Perfectionism is an insidious foe, especially during the holidays, when we’re inundated on every side with images of unattainable excellence. Social media feeds us snippets and squares of strangers’ lives which have often been carefully curated to edit out the imperfections of real life. We feel our lack, howsoever subtly, turning from our screens with a critical eye toward our own imperfect lives, resolving to make them look more like this or that influencer’s. Comparison culture has been linked to feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. It can cause us to set an impossible standard for ourselves before inviting people into our lives, or, worse yet, cause us to withdraw in an attempt to shield our messy, ordinary lives from view. Yet comparison is so prevalent in our society, we scarcely realize how it’s affecting us. Theodore Roosevelt famously said that comparison is the thief of joy. But it’s also the thief of hospitality and human connection, not to mention any semblance of a meaningful holiday. And if we’re serious about engaging with what matters most this time of year, we’re going to have to recognize the role of comparison and call out perfectionism for the enemy that it is.

One of the ways I have learned to do this is to rely on a mantra to keep me tethered to what is true. “Perfect imperfection” is one I like to roll around, particularly when I start feeling tempted to overextend myself in preparations for Christmas. What I mean by that is that it’s the very fallibility of life that makes it life, and that anything that connects us to our humanness and that of others is not only good, but essential. Myquillin Smith, the home décor guru and founder of the “cozy minimalist” movement, says that “imperfections set people at ease,” and I have found this to be absolutely true, both in my experience as host and as guest. Perfection—even the appearance of it—can be threatening, off-putting, inhospitable. But if we really want to connect with people and make lasting holiday memories, we will embrace the fact that it’s the very imperfections that make it memorable.

My mother once spent Christmas Eve basting and slow roasting a goose my dad had brought back from a hunting expedition in Canada. The aromas were intoxicating as she opened the oven again and again throughout the day to drizzle another layer of apricot-laced pan drippings, and by suppertime my brother and sister and I were fairly ravenous. We gathered around as Daddy carved the bird, like a modern rendering of the Cratchit family, anticipating the first bite as he said the blessing. At Mama’s first bite, however, she twisted her mouth and knit her brows. Then, before any of us had a chance to raise so much as a forkful, she swept our plates into the kitchen and scraped them into the trash. The goose, it seemed, was full of lead shot. I honestly don’t remember what Mama served us for dinner that night in its place—probably fish sticks or canned ravioli. What I do remember, however, is her humor in relation to the thing, and how we have laughed about it over the years. That story has been canonized in my family history as evidence that the details don’t matter as much as the gift of simply being together.

Another thing that helps is to decide ahead of time what we want to give our time to. If we love to deck the halls and have people over, then let’s keep our menus relatively simple. If, on the other hand, your idea of love is to spread a four-course feast, or simply set a beautiful table for a family meal, it’s all right to scale back your decorations in other parts of the house, if need be. Give yourself permission to give lavishly in the ways you feel most called and equipped. But also give yourself permission to take a pass on the things that drain you of energy and joy.

Finally, and most importantly, invite God into your plans. We serve a Savior who is intimately acquainted with the details of our lives, and who wants to commune with us in the very midst of our calendars and to-do lists. Do not be afraid to ask for wisdom in matters great small pertaining to this holiday. As God-with-us, Jesus has entered into the minutia of our lives, dignifying even the lowliest things with his presence. He never asks us to pursue perfection in our own strength, but to rest in his unfailing, unconditional love and to extend that love to others. It is from this resting place alone that we can embrace the perfectly imperfect gift of this holiday season.

BIO:

Lanier Ivester is a homemaker and writer in the beautiful state of Georgia, where she maintains a small farm with her husband, Philip, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animals. She studied English Literature at the University of Oxford. For over a decade she has kept a web journal at lanierivester.com, and her work has also been featured on Southern Living, The Gospel Coalition, and The Cultivating Project, among others. Her latest book is Glad & Golden Hours: A Companion for Advent and Christmastide (Rabbit Room Press, November 2024).

The post Perfectly Imperfect first appeared on Live Original.

For me, it usually starts when I’ve finished a peaceful time with Jesus in the morning. When I’ve not only managed to get up early to read my Bible, but I’m also feeling genuinely connected to God. His Word is alive. I literally want to sing shouts of praise. I resolve to start my day thinking, God is so good, and I’m thankful for the many blessings he has given me! 

After I’ve said prayers of gratitude and found a positive outlook for the day ahead, I reach for my phone. I wonder what’s happening on social media this morning. Almost instantly, my mood changes…

I see that a group of my friends got together last night for a beautiful dinner. All smiling and laughing in beautiful dresses and making inside jokes to each other in the comments. And they didn’t invite me. 

