Reams of Rereads Blog Event // My list of books to read again!

GUYS, I found out about this neat blog event that will be going on this October -- it's called the Reams of Rereads blog event, and will be hosted over at Coffee, Classics, and Craziness!

But what IS the Reams of Rereads blog event, you may ask? Good question. I had that same question before I discovered the answer. So since I know the answer now, allow me to enlighten you. ;)

The basic idea of this event is to help encourage us bookish people to make some time to get to those wonderful books we enjoy so much that we've wanted to reread for so long, but just never have because of work/school/and just busyness in general. So, that's what the Reams of Rereads event is for -- to help motivate us to catch up on all these lovely books we want so much to visit again! :)

To read the official rules and find out more about this event, head on over to this post on Eva's blog! Eva is the lovely lady who will be hosting Reams of Rereads. :D Thank you so much, Eva for coming up with this fabulous idea!

So -- as you probably have guessed -- I'm planning to participate in this! :) I'm sure I definitely won't get to everything on my list, but it will be fun anyway seeing how many I can read through in one month!

Here's my own list of books that I'd like to reread!

- Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

- Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

- By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleishman

- Heidi by Johanna Spyri

- Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady

- Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo

- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

- The American Girl Kirsten book series by Janet Shaw

- Nim's Island by Wendy Orr

- 12 Empowerment Truths about Two Sons in Want by Terry Tripp

- More Than Conquerors by Terry Mize  (So technically I hadn't fully finished this book, but I read through almost all of it at one point (I'm not sure why I never got to finishing it D: ...probably because of "Lack of Reading Time" as Eva puts it...) ... So anywho, I guess since I'll need to reread through the first part again since it's been so long, it can count as a reread? Yes, let's say it does. ;) )

I hope you'll consider participating in this blog event as well! It shall be lots of fun, I do believe. :)

God bless you all! Write to ya later!
~Faith

Hello September Tag

You know what I need to do better at? Keeping up with tags for one thing. There are several different ones that I've been tagged for that I've copied and pasted the questions/rules for in drafts in my blogger post editing thingy that have just been sitting there, collecting proverbial dust for months... or even as much as a year. So, I think it's about time I get down to business and catch up on all these lovely tags that you guys have so graciously awarded me with. But I've come to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't go about doing them all in one post... If I did, that post I'm sure would be so dreadfully long that the person who would actually read the entire thing in one sitting without obligation should be given a standing ovation.

But anywho.

I probably won't be posting a bunch of tags in a row, but I hope to get to doing most of the ones I've been tagged for this fall/winter.

So to start off with, I'm doing this fun fall tag that the lovely Brooklyne tagged me for over at her blog, Showers of Blessings! :) And since it's called "Hello September" I figured that I'd better get to doing this before September flies by! So -- here we go!

The tag rules:

1. Please copy these questions (below), answer them, and then write out new questions (or just copy these) for the people you nominate below your answered questions.
2. Please nominate at least 3 bloggers, but try to avoid ones that you know have already been nominated. 
3. Lastly, include these guidelines in your post, and use the tag picture (above)! 

Alright, let's answer some questions!

Windy or rainy autumn?

While I like a rainy day here and there, I think I'd much rather have a more windy autumn. I really enjoy sunny, windy days. :)

Do you like chai tea?

I don't believe I've ever tried it. So, I'm not sure!

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or apple cider?

Well, I actually don't think I've ever had apple cider before, and I'm not really a coffee person. ("Yes, I can still be a writer even if I don’t drink coffee. I’ve tried it, I just don’t see what’s so good about it. *runs from all the coffee loving authors*" ~Brooklyne :P) So, I'd have to go with either hot chocolate or tea, depending on the mood. :) If I had to pick just one, probably hot chocolate. Chocolate's my fav! :D I actually am not a super-fan of hot tea honestly. I like a couple flavors, but I guess I just don't drink it that often. Now, ice tea... yes! I like the flavor of the ice tea we get (which I guess is technically just black tea) and sometimes I'll heat that kind up, and I like it a lot that way, too. I don't think that it's really the tea being hot that I don't like, maybe it's just most of the flavors of hot tea that I've had I don't like as much? Anyway, sorry, I'll stop rambling about my deal with tea and move on now... :P

If you could go to one state in the U.S.A just for the autumn scenery, where would you go?
Ooh, well, since traveling out to Colorado this summer, I think that it would be a lovely place to go for autumn scenery, with all the trees and mountains. So I'd probably choose Colorado! (Well, either there, or some state in New England... like maybe Vermont. :) )

Do you like soup in the autumn? If so, what kind is your favorite?
I do like soup! (especially my mom's! :) ) I don't know if I particularly have a favorite kind though. I like a lot of different ones! But if I had to choose... maybe vegetable... or potato... or chili... one of those! ;)

What color of leaves do you like best? 
I like them all really! But I especially enjoy orange and red leaves. Bright orange leaves are so pretty to me!

