At the beginning of this year, the words God gave me for this year was rest and trust. In January, I had no idea how that would how literally this would play out in my life this year. And honestly when God gave me these words I did not understand why He gave them to me.
50 Years of Choosing You
Howard and Edie celebrated being married for 50th years. This is 50 years of choosing to serve God and each other. They have built a legacy that is great.
Meet Marilyn
I realized that I never did an introduction blog post about me. So here it is; along with an announcement about some changes that are coming to the blog.
My name is Marilyn. I am the creator of this blog and Marlo & Co.
Emotions & God’s truth
Tonight at church I had a hard time singing these lyrics to this song as I was processing my friend’s death. All a sudden I could not sing these words because I started to question why God did not heal my friend.
6. Broken
Like there wasn’t anything that could take all my broken pieces that I felt that day and make sense of them let alone put that back together. I felt like glass that was shattered into a million shards of glass. I wasn’t sure what to do with my brokenness that day.
5. Joy and Excitement
My feelings in the last year, I think for the most part have been nonexistent/numb to keep status quo or there has been sadness as I process things that had happened or that were going on inside of me. Don’t get me wrong, I have had moments of joy and when they happen I try to take note of them.
4. “I’m tired.”
My job was to empower them through these moments, show them hope in the hopeless situations and provide resources for them to move forward in life.
While I was doing helping others dream for themselves, inside over time I had quit dreaming. I had allowed life to stifle my creativity. I had allowed my own exhaustion to take over when I had down time.
3. Fear and Anxiety
That Wednesday morning at work, I was feeling anxious to the point it was the closest thing I ever felt to anxiety attack. My muscles in my back tensed up and the tension lasted for days.
These questions kept coming up in my mind.
2. Unshakeable Peace
Over the next fews days, as I thought about my future and what God was asking me to do. I felt this unshakeable peace and I tried to shake it to make sure it is real. But I couldn’t shake it.
1. My wake up call
It ended with a day where it seemed like everything fell apart. I cried so much that day that I did not think it was possible for me to have that many tears in my eyes and that there would be tears left in my tear ducts. I remember feeling so broken. I ended up leaving work early that day.
Enough
But through this all I still struggled with myself and the direction that God has called me to. I struggled with myself because I love my career in social work and the community I work in. And I love visual storytelling and photography especially with elderly. There was this tension between the two because I felt that if I leave social work I am leaving a career that I have built and love for over 10 years. And I was letting myself and others around me down by leaving social work. But I knew that if I did not see where my business might go that I was going to regret that and I could not live with that.
Certainty in Uncertainty
“Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” ― Dorothy Galyean