Another friend announces she and her model-looking husband and perfect matching-outfitted children are expecting yet another baby.

An influencer I follow has posted from her lavish beach vacation, sporting her perfect sculpted abs in a bikini. 

Before I throw my phone across the room with envy, I see another friend got engaged. Did I mention how massive the ring is? 

It takes all of three minutes for my morning of gratitude to get hijacked by jealousy. Discontentment can grow easily when we are distracted by comparison.

If we’re honest, in a social media driven world, we all struggle with comparison. 

But here is something really important to acknowledge: comparison is actually a sin. 

The Bible says we’re not supposed to covet our neighbor, and comparison is rooted in coveting. (See Exodus 20:17) It’s not a new problem in 2024 because we have access to see what everyone else has or is doing at the swipe of our finger; it’s something we’ve struggled with since the beginning of time. 

Like any sin though, we have to cut it off at the root. We have to treat it like it’s ruining our lives, because it is!

Comparison is one of the enemy’s ploys against us as we live out who we’re called to be in Christ. If Satan can get us fixated on all the things we aren’t or things we don’t have, we will get stuck there. Instead of running after what God has called us to do, we will run after something else.

But when we quit playing the comparison game and instead consider Jesus as our prize, we win.

One of my favorite Bible verses is Philippians 3:14: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Paul wrote these words from prison, but he was looking to the prize. To him, nothing was greater than eternity with Jesus.

Contentment and comparison cannot coexist. And if contentment is found inwardly, we cannot go looking for it externally.

It starts with choosing not to look at other people’s lives as markers of where we need to be. When we’re so busy looking at what God is doing in them, we miss what He’s doing in us. We miss what He has already done.

If you are struggling with this today, here are three invitations for you:

Spend time alone with God in His Word. Remind yourself of His love for you by reading the stories of what He has done and what He will do.

Ask the Holy Spirit to examine your heart and reveal where you’ve sought to find satisfaction in external things.

Allow God to trade your limited, earthly perspective for hope in His eternal promises.

Friend, God’s plan for your life is not meant to be compared to His plan for anyone else. Who God has called you to be is unique. How God is molding you into that person is also intentional (Psalm 139:13-14).

May we be willing to shift our gaze from what everyone around us is doing and see what God is doing in us.

Here is a prayer to get you started: God, I confess I’ve looked with envy at what You are doing in the lives of people around me. But I know all the things they have, the things I want, will never satisfy me in the ways Jesus does. Show me how to stop comparing so I can find true contentment in You alone. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Meghan Ryan Asbury is an author and speaker who is passionate about helping people find and live out their God-given callings. She’s worked in ministry both on college campuses and internationally as well as with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Her first book, You Are Not Behind: Building a Life You Love Without Having Everything You Want, is now available. When she’s not surrounded by friends, you can usually find her reading a book or doing something outdoors. A Florida beach girl born and raised, she and her husband currently live in Nashville, Tennessee. You can connect with her on Instagram @meghanryanasbury and at alwaysmeghan.com.

The post Why We Have to Break Up With Comparison first appeared on Live Original.

A couple weeks ago, I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in a while. One thing I admire about this friend is her love for the Lord. Every time we get together, we almost always end up in a spiritual conversation about our personal relationship with Jesus. Praise God for good, holy friends. On this day, we got on the topic of worldly versus Godly things. There’s that word again, “things,” but this time it’s used in a different context. Now the simple term has a more meaningful word in front of it: Godly. What exactly makes these things Godly and what separates them from the worldly desires we feed into now?

In the book of Colossians it says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5, NIV). These could be examples of worldly things that not only occupy our minds but pull us away from the Lord. When we get caught up in these impure thoughts, we start to veer off the path away from His kingdom. The desires of the world are not God’s desires, and they never will be, yet it is still hard to let go of them sometimes.

Up until a couple months ago, I was very set on having some of these worldly things. A husband, children, and my dream career were at the top of that list. And while I still desire these things, I want a strong relationship with God even more. These things that I hope to have one day will only be attainable through our Lord and His plan for my life. I struggled at first to let these things go, and I can say that often the thought still enters my mind of what my future will be like. However, instead of just wanting these things, I pray for them. Lord, if it is in your will, then it will be done. I pray over my future family and the plans that He has for me. Whether those plans pan out the way I want will tell with time, but for now I fully trust in His ways.

