Megan Dennis: God

Twenty Eighteen: Year In Review

December 31, 2018

Twenty Eighteen: Year In Review

Welcome back!

It’s been awhile, so have you missed me? Probably not. Much has happened since the last time I posted and I plan to do a life update post soon, but not in this post. I hope your holidays were as wonderful and tasty as mine. I’ve been on Christmas break for almost two weeks now and this is the first time I’ve gotten to sit down and work on some projects I promised myself I would get done during Christmas break (weird how that always happens...) Alas, that did not go as planned but no worries because here I am now, finally accomplishing some things and writing a new post.

As you may have noticed, another year is in the books (is it just me or did it go by extra fast this year?) I really enjoy writing these year end review type of posts, so that’s what I’m going to do today. Hopefully this won’t get too lengthy, so my apologies in advance. Enough being said, here’s how 2018 went for me:

For the first time, this year I made a list of New Year’s resolutions. Normally I don’t do this, mostly because I don’t want to fail them (I’m that kind of person.) But this year I tried it out so I wanted to share some of them with you and talk about how I either failed or succeeded at them.

· Wake up early
· Eat Healthy
· Exercise more
· Read the Bible everyday
· Start a journal
· Be organized
· Read at least 15 books
· Spend less time on devices
· Be more positive

Waking up early

When you’re homeschooled, waking up in the mornings isn’t so easy. I could sleep until noon if I absolutely wanted to. In fact, I used to do that and it actually made me really unhappy because I would wake up and the day would be halfway over. So this year, I made it a goal to wake up early/have a good sleeping routine. I think it’s safe to say I succeed at this goal because I have a much better sleep routine and it’s made me so much happier because my days are so much more fulfilling, versus sleeping through half of it.

Eating healthy

I’ve never technically been a “bad” eater. My mom was never the mom at the grocery store with a cart full of junk food with packs of energy drinks hanging over the sides. But I still wanted to do better this year and I actually ended up giving up all red meat (pork and beef.) Not only for environmental reasons, but because I never liked eating those foods in the first place. I would eat them if they were put in front of me, but this year I completely gave it up and I’ve never been such a happy eater in my life. I like to call myself a “partial-vegetarian” and someday I hope to cut out all meat completely. I’m extremely happy with the progress of my diet this year and I hope I can continue good eating habits in 2019.

Exercising more

Okay so I already did a post on my fitness story (you can read that post here), but I’m really proud of myself for being a lot more active this year than I was before. I started to enjoy going on walks, bike riding, and other outdoor sports I never thought I would actually like. Fitness has become an activity I like now and I feel so good after a workout. I would also like to point out that I’m not working out to gain or lose weight; or maintain a certain body image. In my opinion, fitness and exercise should be about staying healthy in general and not trying to make yourself look a certain way. I’m definitely proud of the progress I’ve made this year, and although anyone can look at me and not notice a difference, I can clearly see the progress I’ve made since I started exercising and that’s what matters to me. For those interested, I plan on doing a workout routine post sometime; however, I like to change my routine up from time to time so I don’t get tired of doing the same workouts. In other words, I don’t have a “consistent" routine I stay with for a long time. Overall, I’m super happy with the progress I’ve made and I hope to be even more active in 2019!

Reading the Bible everyday

This is also an area in my life where I’ve made some big changes this year. To give you a short summary of my religious background, I was baptized when I was 9 (I think) at a church I had been going to for a while, but no longer attend. Since then, my relationship with God has been through some rough patches over the years; and until this year, I was not in a very good place with God. However, after many years of soul searching and church hunting (which is not easy), this year I finally found a church where I feel as if I belong and going there has really helped me deepen my relationship with God. I have not read the Bible every day as I said I would, but I have been reading it a lot more frequently and my faith has become so much stronger this year. There are still times when it gets hard, but I’m in a better place with God than I ever was so getting through rough patches is much easier now that I have a strong relationship with God.

