by Jessica Dawn

I feel like I'm going to sound like some sweet older southern woman right now. (Hang on, we're going there...for just a second. Please laugh with me. I mean no offense.) His grace ya'll. Oh my gosh, how deep His love is for us! I wish you could understand! I wish I could understand! But what I'm feeling right now is absolutely incredible. He loves us so much that He comes into our mess and meets us right where we are. And He stays there and sits with us. And allows us to feel the disappointment and frustration and to question Him why a million times with tears streaming down our cheeks. But He just sits there and wraps His arms around us, holding us with a constant love. A love so deep it spans the depths of the ocean a million times. And He graciously lets us fall into this place, knowing the hurt we'll experience and the pain He'll suffer watching us go through it all and look at Him with tears in our eyes, knowing He could have stopped it all. He looks back...

The title of this post should probably be "that time I thought I was REALLY invincible" because let's be honest, I think I'm invincible every day... This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write, so will you please pause for a second and open your heart while I get vulnerable? Wait, let me get a joke out first... Cassadee Pope may be invincible, but I am not. And I sang her song one too many times, because, dang, did I think I was invincible. Not invisible. I'm pretty good at that. My specialty is hiding. You didn't know I was a super hero? Yes I am. But my power is invisibility, not invincibility. And there's a HUGE difference. Okay. I'm done. Now lets get real. There is very little chance that I will be running the half marathon in April. The one that I'm registered for. The one that I've been training for. And by "very little chance" I mean, if I end up running it, it will literally be by the grace of God. Literall...

Today is Sunday. I worked out today. I did BBG Week 15 Abs + planks and a circuit of standing ab exercises. Yesterday I did BBG Week 15 Arms. And before that, I worked out....last Sunday. And I haven't ran for a solid 10 days. And I'm not "scheduled" to run for another 4 days. I KNOW. I fully remember that I'm training for a half marathon. I KNOW. But I am honestly not worried about it. I believe it was all part of the plan. His plan. I needed a break. I knew that I needed a break. But I fully under-estimated how much I needed a break. {Insert forced break.} Except this break was not just a physical break. I was not just physically tired. Though I was well past physically tired. I was also mentally tired. I have a LOT on my plate right now, and I got WAY overwhelmed. Like WAY past overwhelmed. And I was spiritually tired, almost empty. I was filled because of all that was going on, but the weight of everything was dragging me down and I just simply nee...

Oh my gosh. I still can't get over this article. Go read it here . You can come back. I'll wait. You're back. Okay. Good. Because I want to tell you exactly how true this is. I spent 27 years of my life trying to be someone else, trying to be someone who I was not created to be. I looked to everything and everyone and wanted what they had, what they were doing, their entire life. And I chased money, fame (yes, I'm admitting it), and everything in this world you can think of. (Except illegal things. I have my parents/upbringing and God to thank for that.) You name it, I wanted it. And I wanted to BE everything. I literally have a document sitting on my external hard drive entitled, "Who I Want To Be" and let me tell you, it includes about 20 different "jobs" if you will. And each of them can be pin-pointed back to a single person or shall I say..."inspiration." I wanted to have a blog (hey, look-y here!); I wanted to have a YouTube chan...