Okay, so I suppose one could argue that these are more yellow than orange... but they're still pretty, so. ;D

If you could go to another country just for autumn scenery, where would you go?
OH MY. So many choices! Well, (as Brooklyne said in her post) I'd want to go somewhere with a lot of trees with changing leaves of course. Probably a country in Europe... Maybe Switzerland! I'd really like to visit Europe some day, and I think Autumn would probably be a nice season to go. :)

Sweater or hoodie?
Can I say both? :P It really depends! I like sweaters... but hoodies are really nice, too, and they have convenient pockets as well, so... Both. Yeah, both.

A hazelnut or apple cinnamon candle?
Hmm... I'd probably go for an apple cinnamon candle. :)

Cookies, brownies, or both?
BOTH! But if I had to choose between the two, I might pick brownies over cookies. (I'm a chocolatey girl, what can I say? *makes note to self to not go overboard on chocolate this fall* :P) But I absolutely positively enjoy cookies as well! So yeah... since I can, I'd definitely choose both!

So apparently this picture I found on Pinterest is of "pumpkin cheesecake swirled brownies"! :O I think I shall have to try this sometime!

What's your favorite fall activity? (Like a fall photo shoot, knitting, crocheting, baking, reading, etc...)
Oh, there's so many fun ones! I really enjoy doing things with family and friends, like going to pumpkin patches, doing corn mazes, hayrides, picnics, hiking, and things like that! :)

~~~~~~~~~

This was a lot of fun! Thank you so much, Brooklyne for tagging me! :) I'm so excited that fall is now officially here! Though I'm kind of sad summer is over, autumn is such a lovely season as well, and I'm glad for it to be here again!

Now, I'll tag...
Christina @ Light Unto My Path
Olivia @ Meanwhile in Rivendell or Towards Indecisive and Palpitating Stars
Abby @ Novels, Dragons, and Wardrobe Doors

And here are your questions!

Windy or rainy autumn?

Do you like chai tea? 

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or apple cider? 

If you could go to one state in the U.S.A just for the autumn scenery, where would you go? 

Do you like soup in the autumn? If so, what kind is your favorite?

What color of leaves do you like best? 

If your could go to another country just for autumn scenery, where would you go?

Sweater or hoodie? 

A hazelnut or apple cinnamon candle?

Cookies, brownies, or both?

What's your favorite fall activity? (Like a fall photo shoot, knitting, crocheting, baking, reading, etc...)

Bonus questions!
Pumpkin or apple pie?

Have you ever had a pumpkin spice latte? If not, do you think you would like it/want to try one?
Would you rather go on a hayride or do a corn maze?

Have fun, gals! But if you'd rather not do this tag, than please don't feel obligated! It's totally up to you. :) And also, I realize that it's already nearing the end of September, so even though I'm pretty sure this is maybe possibly probably breaking the rules, I just made up a new rule that states  you can still fill out this tag after September if you can't get to it before then.
And ALSO -- if you are either wearing a sweater or drinking a hot beverage whilst reading this right now... then consider yourself tagged, too! ;D

I hope all of you are having a wonderful September! God bless, and I'll write to y'all later!
~Faith

Shout-outs and the like

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, and I'm FINALLY getting around to it! I wanted to give some family and friends' blogs and YouTube channels a shout-out because they're all such awesome people and have some great content! So, without further delay, here they are!

• First of all, my dear friends, Christina and Olivia! Christina started a blog a while back called, Light Unto My Path, which is a very encouraging, fun blog that you should definitely go read! And Olivia's blog, Meanwhile in Rivendell..., and her more recent second blog, Towards Indecisive and Palpitating Stars are wonderful as well! She does movie/book reviews, posts about life, and all sorts of great things over there! Get yourself on over there and give them a read!

• Now nextly, (I don't think that's actually a word, but... *looks up "nextly"* Oh. Okay, so that actually is a real word... Anywho, moving on...) I must mention the lovely Faith over at Chosen Vessels and Stories by Firefly! Last November, Faith was so kind as to invite me for a "Sisters in Christ chat" over at her blog (which I failed to mention anything about before unfortunately... *facepalm*) It was a lot of fun, and I just want to say thank you to her again for having me! You can read that conversation we had by clicking the picture below!

• Next, a little while back, I helped my lovely mother start her own blog! It's called So Good. She's still just getting started with it and doesn't have a lot up yet, but please go check it out and give her a follow! :)

And now, the bros!

• My oldest brother, Nathanael has a YouTube channel called ChickenTractorGuy, which --especially if you're into farming/chickens -- you should definitely go check out! (I actually helped him film/edit a couple of his videos, which was fun!)

• My other brother, Caleb also has a YouTube channel, It's The Real Deal! He makes encouraging videos focusing on the truth and integrity of God's Word! They're really good! He also has a blog that he puts his videos on as well that you can check out here.

• And last, but definitely not least -- my younger brother's channel, Zippy Productions! He does videos mostly on gaming and sometimes instruction-type videos. In his latest video he gave a shout-out to my blog here, so I thought I should return the favor! He does a lot of videos on the game Roblox, which I also play occasionally, so he took some clips of my game character (gloriousglittergirl9) and her misadventures and put them in this video of his down here. :P Hope you enjoy! ;)

So, I think that's all for now... I hope I got everyone I was thinking of. All these people are so awesome and I would totally recommend that you go and check out their blogs/channels and follow/subscribe to them!!

There are of course many more blogs and channels that I could mention as well, and I apologize to all the people around here who's blogs I haven't been catching up with and commenting on recently. I'm trying to do better on catching back up.

