Well well well everyone,
How do I start?  Ummmmmm, long time no talk?  Like, literally?  Here we are almost in the year 2017.  My sweet little blog sat here waiting patiently for me for the past almost year and half, somewhat forgotten.  Should I even say it?  Okay, I will.  So my profile is not anywhere close to where I am today!!

I type to all of you today, as a married woman.  Wife, and mother, to my soon-to-be-born baby girl!!   Yes, so a lot has happened!  I will probably laugh as I look back on the silly little things I used to write about, things, that at the time, seemed so important.

So, of course, I have kept up pace with Facebook, but there is just something about Facebook that just isn't as personal or organized as my dear, loyal little blog.  So easy for beautiful little pictures or neat articles to be lost on Facebook if posted more than a few days before.

Henceforth,  (yes, I really did just say henceforth), I want to post a special little treat for you all today. :) :D  A treat that says,  "Here's a little spray of pictures that hopefully somewhat fills 'the gap'"

Welp, enjoy my bloggers!!  And a Merry Christmas to all & their dogs :D

                                   



                                   

Something Priceless...YOU

Do you ever feel like what you do doesn't matter?

Ever been tempted to believe that lie?

Every day, every moment, we are in a battle. As Christians, we are not alone and have God on our side.  If you have not run to Jesus yet in your life, now is not too late to run to Him.  He loves you so much, and waits for you with open arms to run to Him, for security, for safety, for salvation, for hope, for truth...for love.

What you do & don't do DOES matter.  More importantly, YOU matter.  Why would Jesus die for you if you were worthless?  You are PRICELESS.

Don't believe the lies that you are worth anything less.  Just cry out to Him.  He understands your pain.  He loves you so...He sees your broken heart.  He sees the labels that have been pasted on you throughout your life.  He wants to take all the evil in your life and all the pain and turn it around into something beautiful & good.

Yes, so it's true that God is sovereign, and God will do what He's gonna do.  But He also gives you a choice.  And you can choose to follow Him.  He loves you so much that He died so that you could live. 

How could you run from Him any longer?

And don't get me wrong, I'm preachin' to the choir here.  Every day, I act stupidly and most times I am a sorry excuse for a Christian.  But that doesn't change the way Jesus loves me, and it doesn't change who I am in Him now.

Don't listen to the lies anymore,

Remember the Truth.  He is the Way.

And,

Your Life.

The link below is a great song, check it out

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=something+in+the+water+carrie+underwood&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

My Journey Through the Clouds (my pictoral biography)

Always, by Samantha Schmitz

"Life" you say.

What is that?  At times, you wonder if you are worth much...maybe even start comparing yourself...to things you shouldn't be.

You overcomplicate things.

You believe lies.


Why???


You try to pray...

But every time you do,

You feel like you are praying not to God,

But to a wall.


Why does life at times have to hurt so much?

Where is God...

When all you feel is loneliness??

Are you worth any more than a voice?

 A voice screaming out in pain?

Another tear shed?

Another heart broken?


Where,

When,

How,

Will the blackness fly away?

When will the sunlight

Break through the gray clouds

Of your heart

And mind?

The clouds are blocking out the light of your life.

You want to live,

You want to feel something again,

Something more than pain

And confusion.

At times you wonder how you keep holding on,

When you feel so tired & weak.


You may feel alone,

But He remains.

You may feel worthless,

But your worth never changed.

You may feel pain,

But the joy is still there...

Hidden behind the clouds.


And the thing about blackness is,

It always

Must eventually

Give way to light.

Whatever You're Fighting....He wants you to LIVE in Victory Over IT

Whatever it is you are fighting in your life right now, don’t give up!!!  That’s what the enemy wants you to do, but instead…hand it over to Jesus!

Trust that He WILL give you the courage to STAND on the victory He has already won for you at the cross.  He really DOES give you life, and LIFE MORE ABUNDANT!!!   He wants you to live in victory!

"I have come that YOU may have LIFE and LIFE MORE ABUNDANT!!!"

Jesus wants to be glorified through your life of obedience to Him.  He loves you too much to watch you stray from the path.

TRUST HIM

You feel frail,

Worn thin,

Tired of fighting.


The voice inside your head is screaming at the top of its lungs,

"Just give into the sin!!  It's not THAT bad!!  You sin anyway!!"

You begin to listen,

But then...

You stop.


Every fiber of your being trembles with the fear,

But you remember something.


You remember that your life is not your own,

That you have been bought with a price,

A price paid to set you free.

To set you free to live in freedom


Freedom of grace...


A grace that does not bind,

And yet,

Now you feel like you owe it to this grace,

This Grace Giver,

To live back

Your gratefulness for your salvation.


Yes,

So it's true you are not perfect.


You may even have disobeyed and strayed a little,

But now is the time of salvation,

Now is the time for repentence,


As long as you are breathing,

It's not too late.

You hear these things,

And you hear that...


Miracles happen when you believe,

Jesus loves you,

God will keep you every day of your life,

Sin has consequences,

Jesus covers you with His love and grace.

But should we sin that grace may abound?


Should you give into the sin and stop fighting the sin because "oh well, I'm forgiven anyway"?

The Lord answers with a resounding,

"may it never be!"



