You Reap What You Sow

 I feel so blessed to be under the leadership of Pastor Furtick. It's ridiculous how anointed he is, and it's obvious that the Lord has blessed him with an amazing message for Charlotte and beyond.

This morning's message was on honor. It's something we talk about often at church, and it's something that Pastor and our staff feel strongly about. The whole sermon was really powerful, but on a tangent towards the end of the message, he said something that really struck me.

Part of it is because I'm trying to read a certain number of chapters a day and part of it is just the way I always am, but often times I end up walking away from my quiet time or devotional time with God without much impact. I feel good because I know I've spent time in His word, but I know I could have gotten more out of it. Pastor talked today about how we reap what we sow. When I give honor to God and His word, I get the most out of it. When we show up to a sermon with a posture of worship and learning, that's when we really "get something" from it. When we are lazy or fall asleep in church (I swear pastor just straight up called someone out for that today haha), that's when we walk out complaining about how it wasn't a great sermon. Maybe the reason I feel like God isn't speaking into my life most days is because I'm not bringing Him anything, not even myself. If I'm not making a conscious effort to bring my best to God (my posture, my attention, my focus), then I'm probably not going to receive any inspiration words from Him during my quiet time.

So I work in retail and even though it's not the most difficult job anyone has ever had, it's truly a pain most days. People are rude, and every day the store gets trashed and it's our (highly repetitive) duty to clean it. Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Kelly...it's RETAIL. That's what retailers DO!" I know, I know, but that doesn't make it fun.

Anyway.

I want to be thankful for something, so here's my list:

-I get to listen to music allllll day long. and some pretty great music at that. some of my favorites right now:
::robyn
::marina and the diamonds
::vampire weekend
::gossip
I actually have a playlist on my ipod of like 40 songs that I love so much from work that I want to hear them all the time. 
-I work with people who love to work with me because they know I'm not playing. I get stuff done. Seriously, I may be the best clothes straightener you have ever met. Just maybe.
-My co-workers are hilarious. I think we're all just at weird stages in our lives that we come out with ridiculous stories and jokes. I laugh a lot at work.
-Though I assume most of the people shopping around me are rude based solely on the way they are tearing my racks apart and throwing stuff on the floor, I meet a lot of cool people from church who have seen me before. I think I've personally met more people from church at work than actual church.
-I spend a lot of daydreaming and/or praying. Being in an undesirable place has grown my love for the places and people I love.

So there. If I ever need a reminder that working as a lowly sales associate in retail is not THE worst thing in the world, this is it.

I work a lot in the evenings, so my husband gets a lot of guy time at night. He mostly occupies it playing Call of Duty with his friends. Ok, that's literally the thing I come home to every night. Call of Duty.

BUT tonight it's my night. He's taking a class on something work-related, and I have the house to myself until 10! Honestly, I'm not really sure what to do with it. Before we got married, I LOVED having time to myself. I spent so much time in my room that I never really spent time with anyone else. I just love to be alone and be calm and quiet by myself. But now that we're married, I'm more used to spend time with my husband than I am by myself. Surely, I still cherish my personal time (as I'm happily laying on the couch watching Keeping up with the Kardashians), but I'd always rather spend time with my love.

In other news, I'm so desperate to be able to make our apartment cuter. Most of our furniture and "decoration" is from Robert's mother and their old house. It's not bad, it's just not cute. It's very...shi shi. haha umm so I really want to bring my own style (or what I wish was my style) to our place. Some inspiration:

I really want a super bright, almost abrasive, couch haha. There's one at Ikea that I go nuts over every time. It's like super bright patchwork, and it's glorious. Our dream is to have a home with a studio in it, and if it ever happens, that couch is going in it. Amazing!

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Still chugging along through b90x. I'm over halfway done with the plan. I'm a couple days behind, but I'm into Ecclesiastes and am hoping to knock out Song of Songs and about 20 chapters of Isaiah today haha. It's doable. Gotta catch up!

I just got done with Proverbs, and it kicked my butt. It's one of those books that seems random. There are a ton of tidbits, and the way it's set up seems like it's just individual pieces of advice strung together. But reading the whole thing through was good for me. There are so many practical, day-to-day things to take away from it. I felt like I was slapped in the face a couple times when I would read about patience, sharing joy, containing anger, not gossiping, respect. So many things I struggle with on a daily basis.
Sometimes doing this kind of intense reading plan causes me rush through in order to get the day's reading finished, but it's good the know that the Lord will always speak to me through His word.

I've always wanted to be more consistent with eating meals together with Robert. For the majority of the time we dated, he worked at a Honda dealership and often wouldn't get home until 8 or 9. This meant that if we wanted to eat dinner together, it was generally around 10pm. No bueno. And I always said that when we got married we'd live together and therefore hopefully find some sort of routine when it comes to meals, at least dinner.
Not happening
haha

Most of our inconsistency comes from the fact that he works during the day at his shop and I tend to work at night a lot. Usually we can eat lunch together at his work, but I really long for a time when we can have consistent family time where we sit and eat a meal together. I think most of this stems from the fact that growing up, dinner was important in my family. We always ate together and that was our one consistent time when we were talking and listening and just being with each other. I really loved it, and I want the same sort of family time with Robert.

Thankfully, the last 3 nights we've eaten dinner together. Last night we had really good chicken and potatoes. McCormick makes these little packets with a recipe on the back that comes with all the spices you'll need for the meal. It felt like cheating, it was so easy. In fact it was as easy as...

hahah
A man and his video games. And just to clarify, he actually made the meal. He makes most of our meals, in fact. Such a good husband :)

hello!

I hope your valentine's day was wonderful. Ours was pretty low-key but still special. Cooked dinner together and finished the anime series we were watching: Fullmetal Alchemist. So good.

So anyway...
One thing that my husband may or may not know about me that he definitely SHOULD know is that I am addicted to brands. See example:

Put something in a magazine advertisement or in the hands of celebrities enough times and I will want it and eventually buy it. I can't explain it, but I just get an urge to buy everything in sephora and ulta and every other makeup store I go in haha
So I'm actually going to keep track of these purchases (the face wash in particular) and make sure that I'm paying good money for good products. If not, I'll stick with the cheapies if they'll do the job.

Any products you love to splurge on?

I consider my husband a genius. I mean, he's not a certifiable one or anything...but he's pretty dang smart. He loves information. He soaks it up like a sponge and loves every minute of it. He knows so much random information about so many topics. Big, small, super important, worthless, pointless, necessary, everything. I've found in my relationship with him that he knows just enough about everything to solve many of my problems in life :)

I know it's important not to idolize anyone or anything, and I don't. I know that no person will ever supply all of my needs and that God is the only one who could ever fulfill my spirit the way it needs to be fulfilled. That being said, my husband is my best friend, my go-to guy, my other half. He has an answer for everything, and even though his desire to be right can drive me out of my mind, I love his spirit, his intelligence, his humor, his heart. There is no one in the entire world I'd rather spend time with than him, and I think that's important and will be necessary years into this marriage.

I'm reading a great book right now, that I heard about from Jessie Mathis's blog called Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. It's a little nerve racking because it's very real and up-front about the challenges and hardships that can and will hit a marriage. Honestly, it makes me nervous. There are so many opportunities for pain and unhappiness to sneak into a marriage quietly while no one is paying attention and plant seeds that can tear people apart eventually.  I just get worried sometimes when we have little fights or when I am too short with him or I do something stupid that I'm planting seeds that are going to grow into awful things in the future. But I'll continue reading and praying and working on myself and trust that God has built our relationship so far and will continue to keep us strong as long as we are trusting Him and bringing Him glory.