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My Faith Binder

Teresa Love

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On Pinterest I have seen a lot of versions of the Prayer Binder or War Binder or what I want to call it a Faith Binder.

My Faith binder is this journal that lets me feel organized while growing closer to God. When we go through life and feel lost dealing with everything, for me to be anchored in Christ makes a huge difference. To have that constant relationship going with God through prayer, reading His word, and allowing God to take control. This gives me a peace beyond understanding or circumstance. I wanted to have something that was all in one place my notes, my gratitude, prayers, requests, verses, and goals. And it’s super easy to make!

Binder – 4 x 7 inches

Inserts- Cardstock paper cut to size and 6 whole punched.

Dividers – Blessings, Verses, Notes, Prayers, requests, and Goals. You could also base it more on prayer have dividers for spouse, kids, parents, church, etc…

Pens – gel pens, sharpie fine tip, paper mate colored pens.

Step 1: buy binder take out any paper you don’t need.

Step 2: find cardstock you want to use print or solid.

Step 3: cut card stock into 4×7 or less and punch wholes using 6 whole punch.

Step 4: according to color choose dividers and names.

Step 5: place dividers in Binder with paper.

DONE!

I used colored paper “gives it a little something don’t you think?” – legally blonde

Good to know

Stop and Believe

Teresa Love

I sit here scrolling through Instagram and I see so many people “living their best life.” They are going on vacations, visiting friends and family, posing in front of cute walls, dancing, and just enjoying their lives.

Instagram is supposed to be a positive thing in society, by definition it’s a social networking service for taking, changing, sharing photographs and videos.

It was so cool when it first came out and I was so exciting to start using it! But how many girls are out there scrolling through pictures and wishing and seeing all the things they will never have, be able to do, or look like. On average we send one hour on Instagram each day, so much that now they have started tracking our time on it.

When you are constantly flooded with “perfect” images especially for girls it really makes us compare ourselves. And some verified users with the little blue check like celebrities, big influencers, and singers are meant to look “perfect.” The whole my Instagram colors need to match and my aesthetic needs to be on point. Those people work so hard on just that part of your business with the Instagram pictures and I am sure that some even hire someone for exactly that reason.

This is why we need to STOP COMPARING ourselves. We can’t all be that stick figure model. We can’t all have tons and tons of followers. But what we can be is our own selves. YOU are AMAZING! Just the way God made you, “you are fearfully and wonderfully made.” – Psalm 139:14

Stop thinking you need to change.

Stop thinking you aren’t right.

Stop thinking you are not pretty.

Stop focusing on looks.

Stop believing the lie you need to be perfect.

Stop fighting against your own true self.

Stop blending in.

Stop tell yourself your not worth it.

Just STOP!

And BELIEVE!

Believe you are amazing!

Believe you are talented!

Believe you are free!

Believe you are enough!

Believe in yourself!

Believe you can have confidence!

Believe you are here for a reason!

Just try to remember all of this as you scroll through Instagram, it was a good reminder for me too.

Health Journey

On June 26th A Year

Teresa Love

Today marks a year.

A year of being sick.

A year of feeling alone.

A year of people not understanding what I’m going through.

A year of willing and wishing to get better and each day it stays the same.

A year of prayer to get better and for something good to come out of it.

A year of tears and crying sessions.

A year of planning things and then having to cancel because I am still sick.

A year of having to stop going to church.

It’s been a whole year. I am not normally a person who remembers dates but I do have a few in my life that really stick out. Christmas: December 25th, My birthday: October 21st, My cancer diagnosis day: October 18th, and the day my episode started last year: June 26th.

This day, June 26th, has been on my mind for a while now. I kept putting goals in place. Last July I was thinking, “I will totally be better by my birthday in October.” Then I wasn’t. Christmas is in 2 months, “I have to be better by then.” Again it didn’t happen. These “goals” made me feel like a failure, like I couldn’t “make myself better.” Like my faith wasn’t strong enough to get me through this difficult time. “I can’t be sick for another month this is crazy,” I kept telling myself. I was almost in a dazed state of confusion that this was still happening.