It can be quite the challenge to avoid wanting to give in to current trends on social media and buy the most popular items being advertised. Most of us think, “well they have it, so I have to have it too.” It can also be challenging to see loved ones or friends with something we had on our wish list. There could be a sense of jealousy or lack of fairness that we feel deep down. I know it can be difficult to let go of earthly belongings but let me tell you something. YOU BELONG to God and that is more valuable than any other earthly belonging out there. We see this realization in the gospel of John with the Samaritan woman at the well.

In John 4, we read the well-known story of Jesus encountering the woman collecting water from the well. If you have never read this story, go read it. It’s powerful, moving, and will probably make you cry tears of joy, I did, that’s for sure. I have read this story many times and have even seen it portrayed on the popular Christian television show, The Chosen, however, last week in Bible study we took a deeper dive into some of the details. While there are many significant and meaningful aspects of this story, I would like to talk specifically about the final encounter the woman has with Jesus. After Jesus tells her that he is the Christ, the Son of God, she begins to head back to the town to tell all the people of the man she just engaged with. The Messiah has told “me everything I ever did” (John 4:29, NIV). But there is a small detail to this story that often gets overlooked. In verse 28, it says, “Then, leaving her water jar…” As soon as Jesus reveals himself to the women, she drops everything she needed, forgets all about her past, and immediately goes to share the amazing truth that just stood before her. Even though she had just met Jesus for the first-time minutes before, she gave up all her worldly tasks and belongings in that moment to follow God. That brings so much joy and contentment to one’s life and we can do the exact same thing today.

I’m not saying that we need to abandon all our belongings to follow the Lord. Of course, there are obvious things that we need in this lifetime, but it is important to not place them above our one, true God. In 1 John 2:15 it says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world” (NIV). If we focus on obeying God’s word and doing His will, then we are setting our mind on things from the Lord. By doing this, we are not only strengthening our relationship with Him, but we are working towards living a life with Him eternally in Heaven. One thing that will always stick with me is this; “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17, NIV). This is the greatest gift of all.

The post The World Needs God first appeared on Live Original.

The post A Good Jealousy first appeared on Live Original.

When my husband accepted his new job and we decided to move, we were both feeling a deep stirring in our hearts to simplify our lives. When I say simplify I mean, finding a smaller house, getting rid of all car payments, less eating out and less commitments all together. At the beginning of this move I thought the desire came from our dream of buying some land and building a house again one day. We knew if we wanted this dream to become a reality sooner rather than later we needed to take a step back for a season to save. What I’ve realized a few months into this move is the desire to simplify our lives wasn’t just to prepare ourselves for our dream but for spiritual growth too. As we simplify our lives, it reveals what truly matters most in our hearts.

I don’t know about you but I’ve heard the phrase “less is more” many times throughout my life. However, I can’t say I’ve really ever applied it to my life or understood the impact it can have if we follow the philosophy. Throughout my younger twenties I believed creating a successful and fulfilling life meant I needed to have things to show for it like having a bigger house, nicer car and more money. The problem with that mindset is as trends faded, discontentment would eventually arise within my heart. This was a pattern I began to notice within myself from year to year.

What I’ve discovered is there is a difference between making a mistake versus a reoccurring pattern in our lives. Mistakes need grace and mercy. Patterns need healing. Patterns reveal there is something beneath the surface that we need to bring to Jesus. What I’ve grown to love about God is that when he exposes something, like a negative pattern, it’s not to make us feel bad or shameful about ourselves. Rather it’s to reveal our need for Him and to draw our hearts closer to His. God wants to heal what he reveals and sanctify our hearts in the process. Every day and season is a chance to be developed. Sometimes he wants to develop our character and other times He wants to heal the deep wounds and misconceptions within. For me, I learned my need to have the next best thing was rooted in feeling like I needed to prove myself. Can you relate?

The question I’ve been prompted to ask myself in this season is: “ Am I truly satisfied with Jesus alone or am I only satisfied when I have Jesus plus something else?” Make no mistake– I love having nice things too! I enjoy my hair extensions, getting my nails done and dreaming of the house and land we will one day raise a family on! We love traveling and trying out the newest restaurant in our area too. None of these things are bad. In fact, they are all part of what makes life fun! Yet, I’ve discovered that in the midst of pursuing all these things, we can still be checking the purity of our motives by coming before Jesus and asking him to search our hearts. Have we caught ourselves in a round of keeping up with the joneses? Are we pursuing these things to prove our worth to a world that will never meet our deepest need to be seen? Are we trying to one up that family member or friend who upset us by getting something we know they can’t have? Are we trying to find value in things that will one day disappear forever?

