Molly's College Survival Tips

I have so much I'd like to write about that's on my mind at the moment. "Molly's Zone" came into my life nearly a year ago (the blog will hit the one year mark on Thursday!), and ever since then the Lord has laid upon my heart the desire to be a mentor to young adults, especially those that are either already in college or others who have just begun the college journey. What an interesting ride college was for me! You experience so much during those years; I hated the ride at first, but I ended up loving that season of my life so much. I want to be an encouragement today. God has put on my heart to share some of my experience with you, and to give you a three point strategy that will help you to "survive in your faith" while being a college student. 

1) Keep Your Faith Close: Faith is vital in the Christian life; I'm going on 25 years old and I'm still learning what having solid faith means. My life has not worked out the way I thought it would. At the start of my college experience, on the surface I thought I wanted to be a teacher; I loved school. I still love learning; I literally would have gone to college forever if I had been financially allowed. However, deep down inside I always felt as though the Lord was pulling me towards writing. I kept telling my mother that the Lord was wanting me to write about something, but I didn't know what it was. I would describe myself biblically as a Jonah through and through. I ran. I did what Molly wanted to do. I did not trust in the Lord as much as I should have. You must ALWAYS put your faith first; out in the world, the devil has potentially more access to you and will do his best to throw you onto spiritually dangerous detours in your path; DON'T LET HIM! Stay close to God, and ALWAYS listen to what He wants you to do. 

"Commit thy way unto the Lord;trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass" (Psalms 37:5 KJV) 

Choose Friends Wisely: The second strategic survival pointer that I felt compelled to mention is to choose your friends wisely. I have thought a lot today about how to phrase this as I write, and the truth of the matter is that you simply CAN'T be the best of friends with everyone you meet but there is always a lesson to learn from everyone you come into contact with. I thought that this may seem a little confusing, so to better explain things, what I mean is that you are going to be around a ton of new faces and you will have to be able to discern between who to allow into your inner cirle and who to love from a distance. You are going to run across people with different lifestyles and different beliefs that you may not agree with. Stand your ground. Love those people, but put God first in all of your choices. Don't let the devil make you think that earthly friends are a dire necessity. If you are saved, you have the ultimate, most important friend already and that is Jesus Christ; the friends that you make along the way should be considered blessings. I love and cherish ALL the people I've met; God has taught me so much through my experiences with each and every person. I learned how to be a better Christian and a better friend to the people who are in my life at this moment. He taught me to talk less and  to listen more. Be open to listening to others' life stories and/or issues. Pray for them. Be friendly. Share the Word whenever possible. Choose your words wisely also and use them as a help to those around you. Remember, God is with you and everyone is watching; how you live your life is of utmost importance; it is your testimony of His presence in your life. How do you want other people to see what it means to really be a Christian?

                                              "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly;                                                   and their is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother"                                                                                       (Proverbs 18:24 KJV)

3) Do the Right Thing Always: Lastly, you must do the right thing even when it doesn't feel like the acceptable thing to do. Everyone will make mistakes. I still do. I know that by even sharing my story that I'm not going to prevent some of the wrong turns you will make. Do your best to live right. Learn from your experiences. Apply the lessons to your life and move forward for the Lord. I'm thankful for my salvation. I'm thankful for my blessings. I'm thankful for my mistakes. I think God has a purpose for absolutely everything, and while I regret some of the choices I made in the past, I don't think that I would be the person I am today without them. I am so excited and I am so happy right now. Today's post just brings a smile to my face. God is good all the time. I feel so blessed to have the life I have.  I love all of my readers and the people who God has placed in my life. Can't wait to bring you more "Molly's Zone" fun next week!

"And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to                                       them who are the called according to His purpose."  

                                                    (Romans 8:28 KJV)

                                  

Praying, Praising, & Persevering

Hi everyone! It's been two weeks since my last "life post" and I'm happy to have something to share with you all. I felt so inspired this past weekend, and inspiration is a great thing to possess when you are a writer. I am thankful to the Lord that I finally have some motivation today; I have missed blogging and I'm thrilled to be back in my beloved office chair doing what I enjoy most. I want to talk about struggle. Everyone struggles. Everyone has "giants" that they face; sometimes life hands you lemons and you have no clue what to do with them. Defeating these giants can be difficult, but today I'd like to share my strategy for conquering struggle. I have found these three things to be most helpful: praying, praising, and simply persevering. 

