Setting Your Sights

"Set your sights on a place higher than your eyes can see" -Rumi

It's the end of my junior year of high school and my head is exploding with huge ideas. I'm at a point in my life where I have a million amazing things I want to do and a burning desire to do all of them. So what's holding me back?

Time.

In my head, I doubt that I'll have time to physically do it all. College applications and auditions, fitness goals, starting my own business, a new job, and travel aspirations are just a few of the things on my mind. I'm about to be using three planners at a time- no joke.

This lack of clarity around the idea of how I will meet my goals has begun to create a fog of self-doubt inside of me and has led me to consider giving up some of my dreams because I seem to have too many.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to grow up and be like Barbie-- having a million different jobs that she loves equally and succeeds at, all the while having time for friends and fun and fabulous pink fashion. As I get older, this gets more and more desirable and less and less feasible.

But I have come to a realization: what is meant to be will be. My job is to do everything I can to follow my dreams, because Philippians 1:6 says it plain and simple:

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Step one is to dream big, set your sights, and get to work--trusting that everything will work out for the better.

So if you're struggling with self-doubt and worry about something you need to do (or a bunch of different things, like me) here are my final words to you:

YOU CAN DO IT!

Set your sights high & see what happens.

xo,
Julzymarie

Set Your Mind On Things Above

The past few evenings, I have seen the most beautiful sunsets while driving home and all day today, I've been in the car driving home from visiting family. Although the drive through Kansas and Oklahoma is excruciatingly boring, today I've just been looking at the big blue sky and it's kept me happy. The sky is such a remarkable thing when you think about it, and it makes me feel so joyful to remember the fact that God could've made this world just okay-looking since it's only a temporary home, but instead He made it beautiful for us. As silly as it sounds, when I look at the sky it makes me think about how the same God that created that beauty also created me and everything and everyone I love and He loves me unconditionally. 

Colossians 3:1-2 says it plain and simple: Set your heart on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above and not on earthly things. 

God gave us a beautiful world to live in, but He doesn't want us to be obsessed with it. I often find myself saying "I just love the world" because I love to find the beauty in everything, and I feel sort of weird for saying it because I know as a Christian one of my goals is to be in this world but not of it. I realized, however, that God loves the world because He loves his children. I love the world because I love the God who made it. I can totally appreciate the blessings God has given on Earth, but the goal is not to be wrapped up in earthly things like drama, materialism, hatefulness, vanity-- all of the things that are so common in today's world. Instead, the goal is to set my mind and heart on the kingdom of God and to try and live like that every day by being faithful and by sharing God's love with everyone. Colossians 3:12-14 says therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3 is my favorite because it gives some of the best advice Christians can get! It basically says hey, do this and don't do this and it makes everything make more sense.

The awesome thing about not worrying about worldly things (or remembering that you don't have to) is that if you get wrapped up in some drama or you get really upset over an earthly/material disappointment, you can take a step back and remind yourself that that isn't what matters. To me, setting your mind on things above is remembering that God's plans for you are way bigger than any material item, any conflict with another person, and any disappointment here on earth. God is also way cooler and more amazing than any temptation in the world. I'm definitely not perfect at this- I get caught up in material things (like shopping), I worry too much about things that don't truly matter, and I While this world is amazing and beautiful, it is full of sin and our job as these holy and dearly loved people is to try and stay away from the worldly sins and instead spread true joy and love that comes from God into this world. 

Again, I love the quote that says "be in the world but not of it" because it means to be present, enjoy what God has blessed you with and thank Him for it every day but not to get wrapped up in the things that are completely trivial when compared to the Kingdom of God.

A favorite song of mine that totally goes with this theme is Blessings by Laura Story-- one of the best lines is "when friends betray us, when darkness seems to win we know that pain reminds our heart that this is not our home." The whole song talks about how sometimes trials of this life are God's mercies in disguise and the earthly things we face don't even matter compared to His love!