Matthew 6:19-21 says, “Don’t store up treasures here on Earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”

Friend, I don’t know where you have found yourself today. Maybe you’re overwhelmed with keeping up with all the latest trends and your bank account is hurting because of it. Maybe you’ve over committed yourself to others that you can’t remember the last time you sat down and ate dinner with your family. Perhaps you feel spiritually dry and want to experience God’s presence in your life again. I see you. I was there just a few months ago.

What if the key to a more meaningful life is a simpler life? What if decluttering our lives is what leads us into a deeper relationship with Jesus and the people in our lives? Perhaps it’s in the season’s where we let go of the stuff we think we need most that we will discover the life God has in store is actually so much better than we could ask or think. Maybe it’s in the process of letting all striving cease that we will realize that we all have access to a simple life worth living. One that is full of joy, gratitude and contentment. A life that is deeply rooted in Jesus satisfying our every need to be known, loved and seen. We might even discover a deeper peace within our hearts that God has us right where He wants us and has provided us with all that we could ever need.

Katie Dietz is a born and raised Oklahoma girl who has a heart for sharing the light & hope of Jesus. She recently moved to NW Oklahoma with her husband Kory where they enjoy evening walks after work and finding new places to explore near OKC! She is a part time dental hygienist and is currently writing her first book with Our Daily Bread. She is the founder of Back Porch Devotionals- a community focused on encouraging women on their walk with Jesus through daily devotionals & faith- filled truth. Her 1st book is set to come out in 2026! In the meantime you can keep up with her on Instagram @katie.dietz & @back.porch.devos

The post A Simple Life Worth Living first appeared on Live Original.

Engaging in creative outlets is proven to improve your brain function, mental health, and physical health. Have you ever noticed a difference in your mood when you do something as simple as listening to music while cleaning or cooking? Or when you were bored as a child, what did you do? When you had to sit in church or take a long car ride or listen to a teacher’s lecture, did you draw or doodle? I always did. I have many pages with my name written in bubble letters or with little drawings scattered along the margins. That’s creative work. These sorts of activities give our brains space to sort out our thoughts and feelings. Being creative taps into the very essence of being human. We are all creative beings.

The creation story in the Bible describes a creative God—just look at the description of all that was dreamed up and created: stars, water, night, day, vegetation. Reading that story paints a picture of artistry in our minds. If God is creative and we were made in his image, what does that say about us? We are created to create.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

(Genesis 1:1 NIV)

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; (Genesis 1:27 NIV)

Good news: this is not a one-size-fits-all scenario—you can do anything creative here. Activities like knitting, drawing, coloring, cooking, and writing are repetitive in nature and produce a visible result. And what happens when you see the result? Your brain is flooded with the feel-good chemical dopamine. When you feel dopamine, you feel more motivated. You feel happier.

So when you find yourself stuck in the comparison trap, take action. Do something creative. Journal about it. Paint something. Put on some music and dance. That creative motion will help you work yourself out of the trap.

While we would ideally avoid the comparison trap, fully avoiding it is unlikely. But we can be aware that it exists. And because we know it exists, we must be mindful of what triggers us, of the places or people that tend to draw us into the trap, and then avoid them as needed.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another” (Galatians 5:25-26)

Maybe that looks like taking a break from social media like I recently did. Or maybe it means setting a timer. Now that I’m back on social media, I can feel the lure of comparison. I once again find myself endlessly scrolling. So I recently set a time limit. After thirty minutes a day on Instagram, the app shuts off. This is a boundary that keeps me from falling into the soul-sucking comparison trap once again.

Maybe removing the app or setting time limits isn’t helpful for you. Let me give you one other suggestion. When you feel unhappy, go back to your photos stored on your phone. Scroll past the random pictures of receipts or parking spots (tell me I’m not the only one who forgets where she parks). Just look at all those pictures. Those pictures are of people and places that brought you happiness. No one takes photos and videos of life sucking. No one takes a photo of the tragic state of their pantry. No one wants to commemorate the stuff that makes them feel the worst. When you feel unhappy, go look at your phone’s photo library and smile. Feed yourself something other than what’s on social. Look at your photos—your life—instead of someone else’s.

And lastly, when we feel the urge to compare and compete, we need to learn to celebrate. Nothing kills comparison faster than celebration. The very act of celebrating someone else takes us out of our own heads, where comparison wants to keep us.

