Joyful Home

I am sure you know the verse, "Your Word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path," Psalm 119:105. Well today the Lord shed some light on it! (No pun-intended, laughing at myself).  Since I stopped the Hal Higdon training, I was off a few days from running because my family needed some help getting some wood split. That right there is a workout in itself, so I decided to take it a little easy on my body and quite frankly, I wasn't hearing from the Lord or a nudge to run. So I laid low.  This morning I was feeling a nudge from the Lord to run and to my excitement I felt like I needed to run to Hadley (4 miles)! I was excited and was careful to not block myself from this success by self-talking myself down. So I made sure that I was super close to the Father before the run, during the run, and after by praising Him. Sometimes He will place a song on my heart and I'll sing it the whole time and other times He will have me praying for people. This time, He was r...

There I was minding my own business when I started to get this excitement to get back into marathon training. It has been a desire of mine for some time now, but it wasn't the right timing. I could tell. Recently I have been trying 1 mile here and 1 mile there, then I tried 2.5 miles and I thought, "okay, I can do this." Although it is at a slow pace, but who cares, it is me and Jesus! I ended up running a 3.2 mile and I was so elated that when I came in from the run, I was smiling so big and said to Caleb, "I DID IT! I RAN 3 MILE WITH NOT STOPPING!" And I had absolutely no issues with my body and the breathing was easy! I asked the Lord if He could still be a part of this... then I brought it up to some friends that I was going to train for a marathon! I took myself off guard, not them! I was like, "Whoa, God are we doing this!?"  I went for an afternoon run later that week and saw a stick and two leaves that were smiling at me as I ran past it and th...

I just finished the Attributes of God study from The Daily Grace Co. and it was an incredible study of getting to know the Lord. Afterall, He knows me, right? I knew some of the attributes but not all of them. It was fun to get into a deeper dive on omnipresence. What a beautiful opportunity He has given me to be able to sit in His presence. I am in a relationship with the Lord and I need to get to know Him so that I can understand what it is He likes, desires, and expects from me. It's been a beautiful journey. My dreams have been indicating that I am scaling rocks and jumping from one cliff to another with skill. At first I was scared, but my inner-man (Ephesians 3:16) had confidence and told my mind that I can do it with ease. So the second dream, I was scaling smoothly. In my awake life, I did a little research and found that I am under the shelter of Christ. I'm in hiding and the perfect example of this is from my favorite passage of scripture - Moses and God in the crevic...

If you are looking for a fun place to learn and explore with your kiddos, this is a fun place to go! Oakdale Nature Preserve  https://ci.oakdale.mn.us/Facilities/Facility/Details/Oakdale-Nature-Preserve-26 It has a clean and nicely paved asphalt paths where you can walk, run, bike, and play! There are random workout stations that you can utilize. A park near a neighborhood with a picnic gazebo where you can have lunch. Sweet darling benches in the right places where you are able to take in the scenery. And finally, a nice building full of activities and fun learning things for your kiddos!  We did that today. It was a bit cold and cloudy but the leaves were spectacular on this fall crisp MN morning! We went to the play area in the building and were able to play with all types of sensory things! They have some awesome taxidermy animals that you are able to learn from and look at. It was a great experience for the girls to explore while the seasons start to change. This is a per...