Starting a journal

This is where I begin to fail. I’ve journaled off and on for years, but I’ve never kept up with it as I keep saying I will. I started out strong this year, but unfortunately I never made it to the end of January (I know, so far.) At this point I can probably conclude that journaling just isn’t my thing at all. However, I did start something else this year. Every day of 2018 (minus only a few days) I wrote down something on a piece of paper, folded it up, and put it in a Kleenex box. On the paper I wrote down something good that happened that day. Some days it was just little things, but even if it was a bad day I still had to write something down. I haven’t looked back at any of them yet so I’m excited to go through and read them at the end of the year. For this new year, I plan to do the same thing but instead of writing them on slips of paper, I got a gratitude journal for Christmas so I’ll be using that to write things down in there instead of the slips of paper. I would highly encourage you to do this too because it helps you to see the good in even bad days or situations. Doing this has helped me realize there is always something to be grateful for even if it’s just being alive.

Be Organized

I have always been a very organized person. Physically and mentally. For the most part, my room stays clean and uncluttered. This year, I also stared using a weekly planner to write things down in. Needless to say, it has helped me a lot and now I have an obsession with planners. Not that I couldn’t remember things before; however, writing things down helped me a lot to have a plan for each day as well as remember school assignments and such.

Read at least 15 books

I wanted to read this year more than I have the past few years. Recently I’ve had trouble focusing during reading which had caused me not to read as much as I used to. This year I really wanted to make it a goal to try to read more, which I did; however, I don’t think I reached my goal of 15 books. I did read a lot more than I did last year though and I’m pretty happy about that. I’ve recently been hooked on Sarah Dessen’s books (so cheesy but they make good easy reads.) I hope to continue reading more in 2019 because it’s such a good hobby to have and I’ve learned a lot from books. There’s nothing like the feeling of settling down to read a good book (and getting mad when your favorite character dies. Book nerds can relate.)

Spend less time on devices

I, along with millions of other people on this earth, am guilty of spending too much time on my devices. I don’t know about you, but this is something that annoys me because it can be a difficult habit to control. These days it seems harder and harder to put down your phone and live in the real world. What do we do when we’re bored? Check social media. What do we do when we need to speak to someone? Text them. What do we do when we look good? Take selfies on our phone. What do we do when…okay you get the point. I tried hard this year to keep some distance between me and my phone and I have to say, I’ve done pretty well but not as well as I would have wished. I could be better about putting down my phone and finding more productive things to do with my time. So this year, I’m making it a priority to decrease the time I spend on a screen. And I’d like to challenge everyone to this as well. Make it a point to be present and in the moment because sometimes we miss things happening in the real world when we’re too concerned about what’s happening in our digital world.

Be more positive

This is probably the hardest and easiest goal of the whole year. It was hard for me because I struggle with staying positive. I’m not the kind of person that’s happy all the time. There’s times where I’m depressed and it’s hard to even get out of bed and face the day. However, those moments did not happen as frequently this year and it’s probably the biggest change I’ve made all year. Looking back at how I got to where I am now, it all has to do with lifestyle choices. Primarily the things I’ve listed above, along with a few other things which I want to talk about briefly.

This year I cut out all negative influences in my life and people who were not making a positive impact on me and my life. Instead of investing in these unhealthy relationships, I chose to invest in relationships with people who are positive influences on my life and that’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I can legitimately say I’ve been genuinely happy this year and probably the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

2018 has been the year of healing and moving on. I moved on from things I was doing and going through that were not healthy. Was it easy? Definitely not. There were times when it got super hard, but I knew in the end it would and will be worth it. Healing is a process. I’m still in that process, taking things day by day and some days are harder than others. I know to some people it won’t seem like much, but to me I can see every small change making a big difference in my life. I know I have changed in the best ways possible and those changes are helping me live a life I didn’t even know was possible. And that was the best part of this year.