For decades, I have worked on cultivating celebration. I like to describe it as throwing confetti. Of my daughters, Rory is the one who has picked up on the same level of celebration. She loves a party. She will plan her birthday eight months in advance. And when she’s invited to parties, she is thoughtful about the presents she gives. When she was little, every party she attended, she positioned herself right next to the guest of honor. She would look at her friend and grin ear to ear. That’s the picture of celebrating that I have in my mind. When I see someone getting accolades for something they did, or getting the home they always dreamed of, or getting their book published, I want to be like Rory. I want to sit beside them and grin ear to ear. I want to throw confetti and celebrate the good they are experiencing—even if I’m not.

Nothing kills comparison faster than confetti.

So when you lay awake at night and wonder if everybody’s happier than you, remember that everyone is on their own journey. My friend Ashley always used to say, “That’s their journey.” Just because that’s their journey doesn’t mean it needs to be your journey. Just because their journey includes a vacation home doesn’t mean that should be your journey. Just because their journey includes raising kids doesn’t mean that should be your journey. Just because their journey includes striving for a particular something doesn’t mean that should be your journey.

Remember that you are doing what you are doing in life because you enjoy it. You were interested in it or you loved it. Your life, your family, your work—it’s all unique to you. It’s your creative expression.

So when you feel the urge to doom-scroll through your social feeds during those sleepless hours of the night, I challenge you to choose a better way.

Choose to drop the measuring stick.

Choose to cultivate creativity.

Choose to be compassionate toward yourself.

Choose to accept (and love!) the life you have.

And choose to throw a little confetti.

Sarah Bragg is a well-loved communicator and author; you can find her hosting the popular podcast Surviving Sarah. Her latest book is Is Everyone Happier Than Me?: An Honest Guide to the Questions that Keep You Up at Night.

The post Created to Create first appeared on Live Original.

We’d spent the day playing hide-and-seek, braiding our hair, dressing in matching outfits, and playing the way free-spirited young girls do. But as I wiped my tears under the pinball machine, my little spirit didn’t feel so free anymore.  

A few minutes earlier, we’d skipped outside in matching black spandex shorts and T-shirts tied with scrunchies to show my friend’s parents how cute we looked as twins. While we stood in front of them awaiting their “oohs” and “aahs,” her dad turned to her mom and said, “Wow, look how much skinnier Kayla’s legs are than Robin’s.”  

In that moment, my heart sank.  

At eight years old, I was just beginning to notice the ways my body was different from my friends’ bodies and how my thighs were bigger and rounder than those of the girls with stick-straight legs. That comment from my friend’s dad pierced my heart and confirmed an emerging belief in my young mind: my body was bigger, and bigger was bad. My body was on display, and people were watching. 

Decades later, here I am remembering that one tiny moment and still recovering from years of hating (and hiding) my thighs.  

Of course, this wasn’t the sole event that led to years of struggle with my body image. There have been other piercing moments that confirmed my insecurities. Like when I was trying on costumes for a dance performance, and my calves were too big to fit in the go-go boots. The other girls easily slipped their feet in while the choreographer got onto her hands and knees to force my legs in, squeezing my calves and stretching the fabric to get the zipper up. Or when I was walking down the hallway of my college dormitory and I overheard a guy I was dating say I had a chin like Jay Leno’s. While these were not life-defining moments, they stung, and they formed an inner narrative that affirmed my insecurities for years.  

I’m willing to bet you’ve had similar moments in your life, even if the specifics of your story are different from mine. While working with thousands of women as a Pilates instructor and as the founder of Lindywell, a global Pilates, health, and wellness company, I’ve discovered that somewhere along the way, we’ve all internalized false messages about our bodies, ourselves, and our worth that stick with us throughout the years. 

I’m lucky to have grown up in a loving, supportive home where my parents didn’t put significant pressure on me to look a certain way or be a certain size. (Thank you, Mom and Dad!) And yet for most of my life, I struggled with body image and my relationship with food and exercise. I find this fascinating (and deeply concerning, as a mom of four young kids). My home was full of love and confidence-boosting messages, and my body shape was not far from the cultural “ideal,” yet I still spent an unreasonable amount of time and energy wishing I looked different. I spent many years restricting my food intake through fad diets, exercising to work off what I ate, and comparing my body to other women’s bodies as a measure of my success, worth, and value. And if I’m not careful, I’m still tempted to do that today.  

So if this pressure to look a certain way wasn’t coming from my home and my family of origin, where did it come from?  

The answer: everywhere else.  