~~~~~

I've also had the idea in my head for a while now to maybe start my own YouTube channel sometime...... Especially seeing as how my brothers have their own channels now, of course I don't want to be left out! ;) Life's pretty busy right now though, and I don't think I could exactly work doing YouTube videos into my schedule yet, but it's something to think about for the future anyway. It would probably be a little bit of everything I'd guess, but maybe mostly vlogs?... Or skits maybe, who knows!? I'm not sure right now, but we'll see what happens. :)

I hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend! God bless!
~Faith

A much belated Bible Study Blog Party wrap-up post

Hello once again, friends!

So... WHERE HAVE I BEEN???

Well, first off, I was a very unmotivated person a month or so ago. (Not that that's an acceptable excuse for my lack of blogging) But this honestly is most of the reason why I didn't do a Bible Study Blog Party wrap-up post before when I was supposed to. (A sad reason, I know..... I'm really sorry about that, you guys... D: Please forgive me.)

Whenever I thought I was going to sit down and write that post, I'd get restless, and just couldn't seem to come up with anything to write. I felt unmotivated and just... blah...

I kind of knew what I wanted to write, but I just didn't seem to have the attention span to think hard and long enough about how to write what I wanted to write. I realize now that it wasn't so much of a writer's block problem as a focusing problem. It was hard to just focus on writing. And it turned out to not only be with writing, but in other areas of my life as well, especially in spending time with God and reading my Bible. It was so hard to just be still and focus on Him.

One big reason I believe I got so unfocused was because I started filling up my life with other things. I let myself get distracted with earthly things that my flesh was pulling so hard on me to focus on. I was filling up my schedule and brain power with things that weren't necessarily bad, but just... temporal. I wasn't "fixing my eyes on eternal things" like Paul says in 2 Corinthians.

So that's what basically happened with the Bible Study Blog Party -- I didn't take the time to get myself to really focus on it after writing that first post for it. I'd just groan within myself, hiding under a shell of irresponsibility, declaring that I would get to it some other time when I actually felt like writing it. But that time when I actually felt like writing that blog post never seemed to come. So I just keep putting it off and off.... and off...... Yeah. Not a good life motto.


The part of Romans 8 that I really wanted to talk about during the blog party was in verses 9-12. And basically, these were the exact verses that I needed during that time of unfocused blahness. But instead of truly focusing and letting God speak to me through them and taking the time to write a post about them, I gave into my flesh and didn't really let these words sink in. Recently though, they've been making their way back into my heart.