This year has been one of the best ones yet! Thank you if you’re still here reading this…your support means the world to me! I’m extremely grateful to be sharing my journey of life with you (for almost 2 years!) I hope that God has blessed you as much as He has blessed me this year, and I pray that 2019 will bring joy and happiness into your life and that you will have a wonderful new year!

Bible

Through Trials of Temptation...

June 25, 2018

Through Trials of Temptation…

This post is going to be a little different than what I usually write about. I’m not giving you tips on how to live a good life, telling you what to eat, or what make-up products to use. I’m hoping that today we can have a heart-to-heart conversation about a problem that is very real and persistent in the lives of so many people. I prayed a lot before I opened my computer to start writing this. And I pray that you will open up your soul to receive the message I’m going to attempt to convey here.

The only resource I’m using today in this post is my Bible. I want this to speak to everyone reading this, but specifically the young people here like me, who may be struggling with this issue right at this moment. There are so many issues going on in our world today that people my age are struggling with and maybe they don’t have anyone to tell them these stories, or maybe they don’t know Jesus at all. Whatever the case may be, I want this to speak to them.

Eve was the first human to struggle with this. God had given her and Adam one simple rule to follow. That rule was that they could eat from any tree in the garden of Eden, all except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16). So God told Adam that he could have the fruit from ANY tree he wanted except for that specific tree, or if they did then they would certainly die. He had a lot of options in the garden for food. But one day after Eve was created from Adam’s rib, a serpent came along and asked if she and Adam were allowed to eat fruit from the garden. Eve told the serpent what God had said. The serpent told Eve that they would not die if they ate the fruit, but that they would be like God and know good and evil (Genesis 3:4-5).

So here she was, in the middle of the garden talking to this serpent, Eve probably didn’t know what to do. She could just ignore the temptation and follow the rule God had given her and Adam, or she could eat the fruit like the serpent told her to do. Well, Eve gave in and ate the fruit. After she ate some herself, she gave some to Adam (and here we also see Adam being tempted by his wife, Eve) who also ate the fruit from the forbidden tree. This is where sin first began.

Once they had eaten the fruit, what happened next? Did they die immediately like God said they would? No, but as you can imagine, God wasn’t so happy. The first humans had disobeyed him and He decided they must be punishment. His punishment for man and woman was not death as He had first said, but He punished them by giving them physical and emotional pain that would affect them later in life (Genesis 3:14-19).

Because Eve gave into temptation, sin entered the world. If Eve hadn’t given into the temptation and didn’t eat from the forbidden tree, could you imagine what our world would be like? No one would make mistakes, no one would make bad choices, there would be no such thing as a crime, everything would be perfect. Not exactly. Because when we sin, we learn from those mistakes and those lessons make us wiser for the future.

Let’s take a look at another example from God’s word. This time we’re in Matthew chapter 4, during the time when Jesus was fasting for 40 days. He was led into the wilderness by Satan, who told Him to make stones into bread (Matthew 4:3-4). Jesus resisted, only to be tempted again by Satan to throw Himself off of a high point on a temple (Matthew 4:5-7). Again, Jesus resisted. After that, Satan told Him to worship him and he would give Jesus kingdoms and thrones. By this time, Jesus had had enough and sent the devil away.

Jesus did not give into the temptation. Keep in mind, He was also fasting so He was probably very hungry. But Jesus does not give into any kind of temptations. He is the example we should live by each time we are tempted by something in our lives. We cannot resist temptation as easily as Jesus, because we are only human and not perfect. But we can surround ourselves with positive people and influences that will help us make good decisions.

If you’ve ever been in a tempting situation, you know it’s not so easy to say no. In fact, it will probably be one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. But the one thing you can do is in that moment, just pray and ask God for His guidance on what you should do. Then all you have to do is ask yourself, “would Jesus do this?” That should help you and give you all the wisdom you need to make the best choice.