1) Praying- Cerebral palsy is a part of my life that I have adapted to pretty well over the years, but in the last year or so, my biggest recurrent struggle has become lower back pain that is localized to my tailbone area (the medical name for that is the sacroiliac joint.) The pain is intense, and I don't know if makes me sad as much as it makes me angry. I'm so young, I shouldn't hurt right? You'd think so, but that's just how life is and I have to accept that it's not going to be a bit easy. I'm not one to usually speak of my pain, because I was always taught not to whine; it does no good in the arena of helping things. The past few days have been rough, but I have been praying a lot and doing whatever I can to help it because that's all you can do. I'm hoping things get better soon. I am thankful for the pain in a way, because it reminds that I am human, and I still need God. Always. He has continuously made His presence known in my life. I have had moments of doubt in my lifetime, but I was so reminded of His being here this past week because I felt like He has answered so many prayers that I've prayed recently. I always wonder, if we really ask ourselves and answer honestly, how many of us actually take all of our problems to God? How many times to do we allow the devil to encourage our dwelling on the past and self pity? How many times do we let feelings and/or circumstances make us doubt the very power of Him and His love for us? I have realized that feelings can't be relied on, because feelings change constantly. God is someone who never changes, and He's proven that to me. Prayer and faith are two things that can do so much for your life. My favorite book of scripture in the Bible is Romans; my all time favorite verse is Romans 8:28, but I heard another verse the other day that I liked because I felt it represents strength: "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Romans 8:37) 

Praising: The second most efficient way to dissolve the giants in your life is by working to find positive things in your life to praise the Lord for; being thankful for He made you to be instead of being angry about what you might have missed the chance to be; I used to be guilty of having thoughts like that; to this day, I still get angry, mostly because of the pain and because of the fact that with every year I seem to feel pain from somewhere new. Choosing to be thankful for who you are can really put a positive spin on your outlook in more ways than you think. I AM thankful that  I woke up this morning. I'm thankful for my mom. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my salvation. I'm thankful that I can walk. The list of blessings I DO have is endless, but the point I'm hoping to make is to focus on using what you have to be a blessing, an encouragement, and not a downer. Smile. Give hugs. Focus on others problems, and do what you can to help them through; take your mind off of yourself. 

Persevering: Lastly, you should always work to push through and to persevere. Luckily, my back pain only rears its ugly head sometimes. I have had to endure physical therapy because of it in the past, but I am doing everything I can do to try to help myself through it; for the most part, I've been doing great. I keep busy, constantly on the move. I clean, cook, do laundry, and I have welcomed bananas into my diet. You are allowed to have feelings, but you shouldn't let frustration keep you from the joys of life. Keep going! And all you need to remember is, God will be with you always. Life has tried knocking me down a few times, but I will continue getting back up. "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39)

The Importance of Faith

Hey everyone! August is here and I wanted to kick off the month with a "life post". My previous blog details the changes that I have made to "Molly's Zone" , if you haven't read that post, go check it out! Having enough faith in God is something that I've always struggled with and today I basically just want to share my thoughts. The past week or so has been wonderful. I went back to church and I've been praying so much more and it has helped me to put things into a better perspective. I love to write; writing is my passion. I love the Lord and I want to make sure that I've got my mind solely on pleasing Him. "Molly's Zone" has been a place for me to cover a lot of struggles of those with disabilities. My main reason for switching up the topics a little bit is to have some fun and to share my interests while spreading some happiness. I want to get back into my fiction writing as well; I've still got a ton of ideas and I do want to keep busy. I'm currently reading two books at one time, which is fun; "New Moon", the second book in the "Twilight" series for pleasure, and "Me Before You", in preparation for my first ever book review blog which will be posted during the last week of this month. I'm thinking of joining Tumblr (another blogging site), and YouTube (still considering doing my own videos).

I don't really know what the Lord has in store for me. As I've said, I enjoy writing and I feel like my passion for it is a gift from Him; I know that being published with "The Mighty" those few times was really a cool thing to see happen, but my heart has changed its view; I want to write for God and only God. I also want to unleash my creative side once again, and I believe fiction is a healthy way to accomplish that. I want to focus on just being myself and I want to encourage others to be themselves. Writing for me is not about being rich, famous, or accepted by the world. I have God, and I have my family and friends. I am happy. I'm still just trying to find my path in life; I think I'm on the right track, but I haven't arrived just yet. I'm giving all of my life to the Lord, and I'm thankful for all of my readers. Keep me in your prayers as I'm trying to live more for Him and have more faith in His  plans for me and stay tuned for August 16th! A new "life post" will go up on that day! No blog next week, as I will be reading and topic searching. Thank you all for reading today's post! Until next time..