Here's what these verses say:

"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." ~Romans 8:9-12

That last part there has really stuck with me recently. We're not debtors to our flesh. We don't owe our flesh -- ourselves and our feelings -- anything. Sometimes we say things like, "Well, I owe it to myself" or "I just can't help doing that", and we use this as an excuse for not doing the right thing or putting things off. The thing is though, if we have Christ living in us, we don't "owe it to ourselves" -- we owe ourselves to Christ. You CAN help doing certain things. How? THROUGH CHRIST living in you! You CAN do all things THROUGH CHRIST who strengthens you! (Phil. 4:13) This is what the Lord has really been working to get across to me recently. I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling on the inside of me. So now with Christ living in me, I can overcome my flesh and what it wants to do. With Christ in me, I can overcome my feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions are very real, but the reality of them can't ever supersede the reality of what God says about our situations. He says that we are more than conquerors through Him! (Romans 8:37)

So that's just one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me in that passage recently. There is of course a whole lot more to get out of all of those verses. Hopefully I'll get into more of it in another post sometime soon. :)

But for now, let me FINALLY get to wrapping up this Bible Study Blog Party!

Thanks SO MUCH to all of you who read and participated in this -- you all are wonderful!! Be sure to go over and read Brooklyn's post and Emma's post that they did for the Bible Study Blog Party! They did such a great job, and it's so exciting to read what God put on their hearts to write! If you wrote a post for this that I missed, please link back to it in the comments! I would love to read it!

Again I greatly apologize for my laziness and extreme lateness with finishing up this wonderful study. I will probably end up doing another Bible Study Blog Party again sometime in the near future (and do a much better job at keeping up with it ;) ).

I hope all of you have a wonderful week! God bless!
~Faith

P.S.
It is true that most of the reason for my absence in the blogosphere here has been because of my lack of motivation... but for the past two weeks the main reason has been because I was away on vacation with my family. It was a grand twelve day Colorado adventure, in fact! I will most definitely elaborate on my adventures there in another post very soon, so be on the lookout for that! :D

NO Condemnation // Bible Study Blog Party

Hey there! Welcome, everyone to the Bible Study Blog Party!

LET'S GET THIS STUDY PARTY STARTED!!

From today, May 28th, to June 9th we're going to be reading and blogging about Romans 8! Anyone can participate, and if you would like to find out exactly how this all works and want to join in, look back at my original post about this.

Romans 8 is such an awesome chapter. As I was reading through it again last night, I started getting so excited -- I was so glad I chose this chapter for the Bible study! One thing is that a lot of it seems to be telling of the benefits of being in Christ. It's a great reminder of who we are and what we have in Him! Take the very first verse for instance:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

You may have read this verse before and have been like, "Okay, yeah. That's cool. No condemnation, nice." But seriously, think about that. That's GREAT news! We don't have to be or feel condemned if we have Christ living in us!

But then, why do we as Christians still feel condemned sometimes?

I think so many times we equate our worth with what we do or have done in this life. And when we haven't done enough or have messed up, we personally start beating ourselves up about it. We unknowingly crack the door open for the enemy to slip a little condemnation through into us. It's not God who's condemning us when we're doing these wrong things, it's the devil. It says right there in that verse that there's "NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

Of course, God will convict us when we're doing wrong, but condemnation and conviction are two different things. Condemnation causes our focus to be on ourselves, on our failures, and on how bad we are. Conviction causes us to focus on doing better, on improving ourselves, and on going up higher in what we think and do.

We need to get our focus off of ourselves, our performance, and our works. Who we are and how much God loves us isn't affected by what we've done. Like it says in 2 Timothy 1:9, "[God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began..."

You are saved and called by God's grace! And because of that, those who are "in Christ Jesus", who have accepted them as their Lord and Savior, don't need to be condemned about anything! We need to and will be convicted by the Holy Spirit at times, but we need to take the focus off of ourselves and accept that conviction without mixing in the enemy's condemnation with it. We're free from ALL condemnation in Jesus! What WONDERFUL news!!!

So, those were just a few things God has showed me from Romans 8:1. I've personally felt quite a lot of condemnation from the enemy in my life before, so this verse has really spoken to me a lot. Knowing that God loves me for just me, not for my accomplishments or what I've done is such an amazingly freeing feeling! And then, when I realize God's love for me and what He's done, trusting and focusing fully on Him, it causes me, in turn, to be convicted by the Spirit to do the right things and do good works for Him as well!

