Amanda Cabrera | Don’t Quit

I’ve been absent from the blog for a little while now but I’m back and ready to share!  Recently, the women’s group I’m in at our church has started the Propel Women curriculum founded by Christine+Nick Caine.  You can read more about it here (propelwomen.org) but basically it’s a program aimed to help guide you to becoming the best version of yourself in whatever role and stage of life you are in right now.  I’m not going to lie, it’s been pretty difficult for me.  There have been some questions that have brought about some tough answers and it’s really making me reevaluate who I am and who I want to become.

The short answer is that I don’t know who I really am but I’m beginning to realize that until I find myself in Jesus, I will never find myself in this world.  I think the hardest question I’ve come across so far has been “How would you rate how you are doing right now running “the race marked out” with joy? (Hebrews 12:1-2)  If I am completely honest with myself, I feel like I’m completely failing at it.  I fall victim to sin and to being easily distracted with daily bumps that when the day comes to a close I find myself laying awake asking myself what I did all day.  How am I carving out my path and serving my purpose if I’m too stuck in all the little things that are in my way?

Purpose.  That’s a word that has been really ticking me off lately.  It bumbles around in my head almost every day.  What is my purpose here?  What am I doing with my life?  When the end times come, what am I going to have to present before the Lord?  Then it hit me, my purpose is God’s purpose.  My purpose in life is not be super mom.  It’s not to be the perfect wife with the perfect house and the perfect kids.  My purpose, and your purpose, is to spread the gospel and to shine so bright the light of Jesus that other’s can’t help but to be attracted to it.  That’s all.  That’s everything.  For me personally, I get so overwhelmed with achieving worldly goals that I put Jesus aside.  I tell myself that after I get the house clean, the kids through school, the errands run, my shift at work complete and all the other tasks that I planned for myself checked off…then I will spend time with Jesus when in all reality, it needs to be the opposite way around.  How am I going to serve my purpose if I’m putting Him on the back burner of my life?  How am I ever going to figure out His plan for me if I’m not setting aside time every.single.day to just sit with him?

Loves, what it all comes down to is that in order for us to run our race and to run it with joy we need to “Strip down, keep running and never quit” (the Message).  If we focus on Jesus and running as fast and as hard and as purposeful towards him as hard as we can, we will never be without joy.  Our hearts will be bursting from it because we will be so full of our purpose for Him that we won’t be able to stop smiling.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and when those bumps along the road come along, don’t allow them to steal that joy from you because you are His and you are amazing!

P.S. Elianna, my daughter, wanted to share her art with you too <3

Illustrated Faith Genesis Collection by Bella Blvd | Dauber Dot Markers by Dab and Dot Markers