Nothing is pointless with god

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine. We argued back and fourth about dream jobs and if they exist. And I realised that when it comes down to it, it isn't about whether you love your job or not, because eventually you may come to hate it. It has to have a perpose.

He gave me a challenge. He said that if I were to draw something every day and burn it at the end of the day I would begin to feel an emptyness that comes with purposelessness (new word! Calling webster right now lol). But then I told him, "I always have a purpose."

He didn't understand that. And its hard to explain in a face to face conversation. The thing is, if I do everything to please god how do I not have a purpose! My life always has meaning because I have a god who loves me, a savior who saved me, and a holy spirit that guides me.

I don't create things to make money, or get admiration. If I were to do that it would lose meaning as soon as the money stopped comeing, or as soon as people stopped seeing my work.
But if I'm doing it to give glory to god. If I'm doing it to praise him. That picture I drew becomes in itself, a proclamation to the world. Saying, "God is the reason why I have hands to create with. God is the reason I even drew this picture. So I would gladly burn it. If that's what god wanted me to do!"

And that's how it will be with my games. They will have a purpose. And that is to bring glory to god!

Apryl~

Disconnected

ADD is terrible. An affliction that destroys your life unless you fight it. This is just the list of symptoms:

Lack of focus.
Memory loss
Anxiety
Spiggetti brain (meaning your brain is super random)
Constant moving
Always needing to do something with your hands
Lack of social skills

Ect....ect...ect....the list goes on and on...but the worst thing it does is it causes a dissconnect with the world.

It isn't truely a lack of focus....add is more a lack of multi tasking. If i'm working out something in my head then i'll likely either go into my own little world or be distracted from the task by everything...which is what causes anxiety.

If i'm having a conversation its hard to look people in the eye, not because I'm untrustworthy but because I'm so used to staring at people and freaking them out on accident...that somewhere in my unconcious mind I equate looking people in the eye as socially unacceptable. It would be fine if that was the culture, but unfourtunately its not.

My point is, it hurts to be dissconnected. Have you ever felt like your faith has ADD? You get so distracted by other things that your mind totally blanks on God? you constantly forget to pray or read your Bible? Maybe somewhere there's a dissconnect. Just like in my brain ^-^;

This is how it feels to have a dead faith. It doesn't feel to good. Its like your spiritually depressed. Well, there are ways to cure this.

Step 1: GO TO CHURCH!
When you let yourself fade from church it's easy for satan to get into your head. Trust me. Its good to have that uplnifting message to bring ya back.

Step 2: GET ACTIVE IN YOUR WALK WITH GOD
Do something. It can be a small thing. It can be helping your neighbor unload her groceries every other week. It could be going to the food pantry and serving those in need. It could be as simple as sitting with that guy nobody likes, at lunch. Just do something!

Step 3: GET READING, GET STUDYING
Reading your bible is helpful...but you don't have to scedule it into your day. Put your bible someplace you'll see it, maybe on your night table or your desk. You could even exchange the readers digest with a bible in your bathroom. Haha!
When you see it, pick it up and read a chapter. If you don't have time for a whole chapter flip to psalms and read a chapter there. Psalms has some nice short chapters.

Step 4: PRAY
When you think of praying for something or just thanking god for something, do it. You can pray while you do anything. I've prayed while driving to school. I've prayed while cleaning, while studying for a test.
You don't have to fold your hands, close your eyes, and bow your head to pray. That little tactic was developed to keep kids in suday school from misbehaving while there was prayer. The most true prayers happen spontaniously, silently, sometimes with real bitter tears rolling down their cheeks, sometimes with hands lifted up into the air.

Step 5: LET GOD FILL YOU
Surrender is incredibly hard. Its so hard to let God lead. We hear Disney talking about following your heart. Problem is, your heart is so easily swayed. God never changes. We hear people say, do what feels good. But we wind up stepping on people and we turn selfish in the process. We hear people say, be a good person. Problem is we are inperfect. The only way to truely be led in a surely right direction is to be led by god.

the only way these steps will work, is if you want this. God gave you free will for a reason. But if you feel him tugging at your heart strings saying, "please come home" maybe its time to work back towards him. And it isn't easy...it never is....but let god help you.