What about you? What did you get out of this verse? What has God taught you through this verse? Share in the comments below!

~~~~~

The party is just beginning, and I'm excited for what's to come! If you're participating, be sure to put the link to any posts you may do in the comments of the Bible Study Blog Party introduction post.

Hope all of you are having a fabulous start to your week! God bless! :)
~Faith

Bible Study Blog Party Introduction

I've had this idea for a little while now, but I thought that it was about time that I should just go ahead and strike out on it. So, here it is...

A Bible Study Blog Party!

"Now what in the world would a Bible Study Blog Party be?" you may ask.

Well, it would basically be a sort of combination of a Bible study and blog party -- hence the name. It's like a blog party in that there's a theme, and then those who want to participate write posts on their blog(s) centering around that theme. Well, with this, those who want to participate would all read through the same chapter/passage (say John 1 for example) and then post on their blogs and/or comment on other participating blogs sharing their thoughts and what they learned in John 1, kind of like in a Bible study. You can do various types of posts for this as well, even sharing a song or story, as long as it's centered around the highlighted chapter or verse for that Bible Study Blog Party.

I thought this might be a good and fun way to study the Word of God together, and to see a same passage of scripture from different angles and perspectives.

I said at the beginning that I've had this idea for a while now. But I've honestly been sort of hesitant about doing it for some reason or another. Well, so, this past weekend my family and I were at a Christian conference, and the speakers' messages connected really well with each other and they taught from a lot of the sames scriptures without even really planning to do so. While saying something about this, the host of the conference said that maybe they ought to have a conference where all the speakers just preach on one verse or passage, and and teach it from different angles. When he said that, immediately the idea I had had for the Bible study blog party came to my mind. "Hey," I thought. "that's basically just what I was trying to do with the blog bible study thing!" So, turning this idea over in my mind again with fresh motivation, I decided to just go ahead and do this -- so here we are! :)

I'll be hosting this first Bible Study Blog Party from May 28th-June 9th! The chapter we will be reading and studying is Romans 8! I believe God is going to teach us all some great things through this chapter, guys! I'm so excited!! :D

How to participate in the Bible Study Blog Party:

1. Before reading or writing or anything, ask God to help you to understand what you read and to teach you through His Word and in other participants posts you read as well.
2. Read the assigned chapter(s)/verse(s).
3. While reading, remember to not just read the chapter/passage looking for things you can blog about. Look for what you yourself can learn from this, whether you end up writing a blog post about it or not. And don't try and rush through reading it. Take your time, listen to the Holy Spirit, and dig in. If one particular verse just sticks out at you, stick with it! Take your time -- we need to not just read to read, we should be reading to learn from God! (That's something I really didn't want to do with this... I didn't want us all to just rush through reading the chapter and write up something just because we have to for the Bible study. I definitely want to encourage everyone, including myself, to take time to read in order to learn more from and about our Heavenly Father!)
4. On your blog or through comments on other participants blogs, share your thoughts on the chapter/passage, what stuck out to you, favorite verses, etc., and like I said before, you could share a song or story or something like that centered around the highlighted passage as well. It's a wonderful thing to encourage and share what God's teaching us with each other! 
5. Make sure to link the post(s) you do on your blog for the Bible Study Blog Party down below in the comments on this post so others participating can read what you wrote and also so I can easily be able to find them all to list in my closing post at the end of the study party. (Hehe, 'study party'... you never thought you'd see those two words together, did you? xD)
6. And of course... Have fun! :D

So, does all of that make sense? If not, let me know and I'll try to clarify as best as I can. Any suggestions on what chapter/book/verse might be good to read, study, and discuss together in future "study parties"?

I'm SO excited, you guys!! Please spread the word around the blogosphere about this and let others know if they'd also like to participate! But whether a bunch of you all join in on this or just a couple, I believe we're still going to have a great time in God's Word either way!

Here's also a couple of buttons you can use to spread the word around about the party! :D

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week! Write to you later!
~Faith

6 Distractions Bloggers Can Probably Relate To

Ah, blogging. What a fun life we bloggers lead. I mean, it's so easy to come up with and write posts and put them up regularly and all that, you know? Such a breeze. AM I RIGHT OR WHAT??

Okay... so no, not really (as I'm sure you could tell by the plethora of blogging I've gotten done this year... heh :P) It seems hard to not get distracted whilst trying to craft the perfect blog post and trying to keep up with your blog. So here's a list of six things I've found to be pretty big distractions for the average teen/early 20s blogger person.

1. Pinterest
Pinterest is amazing, don't get me wrong. And it's a wonderful tool, especially for bloggers. But -- as we all know -- there is SO MUCH to find on this site that it can be a two-edged sword at times. You might just be getting on to find one nice sunset picture to go along with some blog post you're writing, and then suddenly find yourself looking at a pin of how to do your hair up to make it look like a bow.

^ Basically what browsing through Pinterest is like.

2. Social Media
Other social media platforms can be just as distracting as Pinterest, maybe even more at times. Or maybe not. Or maybe so. Who knows. All I know is that it's quite a big distraction.

3. Food
Sometimes food can be a motivator, but then other times it seems like it's just an excuse to take a break and slack off. When you're mind goes blank with what to write, you might say to yourself, "Well... maybe I can get those creative juices flowing by just taking a little break... in the kitchen..."

This might just be one of the cutest gifs I've ever seen... =D

4. Other People
People are wonderful, they're absolutely wonderful! But when you're trying to focus on writing or doing something with you're blog, and someone interrupts you to ask you about something... or they need to get on the computer you're on...

5. GIFs
So maybe not every blogger gets distracted with trying to find the perfect gifs for their posts... but...... I probably know of at least one who does..... heh.

6. Real Life
Of course, we bloggers always have high hopes of posting regularly, maybe on a certain day each week or something like that. But then it suddenly hits us that we actually have real lives in the real world and things don't always go as smoothly in real life as we plan them to. And we can't usually be working on or writing something for our blog at a certain time each day right when we want to and have this meticulously perfect plan of how we keep up our blog (unless blogging is your actual job and it's the main thing you do in life).

