Month: January 2017

You Are Not a Failure (Link Roundup)

January 31, 2017 / Jean / 6 Comments

It’s the last day of January as this post goes up, and I know a lot of you are already feeling like you’ve failed in what you hoped to accomplish in this new year.

I just want to stop everything right now and tell you that you are not a failure.

Seriously, y’all. It’s not too late to turn things around. His mercies are new every morning. Just because you caved and ate some pizza and chocolate two weeks into your new diet (…or maybe that’s just me) or haven’t even gotten started yet on your decluttering project (again, maybe just me) doesn’t mean you’ve failed and should give up. You’ve still got 11 months left to meet your goals for 2017 (and if some of them have to get pushed to 2018 it’s probably not that big a deal–the world probably isn’t actually going to end before then despite what the media says and you’ll still have time. Life is a marathon, not a race).

I hate New Year’s Resolutions — they set you up to feel like a failure and a loser. That’s why I’ve been moving away from setting major, concrete goals and instead making tweaks and edits to how I do life as I go (more on that in a future post). There’s no deadline and no expiration date. Just prayerful self-examination and asking God to order my steps and show me which way is best.

With God, every new day is a fresh start. Amen.

For those of you who need some encouragement or motivation, a different perspective, or maybe a little help, here are some links that might speak to where you’re at right now.

Stop setting stupid goals and Master the Bullet Journal at The Lazy Genius Collective – Kendra is full of wisdom when it comes to keeping it together without driving yourself insane. And if you’ve been thinking about trying bullet journaling she can tell you everything you need to know.
Four Reasons to Slow Down – Desiring God
Praying for Peace instead of Resolutions by Mary Carver for Mothers of Daughters
3 Questions to Ask Before You Declutter at The Art of Simple
What to Do When You’re Just Overwhelmed at Proverbs 31 Ministries
And from the archives: What Matters Most (ICYMI last week) and Loving My Actual House

How’s your New Year going so far? Did your January go according to plan or was it a disaster? Have any additional links to share? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

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What Matters Most

January 24, 2017 / Jean / 8 Comments

It’s so easy in this life to get distracted from the things that matter. Without that focus, we end up spending our days running around and putting out fires, feeling stretched too thin as we try to cram in all of the things we’re “supposed to” do or accomplish or care about, and not leaving ourselves enough time or energy to enjoy our right-now lives.

This is something I’ve always struggled with, and something I want to continue to work on this year. I’ve already made a lot of progress in this area, but I’m a future-oriented problem solver, and that means that I spend a lot of time fixating on the future and strategizing ways to handle imaginary problems that don’t even exist yet.

It’s really hard for me to relax and live in the moment or sit back and enjoy accomplishments because I’m always thinking ahead to the next thing. I’m rarely content with things as they are and am always looking at how things could be better and then I end up trying to do ALL THE THINGS and beating myself up when I fail. People, this is a way to make yourself crazy.

That’s why I love love love this post by Kendra at the Lazy Genius Collective on deciding what matters to you and carefully editing your life around that. In her words:

Maybe you have one simple statement or belief that you want to direct your life. Maybe there are several attitudes you want to maintain always. Maybe you have relationships you want to prioritize.

It doesn’t matter what matters, as long as it matters to you. And once you decide, it changes everything.

Along with my one word for 2017, this principle has the potential to radically change how I do life and homemaking. As soon as I read that post I opened my journal and spent some time figuring out what matters most to me:

I want a home/life that:

Puts God first
Is peaceful, relaxed and welcoming/hospitable
Fosters creativity
Is debt-free

Here’s what I think that looks like:

Not a lot of clutter; enough to inspire and create an un-stuffy atmosphere, but not so much it overwhelms or feels chaotic
Clean/presentable enough to not be embarrassing or uncomfortable but not sterile or super neat. I want people to both not be afraid to walk around barefoot or to put their feet on the furniture.
Furniture/stuff that is comfortable, well-made and has personality but that won’t be a tragedy if it gets stained or broken
Remembering that Jesus is coming and stuff is just stuff and is temporary
Lots of books, art, hand-made pieces, personalized pieces and stuff that has meaning
Not of lot of being on the go. Having a restful, relaxed home where we enjoy spending most of our time.
Easy, healthy meals (and no guilt over the occasional not-so-healthy splurge)
Putting God first and last in each day and also making time in the middle
An un-fussy wardrobe that doesn’t depend on trends; simple hair and makeup & an easy beauty routine
Having people over more instead of feeling pressured to go out
- Having games, a good entertainment system and plenty of comfortable seating
Being responsible financial stewards; only buying things that we need or absolutely love; investing in quality items that won’t break down or wear out quickly and need to be replaced; only buying stuff when we have the money available.