Change

So you get up in the morning an be honest ladies, what do we do? We look in the mirror. We go to see how hideous we look. And when we see that "flaw" we immediately try to cover it up. Why do we do this??

Fact of the matter is...women like change.

We have the ability to look at anything and think, "oh that could be just a little more perfect." And what's wrong with that? We miss out on god's plans. We have to change everything from our own faces to the love of our life. We look at everything and we see imperfection but the fact of the matter is we live in an imperfect world. There's nothing we can do about it. There's imperfection EVERYWHERE!

So what's a girl to do? Maybe we need to learn something about god. You see our great creator....makes things right? And our great creator is perfect....he's the master sculptor. So if he's the master sculptor, and he made you what does that mean? It means that we are beautiful just the way we are.

But our comparison, our perfectionism gets in the way. We look at other girls and we think, "why can't I just look like that??" Ill tell you why you can't. Its because you were made to be you! Not some woman in a magazine! You were made to be beautiful you.

You were made in the image of perfection. You are beautiful. And god never wants us to forget that.

~Apryl Sears

God always provides.

Today was the scariest day of my life. I had thought that midterms were next Tuesday. Well when I walked into class....I found out I was wrong...they were today...and I hadn't studied. I sat there praying that all the info I had gotten these last two months would have sticked...and that I would remember it

I was on the brink of tears...I was sure ide fail. When my teacher passed out the tests...I was so sure ide fail that I was barely maintaining my composure as tears fell down my face. I couldn't even start. I knew I was waisting time...I knew I had to get this done and get it done well. I hadn't even looked at the test when my teacher said that time was halfway up.

I squared my jaw and started doing the test. I was terrified. Soon my fears subsided though. As I looked at the questions...all the answers just came to me. I passed a test I hadn't studied for with a 96%. My teacher knew I looked at my test completely shocked. I was just as astounded...

Proof....
God has our best at heart....

:)

~Apryl Sears

Procrastination

Its so easy to fall into that trap.

You have homework. But that new tv show is on. You think..."meh...ill do it later". Pretty soon its the next day and your rushing a 2 pg single spaced report and and wondering why you have to work so hard.

Its so easy to fall into that trap.

Procrastination the art of saying, "meh...ill do it sometime in the future", well guess what. Procrastination ruins futures. At its most dangerous it can wreck lives. Procrastination is the monster of failure.

So how do we slay the dragon of procrastination?

When I was a little girl, I hated to clean my room. It would get messier and messier until I just didn't want to be in there anymore. My mom would tell me to clean it. It was just overwhelming and I never would get it done without help. If only I had cleaned up my mess as it was made. But my mom taught me a trick. She said to focus on the big things first.

So let's make a list of things that need to get done. After that let's add the date they need to be done by. The ones that need to be done today takes priority. Then the ones that need to be done by tommorow, ect.
So let's say you have this huge gigantum list and the amount of items you need to get done today is huge. Now we need to sort out our priorities. What is more important...and what can be tossed out. Some times our stress load is our own fault. We add our own things that just makes our list a mile long. Really think hard about what's nessisary and what's only a want. Do the necessisities first, then the obligations, then the wants.

Necessisities are things that are upholding someones life or wellbeing. Whether its you or someone else, these MUST be done first. If this is all you have time for during the day, I'm sorry but its vital these are done. You may need to get some help or find some way to shorten the amount of time you need for this. There are many time saving methods to accomplish these primary tasks.

Obligations are things that people have asked you to do, or expect you to do. But this stage is still about you. This stage is one that you need to go over your list of obligations and decide which three each day are more important. Some "obligations" are actually needs. Like the obligation to take care of your kids. Make sure these are in the needs category.