~~~~~~~~~~

So, our real lives often get in the way of our blogging lives. But you know what... that's actually not really a bad thing. I think a lot of times we put social media/blogging/computer things higher on our priority list than just living life and spending valuable time we won't get back with family and friends in the real world without really meaning to. (I've caught myself doing this too many times unfortunately...)

We've been given this amazing life, the chance to make a real difference in this world. I keep needing to remind myself not to waste it all on earthly things that won't last. It's of course not bad to spend time on social media and the like occasionally, but I realize that I need to watch myself that I don't let it dominate my life and I start becoming obsessed with it.

In fact, I've discovered one easy way to tell if you're addicted or obsessed with something: If you're constantly or regularly thinking about that thing. 

I found this out one night a while back. My younger brother had gotten the game Minecraft. Well, so I decided one day that I would try it out and play a little bit. Needless to say, I got a little too into it. But for a little while I didn't even really realize how engrossed I had become in the game. One night, however, I finally came to reason. As I was lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep, I suddenly caught myself thinking hard about how I should construct some part of the house I was building in the game and anticipating waking up the next day to work on it. A jerking thought came to me: MineCraft is one of the only and biggest things that has been on my mind these past few days...

And so that's when I realized -- I had become addicted with this game. Once I realized that, I tried hard to stay away from it for a while and focus more on truly important things. It wasn't easy of course, but I asked God to help me with this obsession, and He did. And now, I actually hardly ever play MineCraft at all.

So basically what I'm trying to say in all this is that we all really need to take a good look at our lives and where our priorities lie. I'm definitely not trying to say that Minecraft or any other games, or even blogging for that matter are bad, but the problem begins when we start obsessing over them, or any other temporary natural thing. If we find that our priorities aren't where they should be, then we need to step back, and fix and reassess them. That's much easier said than done of course, but we CAN do it -- not alone, but with our Heavenly Father working in us and helping us along the way. Nothing is impossible with God! And if we just pray and ask Him to help us with keeping our priorities straight and put Him FIRST in everything, He WILL help us!

So guys, let's do our best to put God first in everything we do and make Him our very top priority -- even above blogging -- praying and asking Him for His help in doing so.

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak." ~Mark 14:38

Well, that's all for today! I hope this could be of some encouragement to all you fellow bloggers out there. :)

Have a fabulous rest of the week, everyone! Happy blogging!
~Faith


P.S. Are there any other distractions that you as a blogger face that I missed? How do you keep from getting distracted whilst blogging? Any tips for us fellow bloggers who get distracted easily?