The main thing is that keeping this set of principles first and foremost in our decisions about how to do life has the potential to help me shed a metric ton of try-hard baggage and strip everything down to what actually matters.

I’m applying this as best I can starting now but I really can’t wait to see how it impacts the way we do things as we set up house and figure out our routines after our impending move and all of the other changes that will entail.

What about y’all? What matters most in your life, and how do you think putting the focus on that might help?

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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My One Word for 2017

January 17, 2017 / Jean / 5 Comments

Up until just a few days ago, I thought my One Word 365 word for 2017 was all settled. I’d begun thinking and praying about it back in October, and by the time Thanksgiving arrived I had decided that my word would be Faithfulness. This is definitely an area that I need to work on. It’s a fruit of the Spirit, but one that doesn’t always come naturally to me (although I guess none of them really come naturally, which is why they’re called fruits of the Spirit and not fruits of human nature). Especially when it comes to things like follow-through or stick-with-it-ness. I was feeling convicted in this area and so choosing this as my One Word made sense.

I was all set for this to be my word, y’all. I did a big spread in my bullet journal exploring all of the meanings of the word and how they apply in my life, as well as what scripture says about faithfulness and being a faithful steward. I had a blog post — what I thought would be this blog post — all written in my head. I was already trying to put it into practice in my daily life. This was SO my word, without a doubt.

But then a few days ago another word started forcing its way into my consciousness. It was so forceful that I screwed up my brow and tilted my head and was like, “Lord? Is this from you? Am I supposed to change my word?” And let me tell you, I didn’t want to. Because this new word? It scares me a little. It makes my heart beat faster in ways both good and bad. Plus I had already put all this thought and energy into the other word. I didn’t want to change it. So I tried to just ignore it and hope it would go away.

I’m sure you can guess that it didn’t. So this morning, I presented both words to the Lord and asked Him to please make it plainly obvious to me during my morning devotionals and blog readings which word He preferred that I focus on this year. And do you know what? He did.

And the word?

Abandon.

Even typing that just now gave me butterflies in my stomach. If there is one word that people who know me will almost unanimously use to describe me, it’s “reserved.” I’m extremely inhibited. There are very few things that I ever do with abandon.

But I believe there are some areas where God is calling me to lay down my inhibitions and fear and do with wild abandon. Things like…

Trust with abandon.

Surrender with abandon.

Love with abandon.

Praise Him with abandon.

Hope with abandon.

Dream with abandon.

Run after Him with total abandon.

How might my life be different if I give Him my all in these areas without holding anything back? If I can lay down all of my adult baggage and reservations and have a truly childlike faith? Imagining the answer is both thrilling and terrifying. But I think I’m being asked to find out.

And while faithfulness is still something I need to work on cultivating more of this year, as God was confirming my new word He was also showing me that I had attached an agenda to the previous word. I was looking at it like some kind of magic formula, thinking that if I could just be more faithful with such-and-so then He’ll see that I’m trustworthy enough to handle prosperity and success. And while faithfulness is a worthy goal, my motivation isn’t coming from the right place. God is not manipulated or controlled by magic formulas.

He is wild and uncontrollable, and also wholly in control.

And that’s why it’s safe for me to come to Him with utter abandon.

So that’s my word for 2017. It will sure be interesting to see where this takes me.

What’s your word?

Blessings,

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Leaning Into God: A #OneWord365 Review

January 10, 2017 / Jean / 6 Comments

About this time last year, I had a theme all picked out for the shiny new year of 2016. It was going to be my “Year Without Fear.” And then I found out about One Word 365, which presents the challenge to eschew New Year’s Resolutions and goal setting and instead, in their words, choose “One word you can focus on every day, all year long… One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live.”