Then my episode hit the 6 month mark and I was so ready for it to be over. By this time I had been away from church for 6 months, hadn’t been able to leave the house much, finished all the Netflix shows I could think of, and was just ready to “start my life again.” Start my life again? That implies that I stopped living when I got sick. I “died.”

But I DIDN’T die, I am still here. I am still breathing.

Sure, my life looks very different than it used to. But I can use my mind in anyway I want and I CHOOSE to make my own decisions. If I want to be artistic, I can. If I want to text my friends, I can. If I want to tell my mom a long, step by step story of exactly what happened in the show I am currently watching, I can. The bottom line is I can’t control what gets thrown at me but I can control the outcome. If I am too tired to do something one day then I can choose to do it  another day.

It’s all about decisions. As much as we think our days are all mapped out, I am here to say they are not. Even someone who works everyday doesn’t know if something will happen and they can’t go to work that next day. We never know.

That’s why for my life I choose to live in the PRESENT. I base my decisions on the now, and not push and hope looking at the future because in all honesty I don’t have that luxury right now.

Live in the Present.

Health Journey

Decisions

Teresa Love

It’s funny how we can procrastinate when we know we need to do something that we just don’t want to do. Or wish the problem hopefully goes away. Like when we are supposed to be losing weight or eating healthy and just because we have to, we choose not to.

Today I am so exhausted.  I did not sleep well last night because I was worrying about an appointment, and once it was over I was so tired from all the anxiety and stress that went along with preparing for the appointment. I know I need to nap, but I really just don’t want to. And if I don’t want to do something, believe me, I really won’t do it.

I sometimes pride myself in being able to decide what I want to do and I don’t let myself get pushed into anything.  I never give in to peer pressure. If it’s a really serious thing, I need to do (like when I needed back surgery for scoliosis) I did what I needed to to prepare and forged ahead.

Now today, I kept telling my mom that I was tired. So she said, “Do I need to take you in the car, so that you can fall asleep like when you were little”? That just made me smile and laugh. Threw me back to a time when life was just easier. I didn’t have this illness. I didn’t have fear at all. I didn’t have to worry about relationships or money problems. I could just be a child.

There is a bible verse that says “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man (woman), I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

1 Corinthians 13:11 NIV

It was much simpler when we were children, running around outside, finger painting and not caring about the mess, eating whatever you wanted, meeting new friends at the grocery store. Now we are adults and we may have put away childish things, minus things we still like (Disney movies).

I think it’s totally fine to think about the past and the easier times in life as long as it makes you smile and you move on, continuing to move forward to the present and into the future.

Health Journey

Let Go, Let God

Teresa Love

We are just moving through life with good things happening. But then something comes up, interrupts our lives, whether it’s a change you weren’t expecting, a death in the family, an illness, an accident, losing a job, or moving. We are just going along “skipping through the tulips,” when all of the sudden BAM! And it’s very easy to drown in self pity.

This can create a situational depression, the feeling of hopelessness, sadness, worthlessness, and overall negative emotions. I am not afraid to say I have struggled with all of that before and am currently still working at it each day.

When your life changes in the blink of an eye it tends to hit you hard. That’s how I felt when my life went from “living my best life”, to not having the ability to do any of the things I used to do let alone get out of the house. My chronic illnesses really interrupted my life…but does it have to be an interruption? What if it could be just a whole other path to take?

Often, when life is going good it’s easy to push God to the backseat of your car and say “I’m good, just living my life.” Then when a crisis occurs, it’s hard to let God steer when He is stuck in the backseat. I have always given God the wheel and have trusted Him to take me wherever He wants and have tried not to be a backseat driver. That’s why I love the Carrie Underwood song “Jesus Take the Wheel.”

When that illness, fear, accident, negative situation happens, you are armed with the Holy Spirit to fight your battles not for you but WITH you. I do struggle with depression and sadness through all this illness, but each day I am working through it, getting the help I need, and letting God use me in any way I can even if it’s just through this blog.