly was worth it, and now I am in a much happier place in my life. If any of you are in a place in your life where you are unhappy with your relationships, know that if I was able to turn around my own relationships with the help of Jesus, then so can YOU!

I love you guys!

P.S.-  Click here to like Forever Convinced on Facebook and show my page some love friends! :)

Love always, Jess

This-Is-Why-I-Blog

Hello friends! Today I decided to partner with Leslie at Blonde Ambition and link up with her "Why I blog' idea. You can click HERE to check out her awesome blog and read more about why she blogs herself. I love this post idea!

Well, I actually just VERY recently started blogging. In fact, it was only about a month ago. I had been surfing around on instagram and I found a couple of awesome blogs that I LOVED. I remember thinking to myself that I could see myself so easily becoming addicted to this whole blogging thing. At the same time, I didn't know what I would blog about. I had been thinking about starting a "healthy eating" themed blog based on my weight loss story, but I didn't feel like I had enough passion inside of me for a blog specifically made to focus on that topic. Instead, I felt the tug from the Lord to make a blog dedicated to HIM.

I actually remember the exact night when I made this blog. I had been reading an inspiring blog called Bloom {click HERE to check Bloom out}--her blog is so encouraging in my walk with Christ--I share her blog with many of my friends because I love it so much. She is gifted no doubt. Anyways, after reading one of her amazingly encouraging posts, I was like "That's it. I'm making a blog. I can't take it anymore." I knew it was going to be a lengthy process figuring out how to make a blog and get it going, but I knew I wanted to do it AND make it dedicated to the Lord. I was tired of going back and fourth with making one or not.

Here are some of the main reasons why I blog:

1) My faith in Christ  

This blog is dedicated to walk with my Christ, and my passion for serving Him. I was definitely called to make this blog by Him, and I am excited to see where He leads me with this blog. He wants me on here friends, there is no doubt in my mind about that. I am beyond thankful He has given me such a strong desire in my heart for blogging--because I seriously look forward to it every single day. God is good! {Whats new? ;)}

2) Building Community.

I have only had this blog for a month and I am THRILLED by the community of awesome women I have already communicated with. It brings me so much joy knowing that there are other women on here passionate about Jesus, and that I am able to build a community of friends on here. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful comments I have received from many of you, and I love each of your hearts. I pray that I can make some awesome friendships on here, because I have read some wonderful stories on here about bloggers becoming real-life friends. What a blessing that would be. Regardless if I make close friendships on here or not, I know that my passion for blogging will never go away. I love waking up in the morning to read others post. I love that some of you are fashion bloggers, sharing your cute outfit ideas. I just love blogging basically.

3) Vulnerability.
I love that I can be vulnerable on my blog and share my heart with the each of you, and also try to encourage you in any way I can. I feel like blogging can be so therapeutic {not in a overly outpouring way} but in an awesome way. Sometimes, you just need to let it all out, and blogging is perfect to fulfill that need. I love it when I read another blogger's post and I'm like "That is EXACTLY what I have been going through today." It's like a gigantic support system, through the internet. What a blessing.

3) Encouragement.
Since my blog is about my walk with Christ, I initially joined the blogging scene to follow each of you awesome Christian bloggers and read your posts for daily encouragement. I never thought I would be encouraging you guys in any way. I pray I can continue to do that, but we'll see. That would be a majorly awesome to keep this whole encouragement thing going for a long time.

That about sums it up friends. I can't wait to see where this blogging adventure takes me, its only been such a short amount of time and I have been majorly blessed with it. 

 

-->

Can I get a TGIF? So happy. I am looking forward to this weekend, I have a lot of fun things planned. I am just looking forward to the future in general, friends. God has put a lot of exciting upcoming events on my heart lately, and I'm thankful for the hope He gives me. I am thankful that because of Him, I can dream. I am thankful that because He loves me, I can rejoice. I am thankful for each of you and all of the encouragement you provide me with on here. Have an amazing day friends!

Xoxo