Of course if I already had my theme figured out my word was a no-brainer: Fearless! Or maybe Brave. Or should it be Courage? Hmm. I figured I’d better pray about it before committing to a definitive word. So I did. And the word God gave me instead?

“Lean.”

This made me wrinkle up my brow in confusion at first. “Lean? What does that mean? How is that a guide word? What does that have to do with not letting fear control my actions?” I thought of the old hymn, “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms” and decided that God was telling me I needed to spend 2016 learning to be more reliant on Him.

And boy howdy, was 2016 filled with reasons to lean on God. My husband’s health battles alone gave us both ample opportunities to lean on Him for strength, for provision, for wisdom, for courage, and I’m sure for many other things. There also seemed to be a bit more than our fair share of things breaking or falling apart and we had to completely rely on God’s provision to take care of it.

But as the year wore on, it became clear that I wasn’t only going to be challenged to lean on God, but also to lean into what He was doing inside me. This included a major work of spiritual healing that involved confronting some things in my past, allowing myself to grieve and process all of the negative emotions, forgiving those who hurt me and finally rejecting all of the negative words spoken over me throughout my life. I realized that the Lord wanted me to lean into becoming the woman He always meant for me to be, but first I had to deal with identity confusion caused by trying to either live up to or prove wrong the labels that had been placed on me both by people who meant well and by people who wanted to hurt me.

2016 became the year that I was released from the bondage of trying to please people and win their approval and discovered the freedom of being true to who God made me to be. And all because of that one little, unexpected word, hallelujah and amen.

This One Word thing worked out so well that I’ll be doing it again in 2017. Based on last year’s experience, I spent quite a bit of time praying about what my new word should be, and again, it wasn’t something I would’ve chosen for myself, but after studying it and mulling it over I can see why God thinks it’s something I need to focus on. I’ll reveal my One Word for 2017 in the next post.

Did you have One Word for 2016? Leave a comment letting us know what it was and how it worked out for you.

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Happy New Year! A Look Ahead at 2017

January 2, 2017 / Jean / 4 Comments

I don’t think anybody is sad to see the back side of 2016, are they? At any rate, I for one am happy to turn the page and begin a brand new year, especially because I think I’ve got a few things to get excited about this year. Like for instance …

We’re moving (probably). This isn’t 100% in the bag, but it’s about 99%. At this point it’s more a question of when than anything else, and there’s a good chance that it’ll be soon. Still, I probably won’t talk much more about it here until it’s actually happening.
I have a new e-book novella releasing at the end of this month, and a new novel releasing later this year. These are both continuations in the Restless Spirits series.
I might be doing my first real book signing in an actual brick-and-mortar book store. My publisher is working on setting this up so I don’t know any details yet, so that’s another thing I don’t want to talk about too much until it’s more certain.
A door has opened for a new freelance blogging opportunity that’s a step up from what I’ve been doing and a big step in the right direction toward the kind of topics I want to be writing about.

A lot of my focus this year is going to be on getting the third Restless Spirits novel written and thus fulfilling my contract so I can move on to other things. Between that and the move and the new freelance gig (which is in addition to, not replacing, the current freelance gigs), I’m going to stay pretty busy. But there are a few other things I hope to fit in this year. Things like…

Blogging more consistently, both here and on my author blog.
Submitting guest posts to some more high-profile ministry blogs.
Getting to know our new neighbors and getting more involved in our new community.
Finding and joining an actual local church assembly.
Re-connecting with my oldest BFF.
Getting over my reservedness and INFPness enough to meet up with my local friends face to face.

I’m also harboring some secret hopes and dreams that I’m not ready to talk about yet. I’ll have to see how some other things go before I know if those are even feasible. But that’s where my to-be-revealed word for 2017 comes in. I’m just going to give these dreams over to God and see what He does with them.

At any rate, I have a feeling this is going to be a big year. I just hope and pray that it’s big in a good way. I think I’ve had my fill of Big Bad years for a good long while.

What are you looking forward to the most about 2017?

Blessings for the new year,

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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Month: January 2017

You Are Not a Failure (Link Roundup)

What Matters Most

My One Word for 2017

Leaning Into God: A #OneWord365 Review

Happy New Year! A Look Ahead at 2017

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