From a young age, women are taught to believe that our worth is measured by the size and shape of our bodies. Ads portray how happy we’ll be when we lose weight, reduce cellulite, or finally get that lean, toned bikini body. Back in the day, magazines sucked us in with messages about how much celebrities ate in a day or how they “bounced back” after pregnancy. Now we are bombarded by online articles and social media images that try to convince us that if we would just eat and exercise a certain way, we would achieve the ideal look and lifestyle. We spend hours each day peeking at the highlight reels of other people’s lives, all through the lens of filters and body-altering editing apps that have a subtle yet powerful impact on our self-image.  

Movies and media depict beauty as a singular body type—a type that doesn’t represent the many sizes and shapes of actual women.  

From a young age, we’re surrounded by comments like these: 

“Oh, I shouldn’t eat that.” 

“I really need to lose that baby weight.” 

“I’m never going to be ready for swimsuit season.”  

From a young age, we hear women complimenting one another on their physical appearance, with a frequent focus on the size and shape of their bodies. We’re taught that we need to change what we see in the mirror in order to be successful, fulfilled, relevant, and accepted. We think we have to punish our bodies with grueling exercise and harshly restrict our diets in order to reach an idealized size. We believe that if we just work hard enough, muster up more willpower, and hit some elusive “goal weight,” we’ll finally be healthier. And happier.  

But what if the “rules” we’ve been sold by the diet and fitness industry don’t actually work? What if happiness, health, and vitality aren’t always found on the other side of losing ten pounds or slimming the size of your thighs?  

Over the past thirteen years as a Pilates instructor and as the CEO of a wellness company with the mission of helping every woman live life to the fullest, I’ve come to realize just how common the struggle is to care for our health. And this is a struggle I know all too well. I’ve weathered years of putting my health on the back burner, restricting my food intake, carrying multiple pregnancies, navigating grief and pregnancy loss, trying every exercise plan imaginable, struggling with anxiety, and trying (and failing at) more diets than I can even count. After years of struggle, I made it my mission to find a better way—and I now spend my days helping other women do the same.  

It’s time to shift the conversation away from rules, fads, and trends that leave us feeling lost and confused and toward what it truly means to be well in body, mind, and soul.  

True wellness doesn’t come from a number on a scale, the size of your waist, or the absence of cellulite. True wellness is found when you live out your purpose, enjoy all that life has to offer, and break free from the mental prison of stressing about what you’re eating, how much you’re exercising, or how much weight you need to lose in order to really start living.  

The goal is to feel good—not just in your body, but in your whole being. The next generation of girls deserves to be surrounded by and led by women who change the narrative so many of us grew up with. The tides are turning, and when we embrace a holistic approach to health and wellness, there’s hope for the future. As our individual lives change, this shift will create lasting ripple effects for our families and our communities.  

It starts with us. It starts with you.

Adapted from Well to the Core: A Realistic, Guilt-Free Approach to Getting Fit and Feeling Good for a Lifetime by Robin Long. Copyright © 2023. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.  All rights reserved. 

The post The Lies We Tell Ourselves first appeared on Live Original.

One of the best messages I have ever heard on comparison and longing during waiting seasons was at The Grove in Atlanta, a women’s event hosted by Passion City Church and Shellie Giglio. DawnCheré Wilkerson was speaking and she preached on Psalm 118:24, “This is the day The Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ESV)[i] She discusses how the Psalmist in this scripture was actually going through a very rough time and it would not have been the obvious response for him to be celebrating. I believe when we decide to say “I will rejoice and be glad in it,” acknowledging where God has us in this waiting season, we are able to endure much more and cheer others on along the way. One of the only ways I have found to truly cripple comparison and beat the enemy at his own game is to celebrate others. A self-help book I was reading recently did not simply talk about self-love like a lot of these types of books do. The author, Stephen R. Covey says “What is self-love is actually self-discipline.”[ii] What if learning how to stop struggling with comparison does not take us having some dramatic good thing happen in our life or us having something “better” than that person we struggle with comparing to, but what if it is an internal battle? “Religious leader David O. McKay taught, ‘The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.’ If you win the battles there, if you settle the issues that inwardly conflict, you feel a sense of peace, a sense of knowing what you’re about. And you’ll find that the public victories–where you tend to think cooperatively, to promote the welfare and good of other people, and to be genuinely happy for other people’s successes–will follow naturally.”[iii] If you do not know my story, I was an All-American cross country and track runner in High School until I fell and tore both of my hips and had a lot of other health issues that beat me into the ground until I quit running competitively 8 years later. I know that for me, when I activated discipline to ask God for help to cheer on my friends in high school and college when they were getting to win state, conference, go to nationals, doing the things I had loved before my injuries, I was able to be so much more joyful.  

