but if I stop, I'll never be good!
hallelujah! glory, glory! there's a party in Heaven, we're invited in. chains are breakin & saints are praisin. (purify - elevation rhythm)
hey there & happy tuesday morning! I hope you had a very happy week full of love & memories. thank you for being here! if you enjoy my content, please make sure that you are subscribed to get weekly updates straight to your inbox:
the week recap! week of: 7/8/25 - 7/14/25
you can’t use up creativity!
the more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
⛅️ something to celebrate: the gift of exhortation + a little God-wink confirmation! on a random Tuesday in February of my senior year, the Lord told me to create a Christian girl blog (duh) with the foundation verse of 1st Thessalonians 5:11. it states, “therefore, encourage one another & build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” & thus, with lots guidance + peace from the Holy Spirit, the Tuesday Mornings blog & self-brand were crafted in the span of a day (literally thank goodness for this day - the Lord’s hand is so evident in my obedience)! all for the purpose of encouraging my fellow daughters of the Kingdom! the Lord has shown me time & time again that He has blessed me with the spiritual gift of encouraging others (Biblically labeled as exhortation), especially through using my words.
however, what really is encouragement? & what does it mean to encourage someone from a Biblical standpoint?
encourage: to put boldness/courage into others!
being an encourager requires using your words/changing the way you use ordinary language, to notice the needs of others, being thoughtful, being intentional, & being present with people!
for the past couple of weeks, I was feeling a little downcast + confused at the state of my blog/what direction I wanted to keep taking it this year. I could feel the Lord start to move me in a slightly different content direction, I just didn’t know what my next step would be & that started to scare me (still kinda does). unknowingly, I began to shrink my own spiritual gift & creative mind that the Lord blessed me with in favor of the comfortable, steady, routine route (which it looks like I may be constantly outgrowing slightly). all this to say, I needed a sign, but didn’t want to bother God by asking for one.
thankfully, the Lord knows our hearts better than we do! in Sunday school at church this week, our student pastor gave a mini sermon on what it means to have the spiritual gift of exhortation & he framed his entire lesson on 1st Thessalonians 5:11! (I gasped & turned to my mom when the pastor read this) definitely a God-wink & a topic of importance in my life that I needed to be reminded of seeing as it pertains to my calling in ministry! He knew I needed a certain push of motivation to keep looking ahead & it just so happened to be based around my blog’s foundation verse. God really is all about the details.
⛅️ something out of my comfort zone: the waiting season? more like the training season! as I was scrolling on Pinterest the other morning, as I often find myself doing (fun fact: this is literally a step in my morning routine! it always inspires creativity + joy), I came across this simple little illustration that brought me so much motivation & reminded me of what I had just learned in my Bible reading the day before: to keep showing up for the Lord in what feels like a waiting season because He is already showing up for you by training you through your obedience! the waiting season is just your training season. you’re where you are to practice, practice, practice for a purpose. let’s take a look at God’s hand in David’s waiting season!
1st Samuel 16:11 reads, “then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘are all your sons here?’ & he said, ‘there remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” in David’s day, keeping the sheep meant lots of waiting around, watching the sheep, taking care of them, fighting off other harmful animals, & working the fields. sheep are completely dependent upon their shepherd - he is the one who finds good pastures & water to drink. he leads them on the right path. this was his marketplace! his work! during these years of wait, God built in David a heart of praise to God as His shepherd + trust in His provision! at the time, David just kept showing up for the Lord - obediently, consistently, humbly, & with a servant’s heart. he didn’t take his God-ordained waiting season for granted! this spoke to me because I feel as though I have a tendency to wish away the waiting because I start to feel behind. when in reality, I am being prepared for the season ahead.
this continues on a little in 1st Samuel 17:37, where David sees the hand of the Lord in his previous waiting & proclaims, “the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion & from the paw of the bear [while he was keeping the sheep] will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” the Lord used the countless years of David’s protecting of sheep to mold him in the solider needed to take down Goliath! he was being trained for this very moment. made for such a time as this! if you stop showing up in this waiting season before the Lord says, you’ll never reach your Goliath moment!
one of my favorite songs from the musical Hamilton is Aaron Burr’s “Wait for It.” in the song he sings (so beautifully might I add) a verse that always resonates with me & lifts my spirits because it reminds me the importance of reframing the wait:
I'm not falling behind or running late
(wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it)
I'm not standing still
I am lying in wait! (wait, wait, wait)
⛅️ something I’ve learned: Paul literally soothes me to sleep! when I went through a long period of spiritual warfare (probably about 2 summers ago now), I ended up being scared to go to sleep even with the lamp still on. the nighttime just became such an intense time of anxiety for me (& can still be if I end up staying up too late)! after deciding that sleeping with my Bible in my bed was dangerous because I literally bonked my noggin on the corner of it one night (lol - you’re allowed to laugh a little), I discovered, fun fact, that the Bible app had a little feature where it can read to you! it even has a little timer & soothing voice. I always tend to gravitate to readings of Paul’s letters. thankfully, this ended up being the trick & it got me to fall asleep successfully; it even helped me be less anxious as I was getting ready for bed. it started to become a comforting tool to connect me with the Lord in any time of tribulation after that.
for example, when Elyse would leave the dorm our freshman year for the weekend & it was just me, sometimes I would turn on the Bible app reading to fall asleep.
fast forward a few months to today, this little comfort hack of mine kinda slipped my mind until last night! last night, I was having a little burst of random, unexplainable anxiety & a mini identity crisis - both totally used to lure me back into being afraid to go to sleep by the enemy. in a moment of near-tears, the Spirit nudged me to draw a bath & to let the Bible app play. I turned on 2nd Corinthians & the first chapter spoke to me there & then. thank you Jesus for the little things that work! & bring us back to Him!
in 2nd Corinthians 1:3&4 Paul writes, “blessed be the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies & God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
I hope each of you has a very happy rest of the week! love you! Jesus loves you! praying for you! peace! thank you for being here & I hope to see you again soon! 🕊️
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“therefore, encourage one another & build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:11
So glad to know that about the Bible app! Going to try that! Love you and proud of you always!
Being in a waiting season is SO tough but so worth it! God’s plan is so much better than anything we could imagine! Love this post and you bff! 😚