Adam and Eve brought sin into this world, but you always have a choice to sin. We are not perfect and will always make mistakes, but luckily we have a forgiving father in Heaven who does not judge us by our past mistakes and loves us even when we do wrong. There is nothing greater than His love and grace and He is with us in every situation we face.

faith

Love Part 4: The Best Love

February 25, 2018

Love Part 4: The Best Love

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-6

Here we are. The final week of the series. I can’t believe how fast this month has gone by. It feels like yesterday when I sat down and wrote the first part, and now here we are at the very end. If you haven’t been keeping up, here are the first three parts:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

I decided that I didn’t want to spend a whole post talking about everything going on in the world right now. I even wrote a whole post about it that was separate from the series but decided not to post it because I want this blog to be a place that’s not full of sadness and negativity. I think it is important that we do recognize all the tragic events that happen, but we cannot let those things control our everyday lives.

If we really want to fight this evil that has taken over the world, we must show no signs of fear or sadness. The scariest thing to Satan is love. He HATES seeing kindness and positivity. So therefore, that is our greatest weapon. And that’s what I’m going to continue doing here. I’ve recently been hit with a case of depression this week because every time I look at my phone I see bad news everywhere. And I don’t know about you, but it really puts me down. I get that it’s important to know what’s going on, but sometimes I think we let the media control our lives and let it take our focus away from the good and positive things.

So that’s why I’m here today. I’m here to tell you about a love far greater than anything else we’ve talked about in this series. It’s a kind of love no one else can give you, because it does not come from another human. No, this is God’s love and it’s a way no other person can love. Because we (humans) are imperfect. We anger, we hurt, and we have feelings. Sometimes our pride can get in the way of our ability to love and help others.

See, God doesn’t have those problems. He is fully committed to loving us no matter what our faults are or how many times we’ve sinned. God loves you even when you sin. Since He is our father, he is disappointed when we do wrong things, but God always forgives. In Romans 5:8 it says “But God demonstrates his own love for us while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

I’m going to tell you a short story about my life if you don’t mind. I always love hearing these powerful conviction stories about how people come to know Jesus. Mine is probably nothing special to anyone else, but it is to me because it’s part of my story. So I’ve been a Christian pretty much all my life, when I was growing up I was surrounded by believers and positive influences of that sort. I attended youth group on and off for a long time, and I always thought I was the ideal “good-girl Christian child”.

When you consider yourself a pretty good kid, you never think you might do something to change that. When I was younger I used to laugh and say “never!” when asked about doing things other kids my age were doing. Then I discovered the internet. I didn’t realize exactly how far off I really had gotten until about a year ago when it was too late and damage had already been done. Damage to that good kid I always thought I was. The thing is, when you think so highly of yourself, you don’t really plan for situations where you might be faced with a dilemma and end up compromising your morals.

When I went through what was probably the hardest time in my life so far last summer, I was hurting and I was also really lonely. It didn’t feel like the people around me cared, and I was too ashamed to talk to anyone about it, so I just kept to myself. And then one night I just started praying, letting out everything I was feeling and talking to God like He was my best friend. I asked for forgiveness, I asked Him to make me strong again, to help me through what I was going through. And He did. That’s how I became so connected with my faith again and ever since then my life has changed. A good change.

See, people will always come in and out of your life. People will hurt you, be angry at you, and let you down. But no matter what the situation is, you can always depend on God. He is there for you, He cares about you, and He will forgive you. If you don’t have Jesus in your life right now, let me just ask, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? If you’re roaming the earth looking for this kind of love that I just told you about, I’m just going to help you out and tell you that you won’t find it until you know Jesus. Because God made humans to be imperfect. We fail, we make mistakes, even Christians. A Christian isn’t just like a favored student, a Christian is someone who knows what they have when they have God. And if you don’t have God, you won’t ever know what the perfect kind of love looks like because this is not a kind of relationship you can have with another human, it’s something that’s only possible when you have God.

“For God so loved the world that he gave is one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

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Twenty Eighteen: Year In Review

Through Trials of Temptation...

Love Part 4: The Best Love

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