Here's the link to buy it on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/blessings/id429376000
And here it is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQan9L3yXjc

So, I encourage you to just look up every once in a while and see the beautiful endless sky that God made for you and remember that He made an even more endless Heaven to share with you, too. If you find yourself getting really angry at yourself or someone else or being disappointed in something, just remember that none of that matters as much as it seems to because the creator of the beautiful Universe created you too and He has plans to give you so much hope and a future where you aren't worried about anything earthly because you have eternal life and peace. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

Set your mind on things above, like God's love. Have a great day & remember you are so loved!

xo,
julzymarie

You Matter To Me

Some things I struggle with a lot are feeling like I am not good enough and feeling like I just don't matter. I'm a person and so I naturally want people to like me and listen to me, and I often spend way more time worrying about that than I should- the insecurities in my brain tell me that I am untalented, annoying, bossy, unlikeable, and that people don't care about me. Even though I know these things are not true, the problems that I have with myself tell me that they are and it's like a battle. I find myself singing "You Matter to Me" from Waitress to myself all the time to try and convince myself that I'm not worthless when the world/my insecurities seem to be telling me otherwise. I know and love so many people that struggle with this, especially people with careers in the performing arts because our whole job is to entertain people and make them like us and if we fail at that, we fail at our job. This is applicable to really anyone but the thing is, God LOVES us all the time no matter what we do. We matter to Him. And the world, its opinions, and the insecurities it brings are all COMPLETELY temporary. God's love is eternal.

The people who you want to please so badly are not God. This is a bad habit we all get into- caring about the opinion of someone SO much that when they seem even the slightest bit disappointed in you, you beat yourself up. Exodus 20:2 says "I am the Lord God. You shall have no other gods before me." 1 John 5:21 says "dear children, keep away from anything that might take God's place in your heart." Nothing could ever come close to replacing God, but our silly human nature of wanting to please people so badly leads us to hold some people in too high of a regard. My favorite verse about this is Jonah 2:8. It says "Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them"- when we put our focus on earthly things like wondering whether or not people like us, we have idols. An idol is anything besides God that you think you can't live without and when we get caught up in all of that, we miss out on God's grace and love and all of the peace and joy He has for us. Instead, we should try our best to set our minds on things above (Colossians 3:2) like God's love for us. His opinion is the only one that matters, and His opinion is that He loves you!

You are a child of God. Holy and dearly loved, fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 193:13-14 says "for you formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works and my soul knows it very well." He made you the way you are for a reason! YOU MATTER. God doesn't make people so that they will feel irrelevant and ignored, and He doesn't want us to shy away from using the talents He gives us. He says, "have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" in Joshua 1:9. In Jeremiah 29:11 He says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future." God created you for a purpose and He loves you more than you could ever imagine. Even if the people around you don't always show you they care or make you feel good, you can find comfort in thinking about how God cares about you and He wants you to know it. 

Let's not forget that Christ made the ultimate sacrifice- He gave his life so that we might live in peace, love and joy, as free as possible from the darkness of the world. Isaiah 53:5 says it clearly: "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed." So when you doubt whether or not you're loved, whether or not you matter, and whether or not you're good enough, remember that God created you with a purpose and He loves you and cares for you so much that He died to save you and to know you. You are His beloved and you matter to Him more than you ever thought possible. 

#Goals

Tonight, God put something on my heart. I realized it while I was doing something totally normal for me: laying on my bed, going back and forth between Pinterest and watching a routine video on YouTube, I started thinking of ways I can make my life better once the summer starts. Get a job. Buy more cute clothes. Start blogging more often and a Youtube channel. Work out every day. Eat healthy. Take cuter Instagram pictures. Do more crafts. Re-organize and decorate my room. Have a routine to follow every morning to make me feel like I have it all together. Now, these are great goals, but I felt that the motivation behind them wasn't right. As much as I'd love to do all these things, I know that the first reason I want to do them is because I saw someone else do them, and they looked happy and like they had their life together.

Galatians 1:10 came to mind. It says, Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. To me it's the same thing: do I want to change certain things about my life to please people and myself? Or is it so I can be a better servant of the Lord? Honestly, working out every day and taking care of myself and the body and mind that the Lord gave would be awesome. But working out so I can seem up to par with other women, or so I can look a certain way wouldn't be so awesome because I would then be worrying about myself and the opinions of others, and as a Christian that isn't my job.