My husband and I started trying for kids about a year and a half into our marriage, in December of 2021. January 6th, 2023 around 3PM I got home from an appointment and noticed Casey was out running some errands so I had the house to myself. We had been trying for our first baby for about a year now and I was pretty accustomed to my period just starting and informing me that there would be no baby that month. I had learned so much about celebrating others during the year of waiting for our positive test because everyone in our family got pregnant without having to try and I was constantly buying people baby clothes, listening to birth stories and helping throw baby showers. However, this month I was a day or two late and had an opportunity to take a test very quickly before Casey got home. I ran into the bathroom and set up my little vlog camera I had set up so many times when I had taken pregnancy tests before so I could record a sweet and happy reaction for whenever that day came. Fully expecting the test to be negative I covered it up for the allotted three minutes the Clearblue packaging tells you to wait for. Before looking at the test I held it up to my camera for Youtube to see and out of the corner of my eye I saw a reflection of the test in the mirror and I gasped. The wait was over. Tears immediately streamed to my eyes and prayers of “thank you God, thank you Lord,” came out in between the sobs of joy. The wait was not over though, a much harder wait was just about to get started. At around 11 weeks pregnant I was at the emergency room at ten o’clock at night miscarrying and laboring with our first born. Just a few short months later we miscarried again. Eighteen months of praying for our baby and we had two in Heaven and none earth side.

If you have been through a season of grief so deep you don’t really know how you will be able to breathe again then you know how I felt these spring months of 2023. My world came crashing down over and over. The thrill of seeing a positive pregnancy test I had waited all those months for seemed somehow tainted now. I remember during the intense period of sadness following the first miscarriage I almost never stopped crying. I felt empty, numb, and depleted of everything good. However, these days had me dreaming, not even just longing for, but almost drooling over the thought of going to Heaven. Losing your baby you dreamed of, carried, and never got to meet creates a sense of longing and heart break that will never fully pass no matter how much “time heals.” I have been working on a book to be published next year for quite some time now and the subtitle is “Fixing our Eyes on Jesus in the Midst of Broken Dreams.” In the book I write a lot on Hebrews 11 and 12, the “Faith Heroes” section of the Bible. I had written just weeks before our baby left us to be with Jesus on these Scriptures. And now thinking, “Wow, I thought I knew how to fix my eyes and long for Heaven THEN, but now….” I have never ached so heavily to go to a place before. My longing to meet my babies and stop experiencing the pains of this earth side life ate at me like nothing had before. I was continually reminded that this place is not my home, and thank God for that. I was continually and forcefully reminded where my eyes should be fixed and where my true and only source of hope comes from.  

People always say God is near to the broken hearted because of Psalm 34:18. It states, “If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath” (Psalms 34:18 MSG). If you are currently living in that “gut punch” but you haven’t been able to catch your breath yet, I am with you. It is all good and well for me to write another sweet “trust God” and “fix your eyes on Heaven” blog to remind us of Biblical truths, but it is another thing for me to sit here and say “I get it, I am broken into pieces and shattered on the floor right now too.” I am not perfect and after the second miscarriage there were a few days where for the first time in my life I could say I felt mad at God. There were several things going on in our lives other than the first miscarriage before we were surprised and then devastated by the second pregnancy and I remember begging God for relief. Before the second pregnancy even came into our awareness/existence I was on my knees asking God to make things good again because there was more “bad” going on than I had ever experienced in life. There were family things, marriage things, work issues, ministry things, my health post miscarriage was horrible, and others that felt like they were all about to make me implode into a fury of grief and sorrow and rage. I had never felt mad at God before and I wouldn’t even fully say I was mad at Him now, I was offended. My prayers felt like a broken record repeating, “I trusted you!!! I know you are good and I trusted you with this so how are you allowing this?! Father, how on earth is this what you call good?” I know we all have those big questions in our life of, “How could a good God allow bad things?” 

During our two miscarriages at the end of a year and a half of trying for a baby it took genuinely all the strength in me to not want to yell at every mom and pregnant woman around me to stop complaining about anything moms complain about (because mumming is very hard and even as someone who wishes more than anyone to be a momma and hold my babies I still recognize it is one of the hardest and most important jobs there is!). I wanted to scream how incredibly lucky they were to get to kiss their baby, to rock them to sleep, to be the one who sees them wake up from every nap, to know what their wailing cry sounds like in the middle of the night. It ate at me like a sickness how hurt I was by person after person who got pregnant not just once, but twice within the timeline of us trying for a baby and losing two. However, when I allowed myself to feel the anger and rage and bitterness it did not help my pain at all. If anything it only made my pain worse because it stopped me feeling my own sorrow and grieving and led me to anger instead. 

