PAJWLH- Dear to my Heart

Hello Friday! WOW how this week has flown by. We returned from California Sunday night/ Monday morning around 1am and it has felt like life just kicked back into high gear. Missing a week of school was a toughy for me. I came back to my classes in full swing and it took me this full week to catch up. I am happy to be back home and back to normalcy :)

As I mentioned this month we will be looking at relationships. For today's post I thought I would talk about some of the foundational relationships we hold dear to our heart, those of our family.

Family I can understand may not always bring up warm and cozy feelings for each of us. When I think of my nuclear family, I am constantly reminded of our goal to create a loving family environment that our children can continue to see as a safe place to be themselves and grow in their gifts. This has been very important to me and my husband. Looking at what the world has to offer right now for our children as they grow, there are no real promising areas for people to feel safe. A family is one of those things that both me and my husband strive to create as a safe environment for our children. As our children grow together, our goal is that they find peace within their relationships with each other and can count on one another to remain a safe place. This is a tough objective... Although I am proud of my kids and what they continue to strive for, we are not their only influence in this world. That is true for each of us. We are all constantly surrounded by others that may not always lay a positive impression on us. My goal with our children is to help them differentiate the difference between those who are good for them to have around, and those they should probably stay away from and not feel guilty for keeping harmful people at bay.

This is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way. I was always taught to love everyone and if you are a good person, than you are friends with everyone regardless of their adversities. This is a tough habit to break and there have been two defining lessons that I can remember that have taught me how to manage relationships. The first was when I went to Brave Girls Camp and I listened to Melody share her experiences with relationships. During this lesson, I learned different boundaries that were OK for me to have with the people in my life even if some of those are family members. (This lesson is offered online via BGC Soul Restoration, I highly recommend it!).

The second lesson I learned was choosing the quality of the people that I hold close. This lesson was a part of a church service that we attended at our church Resurrection Fellowship. Our pastor made a comment about the story of David and how he was an armor bearer for Saul. This story intrigued me as it is well known that Saul didn't care to much for David, yet through out their story, you see just how loyal David was to Saul. The main summary that I am trying to get to is that when David became an armor bearer for Saul he committed to Saul in all things in life and in death even when Saul was against him.  Our pastor made mention that these relationships are few and far between and these are those relationships that we should hold dear to our hearts.Our armor bearers should be people that strive to protect us in any situation because they know our character and are willing to stand up and protect it. I am not doing an incredibly good job of reiterating the exact message of this story, but I hope you can appreciate that the moral I am trying to convey is that the quality a person we hold dear and close to our hearts should be someone who values our character, trusts us as we trust them and someone that when put in a position would defend and protect our hearts. Even if we are in the wrong, they will hold us accountable to the character that they know we bear.I in no way want this to feel like I am pressing my beliefs on to any one, I simply share this because it was a good lesson that helped me understand the relationships I hold dear. If you would like to hear the full message about this you can find it here on Itunes. It is titled David - The Armor Bearer. 

These two lessons helped me to see that I didn't have to let EVERYONE into my heart in order to show that I cared for them. This is still a tough lesson to learn and I am sure that I will continue to learn through this process, but understanding that those few relationships that I choose to hold dear to me are worth some much more that hundreds of friends that would not do the same for me. I strive to hold these few relationships close to me, knowing that these people would in return protect and love me the same way that I would for them.

 I am not a counselor, so please do not take this info as something that should be interpreted as advice. I am hoping that by sharing my own experiences that this will in return spark an interest in each of you to pursue in your own way.

So here is a fun techniques that I wanted to share. The idea behind this project is to protect our hearts but not to the point of building walls around them. This fun glittered embellishment is a fun way to add a little sparkle to your project.

I am still working on adding this element to my journal page, I am hoping to get it up on the blog on Monday. Thanks again for joining me on this fun little adventure. I hope that this technique inspires you and that my words encourage you to value those who are close to you.

~Liz