Then there are wants. Wants are the things that you do if you have time. It is important that you try to do something for yourself every day. Even if its a little thing. If you go days on end without getting one thing for yourself done, it could become a problem. This is your outlet. USE IT! And smile sometimes.

Life is about balancing work with play. If your balanced, things will be a heck of a lot easier.

Valentines day blues

Its getting awefully close to valentines day. And...of course...I'm single as usual. But yesterday at church the sermon was about the "seasons" of love.

Now...god gave us our single days for a reason....this is the season of winter....and if you garden or know anything about farming...you would know. Winter is a time of preparation. The ground readies it's self for new life in the spring. If you try to move past this season too soon, you may not be ready for what comes in spring

The next season is the season of spring...the season of joy. In this season we have found someone and were in those early days where their perfect and its perfect and everything is perfect. But he gave a warning. We shouldn't give too much of ourselves in this time....we need to pace ourselves. I've heard too many people say, "I love him" after like....3 days.....

The last season is the season of summer...which is the season of knowlege. In this season you get to know eachother in a deeper way than you did before. This is when you share those deeper secrets...of course you don't have to share details...in fact satan can work very easily in the details. But if you tell him about it...then it came out the correct way. He doesn't have to discover it for himself. He'll take it better from your mouth than if he were to discover the info on his own.

Although his series of seasons ends here...ide like to add my own. The season of fall. This is the time that all the other seasons prepared you for. The biggest example of this season...is the time when you get married. This is the season of harvest. Whatever you worked hard for...this is where you get it. And this is also a second season of joy. Your happily married.

But...after fall...always follows winter. For a bit...your marriage will seem dead...but don't worry....the cycle always continues. After winter is spring...and after spring is summer...ect. I can promise you. You won't have a perfect marriage or even a perfect relationship...but if you hold on through the winter...it'll be spring

This little analogy. Isn't set in stone mind you....you may experience a few seasons of winter during your season of summer...or a few seasons of spring during your season of winter....but I urge you to follow this as best as you can...

College life

It takes hard work to get as far as I have. Especcially with how far I had to fall first. In 7th grade I dropped out. I was tired of uncaring teachers. I was tired of cruel girls, dishonest friends, and being singled out. School was not kind to me. So my mom pulled me out to homeschool me.

This was not the best idea in the world. I slowly started to fade into a pit. I was faking my work, and cheating to get good grades. Eventually I just stopped doing it. Wasn't entirely my fault. My mom was so busy she just didn't interact with me for my homeschooling.

I spent several years drifting...but of course they weren't waisted. I started to really get into art. I was getting into all sorts of new media. Charcoal, watercoler, acrylic, india ink, ect. And the world of art was opening up. By 15 I had realised I wanted to do something artsy, and by 18 I wanted to go into video game design. But to get there....I needed a high school education.

Despret for help, I sought out Western Iowa Tech to help me get my GED. But as I did the online courses I saw my self falling into the same patterns as before. I realised I needed more help. A friend told me about Job Core, there I could get my GED and a career that could carry me through college comfortably.

Of course new problems erupted. Suddenly I knew what high school. Is like, because if Job corps isn't like highschool....its worse. No....yeah...its worse. Because ontop of the drama and the cruelty and the terror I was surrounded by the worst this world had to offer. And I felt like an ant among giants.

I fell into depression, not so bad that I wanted to kill myself..but bad enough. Most nights I would cry till my roomate came back. Which ticked her off, which in turn made me feel worse. Not even my friends could pull me out. So I determined that, after I got my ged I would leave the program. And I did and immediately got myself enrolled here. At Western Iowa tech.

Hold on. Pause. Rewind. How did I survive? Ever wonder how someone like me becomes a christian. God. I believe God has lead me to where I am now. If it wasn't for God, I wouldn't have even met the friend that told me about job corps. See my dad is the minster at the church in my town. And he's the reason we are even there.

You see...God is the only way you can obtain a real life. Money and power are empty, entertainment takes everything from you...and you wind up enjoying yourself....until the power goes out, and beauty doesn't last. We need God. And only he can pull you out of your rut.