When I did not activate that discipline of celebrating others, when I decided to sit in my sorrow and feel bad for myself, I would feel hateful things towards those friends and not want to cheer them on. DawnCheré discussed this in her message at The Grove. She realized in the middle of her eight-year journey with infertility that she had a choice. She could choose to cower away, to be bitter in the wait and feel hatred towards all of her family and friends who were able to have multiple children before she could conceive, but instead she learned to choose celebration. She showed up to the baby showers, got the best gifts, loved her friends a little extra who had kids and needed help. She showed up in the art of the discipline of celebration. Because she realized, it is our call to say “This is the day The Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalms 118:24). She knew she had a good God, with a good plan. She learned the grit of endurance through the discipline of celebration. You see, she learned to invest her time in praise instead of wasting her time. She learned that she did not need a new circumstance, but a new perspective.  

Psalm 145:13-21 says, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. [The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.] The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.” (Psalm 145 ESV). God opens His hand and “Satisfies the desire of every living thing.”

Yours and my story are the same in the sense that He is writing them and He is a much better storyteller, future planner, and author than any of us could ever be. I just sat in bed crying a few weeks ago before falling asleep because I had seen God’s faithfulness in my waiting season in so many special ways. However, I wasn’t crying over His goodness, but my lack of it. I knew I would have seen His faithfulness in my story so much more if I had been more faithful to listening and learning along the way. When we lean into the wait, when we ask Him for sweet reminders along the way, He gives them. I am leaning further up, further in, while fixing my eyes on Heaven. I am asking for more sweet reminders throughout my day that no matter how bad it gets I can still see His goodness in the land of the living. I will leave you with 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For the light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” God has so much for your story, so much He considered it worth dying for. Do not give up, keep your head up and your heart strong. I am praying that these words give you fresh wind in your sails and the confidence to dream again while you celebrate others dreams coming true. No matter how many dreams get broken in this broken world, Jesus will always be there waiting to remind us He is our number one dream. Here is to breathing dreams like air friends. May you give your lowest for His highest and take on the spiritual discipline of celebration that you were made for! 

Blessings, 

Kat Shultis

[i] DawnCheré Wilkerson, The Grove Podcast Episode: May 4th, “This Must Be The Place.” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-must-be-the-place-dawncher%C3%A9-wilkerson/id1441017228?i=1000559564944 

[ii] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey. Page 77. Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020. Copyright 1989, 2004. 2020 by Stephen R. Covey. 

[iii] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey. Page 348. Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020. Copyright 1989, 2004. 2020 by Stephen R. Covey.

The post Discipline of Celebration first appeared on Live Original.

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” I don’t know about you, but that seems to be the ultimate confidence booster. This means that the God of the universe, took time to craft each and every one of us in His image. He made no mistakes when He created you. He made you PERFECT in His sight. So, why do we sometimes feel that we are “less than” or “not enough?” This is an issue of comparison.

”A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”  Proverbs 17:22

“Comparison is the thief of joy”, according to Theodore Roosevelt. We look at our colleagues or friends, and we compare our success or the cars we drive or the amount of likes on our posts we get, and it immediately robs us of our joy. Even in the music industry, it’s so easy to glance at the left or the right and compare how I’m doing to the person next to me. What I finally found, however, is that God has called me to a specific purpose. My journey may not look like the person on my left. I may be called to reach a completely different type of person than they are. It’s not our job to compare our callings.  Again, God knew exactly what He was doing when He created you. He called you to a specific purpose, and I know for a fact that it’s better than any plans we could make on our own.

“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.” Jeremiah 29:11

No one else is as good as being you, as you. So, why in the world do we feel like we need to be like someone else? We’ve given in to a lie. In fact, we’ve believed the same lie for so long that we’ve accepted it as truth. Well, here is the TRUTH:

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;”  1 Peter 2:9

Don’t believe the lies of the world. We are CHOSEN, ROYAL, and HOLY in His sight. So, next time you feel comparison or the feeling of not being good enough creeping in, remind the enemy that you are a child of God, a beautiful creation, and your identity is with the King of the universe.

The post Identity first appeared on Live Original.