Of course, other people's opinions and the way they affect how I see myself will always be present in my head. But God says to forget all of that and to just listen to what He says. As a teenage girl, that's pretty hard to wrap my head around. Pleasing God instead of man is a really hard thing to do. It goes against the human instincts of wanting to be liked and wanting to be as "good" as the people we look up to, but that's what I've noticed about Christianity. Basically, we are put on earth and given all of these natural, human, earthly sins and the goal is to separate ourselves from that and fix our eyes on God. To follow Him instead of our instinct, and that's what makes following Christ hard but having a relationship with God and glorifying Him makes it worth it.

Being a teenager in 2016 and spending a lot of time on social media watching famous internet people talk about their everyday routines makes me wish I had my life together. It makes me wish I was a famous internet person, with tons of money and followers and clothes and makeup like them. I see them and think, how can I be like that? What can I do to get it together?
But then I remember: God doesn't need us to have it all together- He needs us to trust Him. Colossians 2:10 says, In Him you are made complete. And it's true. Having an instagram-worthy lifestyle won't get me where I wanna go. Having a Jesus-worthy lifestyle will. Ultimately, choosing actions that will glorify God will always benefit me more than doing something because I want to be like someone else.

When was the last time you got on twitter and didn't see #housegoals, #bodygoals, #hairgoals, #lifegoals, etc.? When was the last time you didn't see someone comparing himself to someone else?There is no way to escape the bombardment of images of "ideal" lifestyles in today's world, but by following God's word and listening to the truth, being happy with the life He's given you becomes much easier.

And Whatever You Do...

Hello! I am so excited to finally be writing my first blog post. I have been wanting to join the blogger community for a long time now and I am so happy I decided to start my blog!

The main focus of this blog is about living a Christian lifestyle. I'll be writing about Bible verses and my relationship with God as well as fashion and art. I am learning to keep Jesus at the center of my life and now at the center of my blog! I can't wait to start this journey and I hope y'all will join me for the ride.

I wanted my first post to be about the bible verse that I try to base my life off of. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

I found this verse when I was 12 years old. In the Methodist church, starting in 7^th grade, you can make the choice to be confirmed and become an official member of the church. It’s a commitment to your faith, and you take classes for a few months to prepare for it. I didn’t actually learn this verse in class, though. We were all talking over group message about what verse to put on our T-shirt and I googled “bible verses”. Colossians 3:17 really stuck out to me and ever since then it has been my “life verse”.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been in dance lessons, choir and theatre. I have always wanted and still plan to pursue a career in the performing arts. Over the years, I have struggled a lot with the concept of being a performer and a Christian. Of course that’s who I want to be, but it’s not easy. In the arts, you are praised for what you do and if you make it big, you are praised for being yourself. That being said, artists have to deal with constant rejection which feels terrible and takes a lot of strength to withstand. Vanity, impatience and the desire to focus on the worldly desire for fame are things that all performers struggle with. This is why many people, celebrities or not, become so unhappy- they get caught up in the woes of the world and the things that don’t truly matter. We all do it sometimes- but the amazing thing is that God takes those dumb distractions away from us. God says be selfless, be patient, be faithful- and if we listen to Him, our lives will be full of Him and His love so that we can recognize it. That’s what Colossians 3:17 means to me, that we shouldn’t live this life for ourselves or for others but for God. It means that we should have God in our hearts and our minds and make decisions based on what we know about Him. It means that we should enjoy this life that He has given us and live it to the fullest in His honor. It means that the foundation of our lives should be Jesus Christ. This is a huge concept and it doesn’t happen all at once- since 7^th grade, I have been slowly figuring out how to live my life for God. This means, as I am also continuing in my (high school) musical theatre career that I am learning to want God’s glory instead of my own. Gradually, I am realizing that praises to Him are so much greater than a standing ovation. Being seen center stage doesn’t even compare to feeling God’s presence in my life.

Another part of this verse that I didn’t quite notice before is the end- Giving thanks to God the father through Him. Thankfulness is another huge part of Christianity. I have been blessed over and over by God and giving thanks to Him for my life, the people in it, the opportunities I have and His presence in my life is one of the most valuable things I can do. Taking a moment to reflect every day and say thank you to God really opens my eyes to how blessed I am and leaves me feeling content and at peace.

I hope this post makes you think about all God can do for you if you open your heart and your life to Him, and of course, I hope you'll stick around!

xo, 

Julia