 Look,

I don't know what you're facing right now,

But I do know that the God I love

Also loves me,

And He seems to care somewhat about the problems you are facing,

Okay,

So He cares a lot.

So much,

That He gave His very self,

To save you,

To free you,

To give you the love

And the peace you never knew.


And now you think He's given up on you now?


Ha!  Will the sun rise tomorrow??

Ahh...yes...

So the Son will rise

Rise to gather you, His child,

Into His everlasting arms.


His loving arms won't

Never

EVER

Let you go.

And by God's amazing grace,

With you just taking one tiny step,

One little day at a time,

You won't ever let Him go either.


Trust.

He Waits

The night begins,

And your heart tries to find ways it can hide. 

Terror fills you,

And you want to know the peace...

The peace that surpasses the understanding of your mind,

But you every time you try,

You let the hand of fear,

Pull you back

From resting in

His love.

Months go by,

Then,

It's years.

 You are being told that you are doing better,

That God has got you,

That you are loved,

That you're gonna be okay.


But are you

Really?

Pictures,

Words,

Thoughts,

Fears,

Endless what ifs,

Try to turn you into something

You are not.

You begin to loose sight of yourself,

And you forget who you are

In the depths of your soul.

 You are drowning,

In your sea of guilt,

And fear,

And anxiety,

And confusion.

Does not the One Who claims He loves you so much,

Care that you are suffering so?


Ahh,

But in a gentle way,

That gentle way of His,

He reminds you,

That He cares,

That He loves,

That He longs for your heart,

By coming near,

And startling your weary self,

With a warm touch

Of His Hand.

The cold numbness you have felt for so long,

Begins to melt

Like the melting of darkness

With the rising sun.


And suddenly,

In one instant,

He calms

Every single wave,

With His enrapturing

Love.




Do you want that...

For you?

He waits.

Just Because He Loves You

If only questions were all good,

And if only all questions had answers.

But reality is,

There are times in your life when you will feel so broken that you can't even lift your head.

Life knocks you clean off your feet,

And the lies become so overwhelming that you are drowning...

And fast.


You want to run away

You want to hide

From the reality that you have been forsaken,

Left alone,

Abandoned,

Ditched,

By the one you thought loved you.


Your heart and soul has been ground into the dust.

"What's the point in ever believing again?"

You say.

When really deep inside,

Every fiber of your being

Is trembling with fear,

That you will be left behind

Again.


 Oh!!

But the merciful arms of Jesus!

 How undeserving you feel!

How worthless

And tired

You feel.

But He is there,

And He scoops you up,

Just

Because

He loves you.

Pieces Of Me :)

Still...by Samantha Schmitz

The days were longer then,

More like the slow turning of a page,

And they were filled with innocent wonder

And prolonged happiness.


Then you began to grow up.

Life threw it's best

And worst

Straight into your face.

You tried to face it straight on,

And be brave,

Like the world told you to be.


 But there came the moment,

When being brave wasn't enough,

When reading the verse to cheer your spirit didn't lift it anymore,

And when the gentle world from a friend,

Hit your heart

And bounced right off.

It was in that moment,

That you knew the meaning of the valley.

That you knew the other side of life that they had protected successfully you from for so long...

Grief.


You felt as if your heart would never heal,

And that if it did,

It would heal back twisted

And knarly...

Forever scarred by the storms

And floods

Of this life.


Your dreams...

The little flowers,

The ghosts of who you longed to be,

The kisses of a small child,

The breeze on a spring night,

The stars that always shine,

They seemed to be the reality

that only belonged to a day called

Yesterday.


When would the valley end?

Was the journey supposed to always taste so bitter?

No one told you the valley would last so long.

And because you walked in it,

Day by day,

No one but Him

Saw the slight incline of your path,

And that little by little,

He was leading you higher

And higher,

To the mountaintop still.


But your journey felt slow,

And because it didn't happen all at once,

You thought He had forsaken you with your sorrows in the valley's pit.



But though your heart was burdened,

And the pain seemed almost unbearable,

And you almost believed you were forgotten by Him...


There was a faint,

Small,

Dear part of you

That held onto the hope

Of a brighter tomorrow.


That believed 

Deep down,

That life was not meant to be all lived in the valley,

But that the valley was simply a road leading straight up,

To your next mountaintop.


And that every tear you cried,

And every stab that you felt,

Would birth something beautiful and good,

Though as bad as it was.


Because, you see,

The One I love,

The One I trust,

He doesn't leave you when you're hurting,

And He doesn't waste your pain of this life,

But He takes it,

All the broken pieces

And ashes

And blows life into it.


And so,

Remember,

He never promises easy,

Nor does He promise that this life will always be good,

Because that's Heaven.


But He does promise worth it,

And He does promise that every piece,

The good

And the bad

Will be used for good someway

Somehow

If you can but learn

To open your hands


And release it.


And like the freeing of a baby bird from it's nest,

You cannot learn to fly,

If you don't risk

Falling.


Your dreams haven't died,

He wouldn't crush them...

He gave them to you,

Remember??


You are simply realizing that the journey to your dreams

May look a little different

Than how you imagined it would.


But that's all right.

Because the stars every night,

Still shine.

And the summer breeze still blows,

And the crickets sing,

And the violin stirs the human heart.


And life...


Is still always,

Beautiful.

Fun Summer Mems :)